System Requirements

PowerPC, OS 8.6 – X, QuickTime 5, CarbonLib 1.4

Never having had a massive collection of media files, I’ve not really understood the appeal of media viewers and organisers. But after trying iView, I can start to see why they’re popular and why there are so many on the market.

iView is highly integrated with QuickTime, thus allowing support for evolving media types without constantly upgrading the software, this means that currently iView can import a large amount of file formats including JPEG, GIF, PDF, EPS and MOV to name but a few, with the option to export slideshows to QuickTime. Additionally due to it’s QuickTime based modularity iView can support additional formats via plugins, is fully scriptable via Applescript and can even display it’s interface in many languages.

Adding files to your catalogue is simplicity in itself, you can either drag and drop files onto the iView window or import them via the file menu. After that files can easily be rearranged by dragging them into the desired position in the catalogue, you can even drag and drop complete folders or disks into a catalogue, letting iView sift through the files and add the formats it supports.

Once your files have been added, there are three views that allow you to organise your catalogue. Firstly there is the content view, this shows you a list of our files much like the list view in the Finder. It shows information like file size and format and once again is fully customisable even down to adding shutter speed when a picture was taken and the display font. The thumbnail view does precisely what it says, presenting you with a sequence of resizable thumbnails of your media files. The options regarding layout and sequence are much the same as in content view providing a thumbnail of picture and movies being the one major difference. Finally the media view shows a larger individual preview of files starting with the currently selected file (In the content or thumbnail pane) and allowing you to scroll through the other filess. This view is most useful for movies and audio clips as they can be played at full size from within it.

Across all the views is the information bar, which besides from displaying incredibly in-depth file information also provides version control, caption, annotation, keyword and category facilities. Also consistent across the application are iViews excellent labelling and annotation facilities, you can label all files just as you would in the finder and record or import audio annotations to files, more useful than it first may seem. Once your catalogues have been organised how you want them to be iView also provides some excellent ways of presenting them to others.

Through a web page(s) export, tab delaminated text file for database import, JPEG contact sheet, QuickTime move, even converting files to other formats for you, where iView really excels though is it’s slideshow feature. As with most of iViews features it is extremely customisable, you can set timings, transition effects, clip layout, scaling, annotations and more. The slide shows themselves are excellent, images are scaled clearly and precisely, as are film clips with audio tending to play as images are being shown.

Despite all of it’s features iView is well thought out with an uncluttered interface and options that are clear and meaningful, at the beginning of this review I wondered why on earth anyone would want to pay £60 to catalogue and view media files. Now I can start to understand and despite my meagre collection of files have been converted to a real fan. Any application that can covert a sceptic must be something special.