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A little disappointed

I

ilovemacs1967

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
4
0
Hi. I just received a 27" iMac full equipped to change a 2009 iMac.. I bought the best processor, graphic card, fusion drive and 32 gb of memory (crucial).

The main motivator to change and buy the best possible iMac is that I have a huge library of home videos that I want to edit and I have to do a video for an important family event.

Now I was doing some tests in iMovie with both machines and I am disappointed with the real life results. For example to do a clip stabilization the new Mac was about 25-30% faster. To finish and export a movie was about the same (40 min vs 30 min).

I expected so much better results so I am wondering if the problem is with iMovie that does not use all the power of the graphic card, memory and processor.

Did I spend that much money to get a 30% faster machine and a large fusion drive?
 
simsaladimbamba

simsaladimbamba

Guest
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
Since iMovie is still 32 bit, more than 4 GB RAM for a machine are useless for that purpose alone, since it cannot address it.
iMovie is also not multi threaded, thus only one or two cores are used.

To get more out of your spanky new iMac, you have to use a proper editing application like FCP X, or wait till Apple upgrades iMovie to 64 bit.

Video Compression
Why It Matters & How To Make The Most Of It

 
I

ilovemacs1967

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
4
0
thanks

Thanks.

It´s unbelievable that Apple hasn't upgraded imovie to use the capabilities of the hardware it sells!

I will do some tests with Final Cut and get back with some impressions.

Now my real concern is not the $300 cost of final cut but the learning curve to use this professional program instead of imovie (that I have used since 2005).
 
thekev

thekev

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2010
7,005
3,343
ilovemacs1967 said:
Now my real concern is not the $300 cost of final cut but the learning curve to use this professional program instead of imovie (that I have used since 2005).
Click to expand...

With a lot of this kind of software, the steepest part of the learning curve is the subject rather than an individual piece of software. I try to personally decouple these things as much as possible so that the tools are just that. FCPX hardly seems intimidating if you have an understanding of the underlying principles.
 
1

12dylan34

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2009
884
15
ilovemacs1967 said:
Now my real concern is not the $300 cost of final cut but the learning curve to use this professional program instead of imovie (that I have used since 2005).
Click to expand...

Basic editing is pretty much the same. Select a portion of the clip and drag it to the timeline. Some people refer to FCP X as "iMovie Pro" (although with the purpose of being derogatory) because of its similarities.
 
smoking monkey

smoking monkey

macrumors 68020
Mar 5, 2008
2,335
1,468
I HUNGER
just guessing here, but I would guess the difference will be significant with FCPX on 2012 v 2009. Real time rendering will be an absolute beast with the machine he's got. And motion should be a total snap. Not that I do filming and editing anymore, but I am interested to see the difference.
 
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