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Linear timeline in iMovie 08?

leekohler

leekohler

macrumors G5
Original poster
Dec 22, 2004
14,164
26
Chicago, Illinois
Is there a way to view the timeline in a linear fashion in iMovie? I have looked and looked and searched the forums and can't find an answer. Also, how does one extract audio? I can't find that either. If there's no way to do these things, then I'll switch back to the old iMovie.
 
The time line editor is gone. It caused much controversy at the time. iMovie '08 can download iMovie '06 from the Apple website.

I think this is a concession and the timeline will be back for iMovie '10 (or whatever the next version will be called).
 
elppa said:
The time line editor is gone. It caused much controversy at the time. iMovie '08 can download iMovie '06 from the Apple website.

I think this is a concession and the timeline will be back for iMovie '10 (or whatever the next version will be called).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. That is truly irritating. Thanks for the download info! :)
 
The timeline is missing, but if you are doing short burst videos (which 08 excels at) it's not really needed. If you are doing longer movies, you might decide you need it, though 08 has very precise control tools and lots of feedback on the timeline in 08, and I find I'm not missing the timeline. It does, however, require learning some new ways of doing things.
As for separating audio, you need to do that in another tool.

Here's an example: I had a 3 minute video of my daughter singing at a special Christmas event, and I wanted to take that video, keep the singing audio throughout , but cut in video clips (without their audio) of her doing other things leading up to, and after the choral event.

I saved the choral audio track using QTPro, brought it into 08, along with the original video (thereby seperating the video from the audio), and then dropped in short clips of the other videos I wanted. It was very easy to align the clips where I wanted them to be by simply looking at the time and frame counts iMovie 08 displays as you adjust the length of the video. Total production time was less than 10 minutes. '08 exceled at this, because I can dynamically see where I am in the clip as I size it / shrink it in the main video stream. I actually started off trying this in 06, but became frustrated because the interface was not dynamic enough. Cropping the short burst videos I wanted was too troublesome (crop-review, crop-review, crop-review. Ugh!), and I gave up. For some things, particularly around shorter videos with basic effects, '08 is frankly superior in ease of use.

Overall, I think the interface for 08 is a HUGE leap forward in design, but like elppa said above, I think there will be some kind of blending of these concepts into the next gen release.
 
bking1000 said:
The timeline is missing, but if you are doing short burst videos (which 08 excels at) it's not really needed. If you are doing longer movies, you might decide you need it, though 08 has very precise control tools and lots of feedback on the timeline in 08, and I find I'm not missing the timeline. It does, however, require learning some new ways of doing things.
As for separating audio, you need to do that in another tool.

Here's an example: I had a 3 minute video of my daughter singing at a special Christmas event, and I wanted to take that video, keep the singing audio throughout , but cut in video clips (without their audio) of her doing other things leading up to, and after the choral event.

I saved the choral audio track using QTPro, brought it into 08, along with the original video (thereby seperating the video from the audio), and then dropped in short clips of the other videos I wanted. It was very easy to align the clips where I wanted them to be by simply looking at the time and frame counts iMovie 08 displays as you adjust the length of the video. Total production time was less than 10 minutes. '08 exceled at this, because I can dynamically see where I am in the clip as I size it / shrink it in the main video stream. I actually started off trying this in 06, but became frustrated because the interface was not dynamic enough. Cropping the short burst videos I wanted was too troublesome (crop-review, crop-review, crop-review. Ugh!), and I gave up. For some things, particularly around shorter videos with basic effects, '08 is frankly superior in ease of use.

Overall, I think the interface for 08 is a HUGE leap forward in design, but like elppa said above, I think there will be some kind of blending of these concepts into the next gen release.
Click to expand...

I have to say I really hate it. :( It used to be you could simply click and extract audio from a clip. And a linear timeline is much more preferable for me.
 
leekohler said:
And a linear timeline is much more preferable for me.
Click to expand...

Its still a linear timeline. It goes from A to B, beginning to end. Its just that it is seen more from a word-processing point of view, as it wraps to fit in its allotted width.

I actually like this form of a timeline considering the level of expertise iMovie requires - none. If someone knows word processing, they know iMovie 08. You have to do less scrolling to find your material. its also easier to scroll vertically then it is horizontally, as our fingers sit on a mouses scroll wheel in a vertical fashion.

I use FCP a lot, and I can get raw editing done scores faster in iMovie 08 then in FCP. And with the timeline as it in in 08, you can quickly see what you have made, instead of zooming way out and having the thumbnails get really small. The scrubbing in iMovie is awesome, no more double clicking a clip to load it in the viewer.
 
As some who's used iMovie '06 (and previous versions) a lot -- my first take on '08 was that it sucked. But then I shot some video with my digital camera and decided to try it. Well all in all, it's not half bad. For what it's really intended for -- quick hack-job editing -- it's very intuitive and produces a decent final product. I suspect that Apple heard feedback from a lot of inexperienced iLife owners that iMovie '06 was just too hard to learn and they wanted something less powerful but much simpler. Goal achieved. :apple:
 
iMovie 06

I keep using iMovie08 and 06 back and forth.

iMovie 08 for Video and 06 for my audio tracks. Btw using iMovie 06, you can extract audio from a protected itunes purchased song -given you have a video track in your timeline. Very handy if you don't want to burn a cd just for a song.<insert legal disclaimer here>

Download iMovie06 here: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html

I wish I could afford FCP... They should CUT the price just like they did with Logic Studio!
 
Teddy's said:
Btw using iMovie 06, you can extract audio from a protected itunes purchased song -given you have a video track in your timeline. Very handy if you don't want to burn a cd just for a song.
Click to expand...
I believe they have closed that loophole a while ago. The purchased song still gets converted into something like AIFF, but gets placed into a .mov or .m4a (I forgot the exacts detail, sorry) which gets encrypted.

Every now and then, (usually after a QuickTime, iTunes or iMovie upgrade) iMovie starts thinking it is not authorized to play this song. If you only placed a song in its entirety, that's not a big deal. You just delete and add the same song again, but if you did some cutting, fading in and out at a few places, it is quite a hassle. Therefore, I'd rather use songs without DRM or burn the songs I am planning on using to a CD and re-import.
 
After trying to use '08 for a while I decided it wasn't for me, and use '06 exclusively now. Much better if you have already done some video editing.
 
Which version of imovie 06 do you recommend

there seems to be 6.02 or 6.03. will both keep the separated audio and the timeline? thanks

and is this overall better than pc's moviemaker?

thanks
 
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