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Software Review: Imagine Products' ShotPut Pro Video Offloading Software

ShotPut Pro is a useful new application from Imagine Products that simplifies offloading video from memory cards. It's a tool that can be used along with your favorite NLE or as a standalone application. ShotPut Pro can be configured to do many critical tasks, such as sending video to multiple storage drives at once, thereby making an instant backup. It also has other timesaving tidbits. ShotPut Pro solves the relatively new problem of not knowing exactly where we're about to put our important video. Instead of using our computer's Copy and Paste commands, we use ShotPut Pro to make sure our memories are saved. Be it AVCHD video or video from Panasonic P2 and Sony SxS cards, ShotPut Pro gives us peace of mind when we go to offload or delete our memories from our memory cards. If you've ever lost irreplaceable footage (who hasn't?), then ShotPut Pro can help make sure disaster doesn't strike again.

You can download ShotPut Pro from Imagine Products' website with speed and ease. Since the application is available for both Mac and PC computers, you can choose which one to download after purchasing your activation code. However... ShotPut Pro allows you to switch your purchase from Mac to PC and back again later on, using your activation code. Unfortunately, ShotPut Pro requires internet access to start using it. This isn't a big deal, but it may cause confusion if you download the application and don't use it immediately. If you don't have internet access on set, don't panic, Imagine Products has a phone activation service as well.

Minimum requirements are pretty light, which is also good. Windows XP and Vista are supported for the PC, while Mac users will need OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or higher. Since many memory card manufacturers are making high-capacity cards (4GB all the way to 64GB), ShotPut Pro requires at least 16GB free hard disk space to offload them. The application itself takes up only 4.5MB on your local disk.

We dragged the ShotPut Pro icon into the dock on our Apple MacBook Pro and double-clicked it to start going. The new app opens quickly and has the bubbly dialog boxes typical of the Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) operating system. One tall window is displayed, with a prominent Manual/Automatic button located at the top. Below is a ladder of dialog boxes that really make the app sing. In Manual mode, six boxes appear within ShotPut: one to name folders, another to choose which hard drives to send video to and what to do when that operation finishes, along with File Verification, Logging Type and a final box to select which cards to offload. In Automatic mode, many of the same options appear, minus the final box for choosing which cards to offload. In Automatic mode, ShotPut Pro starts working immediately after you insert a memory card into your computer. Again, ShotPut Pro is a simple-looking app that looks less feature-riddled on the surface than other apps in its price range. It does an important job and does it very reliably, making it worth its weight in 16GB memory cards.