"Desktop video" used to be a polite way of saying that you could not afford “real" video production gear. Solutions like the Newtek Video Toaster allowed small businesses and serious hobbyists the chance to mimic the more expensive hardware and software solutions that populated larger video studios. Many small producers did incredible work with their makeshift video rigs. But putting together video content usually required a bit of luck and duct tape.

Now, video is plug and play. Computers are cheap and almost too fast for what we need. Hard drives are big and speedy. Digital camcorders make it easy to dump high quality video into a computer with a single cable. “Desktop video" has become “real" video production gear.

One company trying to stake its claim in the growing market of desktop video is Apple Computer. And it’s a pretty wide claim at that. On the lower end, Apple offers the free and simple to use iMovie digital video editing application. On the upper end, Apple offers the powerful (but spendy) Final Cut Pro editing and special effects package. With almost any newer Macintosh, you truly have a video post production suite in a box.

For this review, I want to focus on both products as streaming tools. Does iMovie work well for the hobbyist that wants to put his or her video online? Does Final Cut Pro meet the streaming video needs of the small business producer? Let’s find out…