We all have a friend of family member obsessed with posting videos on YouTube. Their cats, dogs, babies and whatever else are all fodder for two minutes of teh funny. This holiday season, help them improve their craft and produce the next big viral hit with these gift suggestions.

Software
Quality editing software is not cheap. So it's surprising, actually, that Final Cut Express 4 is reasonably priced ($199US) for the amount of power it packs. I recommend this over cheaper options like iMovie for two reasons. First, it's an extremely capable application that isn't missing much from its much pricer big brother. An amateur video producer won't quickly grow bored of its capabilities. Second, and more important, if the person you are giving this to has any ambitions of becoming a professional, familiarity with the Final Cut way of doing things will be a huge advantage in the marketplace.

We are all too aware that the iPhone, in its unjailbroken state, doesn't record video. That doesn't mean it can't be used as a tool in video production. Slate is a simple application that replaces the iconic clapping chalk slate used for years throughout Hollywood. Reviewers in the App Store have some legit complaints about it, but it's still a fun application with a bunch of potential.

Hardware
Let's face it. You're not going to drop almost $5,000US on this badboy. (Note to wife: want!) But how about under $150US for a camera that captures 60 minutes of video, at decent quality, requiring no tapes or memory cards, and fits in your front pocket? Enter the Flip Video family of cameras.

These little machines aren't going to do it for professionals, but for amateurs looking to record precious family moments or spontaneous news events, it'll do the trick nicely. And it's called a Flip for a reason -- it has a USB connector integrated into its design. It flips out and, with a little bit of adjusting (a dozen or so business cards tucked under one side of a MacBook) it connects easily to just about any computer.

Flip Video last month announced a high-def version of the camera called the MinoHD. It sells for about $229US. There's also a competing Kodak camera, the Zi6, that has a fanbase of its own.

One of the best presents you can give an aspiring video producer -- besides a gig at LucasFilm -- is more hard drive space. Digital video consumes sick amounts of storage. Luckily, hard drives in the terabyte range are coming into the realm of affordability. A quick poke around Amazon.com shows a few options for under $150US. Some of these may not cut it for actual production work, as speed is of the essence, but for nearline storage, they'll do the trick quite nicely.

Stocking Stuffers
Last-minute shoppers rejoice. There are many cheap, easy-to-order products out there with which you can fill your aspiring video producer's stocking.

• Mini tripod -- Shaky video is distracting when it's not intentional. A tiny, tabletop tripod is very handy for any videographer to have in his bag of tricks; newer Flip Video cameras have a tripod mount built in.
• Personal telepromter -- I saw this demoed last year at a conference and I was blown away. It works great with any Mac laptop with a built-in iSight camera, it's cheap, and it's very cool.
• Snowball -- No, not the frozen kind. The Blue Snowball mic is one of my favorite pieces of post-production kit. It's great for laying down voiceovers, and works equally well for recording audio for video podcasts. It's a USB mic, so it's not going to hook up to a camcorder, but for studio work it gets the job done in style.

We had a little teaser for BoinxTV during WWDC this summer. If you missed it, it's a joint project between Boinx Software and The Coding Monkeys, aimed at smaller producers of video (video podcasters, school TV shows, anyone who doesn't have their own production studio ... ), with the goal of improving presentation and removing the need for any post-production.

BoinxTV 1.0 was released today after months of beta testing and nightly builds. It's stable, powerful and, most of all, fun. The easy-to-use system of layers, (which can consist of on-screen graphics, video sources, lower thirds, etc.) allows for simple setup and easy, live production of professional-quality video presentations. There are over 30 available layer types, all customizable, and custom layers can be created with Apple's Quartz Composer software (free with OS X). BoinxTV includes professional-grade chroma-keying which, with a decent green screen and lighting setup, makes transporting yourself or your cast to exotic locations a breeze.

The software is targeted at video producers who could benefit from losing the tedium of post-production. If you have an existing production setup and demand finite control, you'll probably want to stick with what you have. For educational institutions, video podcasters and anyone who needs a rapid transition from recording to publication, though, it's an ideal solution.

BoinxTV retails at $499. If your needs don't justify that kind of hefty price tag, a "sponsored" version is available for $199. The only requirement for using that version is that every production must credit BoinxTV. Not a bad tradeoff, really. A free demo is available, and the software is available for purchase today. Visit the BoinxTV page for more information.

Several analysts have been lowering their expectations for iPhone sales during the first quarter of 2009, pointing to possible cuts in the number of units manufactured, according to a series of articles by Cult of Mac's Ed Sutherland.

Barclays Capital today cut its estimate of iPhone sales to 5 million handsets, down from 6.2 million. Yesterday, BMO Capital lowered its expectations to a slightly-better 5.6 million units, but still down from an earlier estimate of 6.6 million.

On Wednesday, UBS said iPhone production could drop to 6.7 million units, down from 9 million in the last quarter. Earlier this week, FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger said that Apple could have already cut iPhone production by 40 percent.

Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes suggested that Apple could cut prices on iPhones and develop a new low-end handset to stimulate sales, taking the lead from how the iPod and iPod mini sold.

Reitzes also speculated that a low-cost laptop could sell 3.5 million units per year. It's unclear if Apple will take Reitzes' advice, as Steve Jobs said at last month's laptop event that "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that."

As we recently showcased here at TUAW, filmmaker Dennis Liu's Mac-inspired video for the group The Bird And The Bee combines his love of music, filmmaking and the Mac to create a very entertaining and innovative piece of work. In fact, we liked it so much here at TUAW, that we decided we wanted to know a bit more about Dennis and his creative process.

I spent some time talking with the filmmaker recently and got some info on how he made the video, why he made it, what he hopes to gain from it and what's next for this very talented guy.

CHRIS ULLRICH: Tell me a bit about how you came up with the idea for the video? What inspired you to do it?

DENNIS LIU: I'm a 23 year old college grad trying to become a full-time director/creative. Right now, I'm a producer at an ad agency, but I've always had some ideas for Apple commercials and always wanted to shoot one. Apple has some of the world's finest advertising, and I wanted to play at their level.

The film industry is so competitive these days, that you really need to do something innovative and different to stand out, and I wanted to really make something that would get some attention from my peers. So the result was this viral video for my reel, Apple, and one of my favorite musicians - The Bird & the Bee.

For Apple, I figured it was a cool idea that shows the beauty, style, and most importantly - the function of Apple computers. People think they're really cool looking, and I totally agree, but they are also wickedly powerful machines.

So the video combines style and function.

According to a recent Macworld UK post, the Mac's sales are surging, and Apple has ramped up production on the Mac lines. Macworld received its information from recent Banc of America Securities research, which leads to the conclusion that along with raising Mac production, Apple has lowered production on the iPod lines (keeping in mind that this research predates the product announcements today). According to researchers, the production orders of Macs rose nearly 20%, while the production orders of the iPod fell 10-20%. The analyst speculates that Apple will be seeing an increasing demand for Macs.

On a related note, Macworld UK also posted about the Mac and iPhone online usage being slightly up. The post states that Apple's hardware accounted for 7.57% of internet traffic for the month of January. iPhone traffic was also up, .13%, of total traffic from .12% in December. The iPod touch accounted for a whopping 0.04% of internet traffic. Contrast this with Windows Mobile traffic, which accounts for .06% -- Macworld states that this figure has remained constant since June 2007, which (oddly enough) is when the iPhone was released.

Our pal Ajit Anhony at our sister blog DV Guru has reviewed Montage, a new screenwriting app from Mariner Software, makers of the popular MacJournal. Overall Ajit is satisfied with Montage and sees a bright future for this app in a (finally) growing industry of Final Draft competitors. However, Ajit can't help but compare Montage to his personal favorite, Celtx, especially since Celtx's price of $0 and innovative feature set make it hard to beat.

Check out Ajit's review for in-depth details on what this new screenwriting app can offer.

Gundeep Hora at CoolTechZone has taken a critical eye to what some consider are Apple's recent and rocky 1st generation product launches. The article utilizes two examples - the iPod nano scratch issue and MacBook heat complaints - to illustrate what Gundeep argues is Apple's faulty process of releasing products and then reacting to serious flaws when the public outcry spreads across enough blogs and petition sites.

Whether you're already hastily typing a comment to flame Gundeep or you have one of those aforementioned petitions already open in a separate tab, Gundeep has written an interesting piece that I think could strike a deeper chord if he used a find/replace command to swap the word 'Apple' with 'the computing industry as a whole'. Similar criticism of Apple's 1st generation production quality crops up on the web every couple of months like clockwork, and I think it's because there is an unusually high level of expectation surrounding their products. I'm not saying Gundeep's criticism is misplaced; quite the contrary: my first Mac ever was the 1st generation of 12" PowerBooks (867 MHz baby!) and I had to go through four of them to get one that didn't overheat or have a hard drive that choked itself to death within hours of bringing it home. To make matters worse, the Apple Store, including its snotty manager, treated me only slightly better than that sticky stuff you try to scrape off the bottom of your shoe. My next Mac experience was the 1st gen 15" Aluminum PowerBook that was a part of the 'white spots' debacle - case in point: I feel Gundeep's pain, but Apple isn't the only computer and electronics company to exhibit these kinds of mass production complications. Other computer makers have had to recall batteries and entire batches of one computer model or another. Dell recently had to replace some faulty displays, and I can't remember which mobile phone company's batteries are exploding this week.

To wrap this all up: Apple sets the bar high with their unique design and flashy marketing, and because of that, I think their customers and the media at large simply hop on board for the honeymoon each and every time the company whips out a shiny new toy. Criticism like Gundeep's seems to appear when the fantasy inevitably hits speed-bumps that are simple facts of life and mass production. In the end Apple is a company, like any other, that is susceptible to hardware defects, firmware botches and software hiccups. Then the conversation turns to products, quality and accountability of the industry as a whole - but I think that discussion might be better suited for a different post. Granted, none of these issues are any fun when you're the one stuck with the bad apple (yes, a pun), but sensationalizing the situation isn't going to solve anything. Keeping a level head, however, and understanding that 1st gen hardware can sometimes be a gamble - no matter who it's from - just might save a few headaches, and perhaps then you won't need to sign that petition after all.

MacSlash has come across a report from analyst firm iSuppli that claims the materials used to build the latest Intel iMac cost Apple roughly $898. This includes an estimated price of $265/Intel Dual Core chip, which is based on prices from Intel's site that are $294/chip in orders of 1000. The estimate, however, does not include other elements such as the mouse, keyboard or advertising. I won't regurgitate the rest of the price breakdown though, so check it out for yourself.

While I'm no professional analyst, most of the pricing in that report sounds just a little bit high to me. I'm sure Apple is *probably* buying Dual Core chips in batches that are slightly larger than 1000, and $265/chip sounds nuts. Heck, a computer that costs $898 in mere parts (nevermind designing, building, advertising, shipping, etc) that sells for only $1299 sounds pretty nuts to me too, even for a company like Apple who could probably benefit from news like this hitting the streets.

Just in case this report is right, though: that is one expensive computer, and one heck of an expensive chip. Here's hoping this big transition is ultimately worth it.