No I haven't used it yet, but from what others have said on here, the timeline is missing, along with effects, and most importantly audio editing. Sounds an utterly stupid move to me. I haven't used it yet, but I bet a fiver I hate it when I do.
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iMovie '08 Transition Pains
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No I haven't used it yet, but from what others have said on here, the timeline is missing, along with effects, and most importantly audio editing. Sounds an utterly stupid move to me. I haven't used it yet, but I bet a fiver I hate it when I do.
those things are missing. and i miss them.
but i really dont hate imovie 08. the improvements they made are excellent. really stunning. i will be an avid imovie 08 user (no pun intended)
my problem, however, is that the improvements did not necessitate removing the now missing features (especially audio editing). it would not have made it anymore complicated to create a quick movie if there was also an option to control audio levels etc.
im hoping that updates to imovie 08 will include a equally stunning improvement on the way we can control audio.
~kyle
Yeah; also, if you stack audio on top of each other you can have the lower audio fade as the higher audio comes on.
Yup, without any trouble at all. Drag and drop audio over a clip, grab the handle at the end and drag it back to cut it and drag another audio clip at the end. It'll automatically fade it.
I made both of these in iMovie really quick (apologies for bad camera on the first vid):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OHLhAxpC_4A
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bz6PDv5UpXw
It's basically just short clips with voiceover and light music behind.
If you have trouble with the handlebars, you can also right click on any audio track and hit "Trim Audio" and a little editor comes up.
Ha! I never even noticed. After I got home from the Apple Store and installed off the DVD I just used the dock icons to get to the new applications. But, yeah, the previous version is still there in its own folder. And Apple has made it available for download for free in case this is your first version of iLife or you tossed the old version that was placed in the separate folder. Why are we apologetic? Apple doesn't really need to apologize for anything. All the features are still there: they're just in two different applications; take your pick: more features or greater simplicity. Use one or the other or use both. Up to you.
Me, I prefer the new version. And that's no apology. I like the simplicity because it's all I want or need. Indeed after playing around with the new iMovie I'm sure I'll actually use it a bit as opposed to rarely with the more complex previous version. (I'm not, as someone put it, learning disabled in iMovie use; it's just that meticulously editing videos is not how I want to spend my time: I want point, click, video and I'll sacrifice depth of control for that.) Others who want more robust editing features, you've still got them.
milo said:
WTF are you on about, Milo? Did you even read what I wrote?
iMovie is definitely "intended for me." Well, iMovie '06 is and '08 isn't...
'06 has enough functionality to begin teaching about video/audio editing. '08 basically throws that out the window in favour of an overly-simplified video creation tool. The ability to do cut-aways, ramp audio, etc. is very important to me, to show my students the basics. And unfortunately, as I wrote above, we can't run FCE, so iMovie '06 is the perfect solution for us, and we'll be staying with it until our eMacs die a horrible death.
People do not want FCE features at an iMovie price. Nearly everyone complaining about '08 is only saying that they would like the iMovie '06 features in '08! Not anything more advanced from FCE or FCP.
And I pity those of you who are too blinded to see the usefulness of this app.
Have you considered that there are those of us that actually LIKE it, and are not just being apologetic? Oh no, everyone must feel as you do.
The same way they totally killed OS 9, took the name Mac from the recently killed operating system and pasted it on this new UNIX-based project?
Yeah. And it turned out much better, too.
The same reason the iPhone's features weren't just added to the existing iPod. The new iMovie has an entirely new design paradigm that negates the need for a timeline and furthermore requires a new interface for a video library. With all the bloat already existing in iMovie (it's been around since OS9) it was probably simply EASIER to make a new app.
They did; that's why iMovie 06 stays on the computer when you install it.
Erm, the new app is for editing, not organizing.
This is an incredibly bad illustration; iTunes stores music and GarageBand makes it. BOTH versions of iMovies are designed for editing movies (they both do the same thing), the new one also can store them too.
The new iMovie works spectacularly. Yes, they removed the video effects and audio rubberbanding (contrary to FUD, you CAN still edit audio, and even if you couldn't you can fire it off to GarageBand). But honestly, I didn't even notice before I read this forum; I've been making videos far faster than I ever could have in iMovie
Wisest "newbie" I've seen in a while. Bravo.
I keep trying to say this same thing on the Apple Insider boards but you put it so eloquently.
"People do not want FCE features at an iMovie price... they want iMovie '06 features in '08!"
Beautiful. You will make a fantastic regular. Welcome to [posting on] the boards.
-Clive
You seemed to have completely missed my earlier post, so let me say it again.
Skimming is a new design paradigm. You don't NEED a timeline because skimming covers all the functions a timeline had.
Additionally, you CAN set it to display video clips' size based on their length, so it essentially IS the same thing as a timeline. I hardly use that unless I have a really long clip though, because it's unnecessary.
As far as audio editing, really, all it is missing is audio rubberbanding. It's got multiple audio tracks allowed (in fact, more than the original iMovie; I just tried throwing 14 audio tracks on one video with no problem), noise reduction, cropping, fading in and out, and you can export it to garageband if you need anything else.
You are being incredibly negative over a product you have never tried and clearly don't even understand the featureset of.
I like the new iMovie better for starting a simple project from scratch. But for my existing projects, it's rubbish.
While I have figured out how to do the limited in-app audio editing, I haven't figured out how to send a movie to GarageBand for audio editing yet. I notice that GarageBand also no longer has a "Movie Soundtrack" option when starting it up.
I'm wondering about that myself. A few people have said that external drive content will appear or disappear when drives are connected - that's great. But it still requires buying many external drives.
My mother edits alot of video - and she's not a professional. She's seen me extract audio and move it around (see my future post
) but she really doesn't get it - so not having the feature won't bother her. She's not professional but she shoots alot of video - how many external drives will I have to add to her laptop? Can she mark the clips she's working with before she disconnects the external drive, so she can make movies while away from home?I guess.... perhaps Apple has an answer to the number of external drives.
... can iMovie08 use DVDs in a similar way to connecting an external disk (ie: insert the DVD, and its "new" clips appear in the library?)
If I can move the clips from an imported video to a DL-DVD, that may solve the multi-disk issue.
Thanks for that - doesn't sound so bad in the end - will have to have a good play on Friday afternoon!
The other thing I thought I'd read was that there was no rendering - you just add a transition, and that's it - no need to render - is that right?
And the same with photos' ken burns effects - can you just apply the effect, drop them in and that's it?
If so - that will add up to a huge timesaver.
Exactly; and that's why I love it. There's no import time to bring in a new clip, no render time for transitions, etc. Everything is seamless drag-and-drop like editing text. The only wait time is the final export.
That's great. I will be buying the new iMovie when I get back home, and working on my wedding video... should be a great test of iMovie 08.
That's my main concern, I use cutaways alot. I often have a longer main scene plus a good few seconds of related video which I overlay on the main scene ("paste over at playhead", which keeps the main scene's audio). Also, if my main scene shakes/moves badly or goes out of focus, I can put the related video in that spot, so people never see the shake. It looks and sounds so much more professional.
However... I know many people don't find this easy. Similarly, having the audio from one scene extend 10 seconds into the next scene works great in iMovie06.. but it's not easy for many people.
All up, it sounds like they would need the timeline view to effectively manage the audio changes I'd like... but time will tell when I try this next week
I don't think that will work for what I need.
I guess that within iMovie08, you can extract all the audio from a clip, then you could cut the clip up, and overlay the original audio? (... which would work as long as you can turn off the clips' audio)
Can you? Good. I'd like chapter markers for the beginning of the ceremony, end of ceremony, entrance to reception, speeches, bridal waltz... it makes it much easier to skim to what you want on the DVD.
It will be interesting to see Apple's reaction to this feedback. FCE is not nearly as easy to use as iMovie 06 was. Will Apple build missing feature into iMovie08(.1)? or will the next FCE be made much easier (& a little cheaper?)
It's not $16. It happens to be bundled. I'll be paying US$80 for 2 programs - iPhoto & iMovie (while Apple gives me some extras I don't want).
Im yet to try iMovie 08 but i did use iMovie06 a bit and im all for anything quick and simple to use. If you want features use FCP or Premier. Although I agree that an advanced and a simple mode would have been nice to choose from...
If you read through a lot of the posts on this subject on the web most of the ones that reference Windows Movie Maker talk about how horrible it is and that iMovie '08 is too much like it.
iMovie was (is) not too hard to use. I could edit through 2 hours of video in just a few minutes, trimming out dead space and the back of the lens cap. It's not hard! One parent commented that his kids are complaining that iMovie '08 lacks features. That's children complaining. Evidently they didn't need it to be easier
I don't believe it. I realize I'm on a Macintosh board, and God knows I love my Mac but people apologizing for Apple's lack of foresight here is frustrating and embarrassing. iMovie HD had the perfect mix of features for me. I loved it. The new version sucks. I'm not going to try to put a shiny happy face on this. I'm gonna say just how I feel. Apple simply tossed the baby out with the bathwater on this one and it's okay to say the product sucks. Really.
The few people that seem to be happy with it are those that would buy some Final Cut product anyway. I don't want to have to spend hundreds of dollars more to get what I already had.
Apple could have made this new version of iMovie easy to use AND retained all it's features. They could have toggled the view options in a preference pane. While Apple is offering iMovie HD for new iLife users, it seems more of consolation rather than something to pat them on the back for. iMovie HD would have been great with a slightly updated feature set.
The new version sucks. Plain and simple. Don't apologize for Apple despite your love for them.
The few people that seem to be happy with it are those that would buy some Final Cut product anyway. I don't want to have to spend hundreds of dollars more to get what I already had.
Apple could have made this new version of iMovie easy to use AND retained all it's features. They could have toggled the view options in a preference pane. While Apple is offering iMovie HD for new iLife users, it seems more of consolation rather than something to pat them on the back for. iMovie HD would have been great with a slightly updated feature set.
The new version sucks. Plain and simple. Don't apologize for Apple despite your love for them.
I wrote an article about this here:
http://ekv.newsvine.com/_news/2007/...ers-imovie-users-over-upgrade-quashes-dissent
http://ekv.newsvine.com/_news/2007/...ers-imovie-users-over-upgrade-quashes-dissent
I totally agree! I haven't used the new version, but I know many of the features thrown out are ones I use and aren't too complicated for an average user. If you just want to put a bunch of clips together, you should be able to hide the extra features. If you want to use the timeline and the audio-editing and effects, you shouldn't have to pay more than $200 more for what you used to get for $79. For all those that say that a $16 program shouldn't get these feautures. Why not? As I said, if you don't need these features, you should be able to hide them when you don't want/need them and show them when you do.
But the new iMovie does seem to have good features. I like how you can slap together some clips. I also love the library thing and no rendering until the end. Anyone know how that's done? Are the clips actually added to the clip or are just references used until you export the movie? If it's the first, the size of the project would be pretty big since you're copying all the clips. However, you'd have all the clips there and you'd be able to do whatever you want w/ the original. For the second option, project sizes would be smaller since you wouldn't have a bunch of copies of the same clip, but if something's on a removable drive (CD, external hard drive, etc.), it would be a bit hard to remember to keep them mounted.
Here's another idea. Do us all a favor and stop assuming that because you don't like it the entire world must secretly not like it either and are just being Apple loyalists.
You think it sucks. Good for you. Now run along and bother someone else with your narrowminded views so the rest of us can actually debate the pros and cons.
Sheesh!
The original iMovie was the whole reason I got into Macs in the first place. My wife and I had just bought a video camera to document the birth and growth of our daughter and there was absoultely no amatuer video editing capabilites in the PC world at the time. iMove was way ahead of its time and was the perfect way to introduce someone to the video editing world.
The original iMovie was fantastic for throwing together clips with simple transitions and cutting out junk video, but the more we used it the more we learned to use the more advanced features it offered. It had the simplicity of select-and-drag, but offered control over the creative process when you really wanted to fine-tune your movie. And when iDVD was released, there was nothing more impressive than publishing and burning DVDs with professional looking menus etc for family and friends. Every year I make a couple full-length DVDs for family and friends. iLife eventually became the ultimate "killer app" for converting video-editing friends from the PC.
I've used iMovie 08 for a bit now and I like some of the new enhancements it has, such as dragging the mouse over the clips to play them, not having to render individual clips and transitions, and the fact that it now organizes video clips taken with a digital camera etc. I can see how new users can think that this is a great update, but I believe that this only goes to show that iMovie 08 should have been built on top of iMovie HD 06 as a "beginner" or "quick" mode.
The biggest problem I see with iMovie 08 is that there is nowhere for the creative learner to go once the basic features have been mastered. With the older iMovies, you could just drag and drop the clips in order to put a movie together, but there was also this feeling of exploration and learning... like "let's see what else this thing can do!" I just don't get that at all with iMovie 08. Once people are done learning how to make their 5 minute You-Tube videos... well, what then? I wish I could say that iMovie 08 were an incredibly simplistic way to introduce people to the somewhat complex process of video editing, but instead it's nothing more than a clip assembler.
I really just don't see how Apple can justify essentially getting rid of one of its most feature-rich iLife applications... ESPECIALLY one of the original apps that showed the world that it's possible to use a simple program and still get incredibly impressive results. I'm not saying iMovie 08 has nothing to offer, what I am saying is that what it introduces is a far cry from what iMovie HD 06 already had. Apple should have used some common sense when updating iMovie instead of alienating its exsiting users.
The original iMovie was fantastic for throwing together clips with simple transitions and cutting out junk video, but the more we used it the more we learned to use the more advanced features it offered. It had the simplicity of select-and-drag, but offered control over the creative process when you really wanted to fine-tune your movie. And when iDVD was released, there was nothing more impressive than publishing and burning DVDs with professional looking menus etc for family and friends. Every year I make a couple full-length DVDs for family and friends. iLife eventually became the ultimate "killer app" for converting video-editing friends from the PC.
I've used iMovie 08 for a bit now and I like some of the new enhancements it has, such as dragging the mouse over the clips to play them, not having to render individual clips and transitions, and the fact that it now organizes video clips taken with a digital camera etc. I can see how new users can think that this is a great update, but I believe that this only goes to show that iMovie 08 should have been built on top of iMovie HD 06 as a "beginner" or "quick" mode.
The biggest problem I see with iMovie 08 is that there is nowhere for the creative learner to go once the basic features have been mastered. With the older iMovies, you could just drag and drop the clips in order to put a movie together, but there was also this feeling of exploration and learning... like "let's see what else this thing can do!" I just don't get that at all with iMovie 08. Once people are done learning how to make their 5 minute You-Tube videos... well, what then? I wish I could say that iMovie 08 were an incredibly simplistic way to introduce people to the somewhat complex process of video editing, but instead it's nothing more than a clip assembler.
I really just don't see how Apple can justify essentially getting rid of one of its most feature-rich iLife applications... ESPECIALLY one of the original apps that showed the world that it's possible to use a simple program and still get incredibly impressive results. I'm not saying iMovie 08 has nothing to offer, what I am saying is that what it introduces is a far cry from what iMovie HD 06 already had. Apple should have used some common sense when updating iMovie instead of alienating its exsiting users.
After using 08 I'm afraid that I agree with the nay sayers. They should have made the new features of 08 as an "easy" mode in an updated 06 format.
The beauty of the old app is that it was simple, powerful and introduced people to video editing using a very simplified interface. Learning to edit on 06 with it's timeline, transitions, etc. provided a good fundamental start and offered a path to more sophistication through graduating to FCE or even FCP.
Sorry Apple. Bad move IMHO.
The beauty of the old app is that it was simple, powerful and introduced people to video editing using a very simplified interface. Learning to edit on 06 with it's timeline, transitions, etc. provided a good fundamental start and offered a path to more sophistication through graduating to FCE or even FCP.
Sorry Apple. Bad move IMHO.
If this is a sample of what you do, ok. iMovie 08 is the right thing for you.
If you need something more... iMovie 08 just sucks.
(Yes I have it, before youy ask, and I am really disappointed... what a downgrade...).
Absolutely wonderful. I agree at 100%. iMovie '08 is not an upgrade from iMovie '06. It's a (sad) downgrade!