Apple Releases iMovie 8.0.5, Adding Support for New iFrame Video Format

[Macsterguy]

You guys who are complaining (rightfully so) about lack of support for your video file formats in iMovie might want to download MPEG Streamclip. It's free. You can use it to convert your files to something iMovie can read. Yeah, it's an extra step, but it'll let you get rolling with iMovie 09, if you're so inclined to use it as an editor.

http://www.squared5.com/

Thanks to squared5!

I agree Ben... MPEG is good stuff!

 

[fpnc]

960x540 is the highest 30fps format that is supported on the Apple TV (otherwise you need to do 1280p at 24fps). Should not be related, but just to note that similarity.

Also, I'm another user who is disappointed that Apple still isn't offering any native support for AVCHD. Okay, you can transcode but I'd prefer to be able to view and edit AVCHD directly on the Mac and then export to any other format that I desire.

 

[str1f3]

My main question is because we all should know this is coming:

When will this format be used in the iPhone?

My guess is next year's iPhone. They did the same thing in adding anti-shake in iMovie before video on the iPhone was released. I'm okay with this format because it straddles the difficult balance between HD quality on the web and compact file sizes which AVCHD tends to have a problem with this when editing.

 

[forthehandyman]

iMovie "Large" Resolution...

This "format" isn't anything new to iMovie. It may be new to camcorder resolutions, but not iMovie. 960X540 has been the default "Large" video resolution for importing ANY video into iMovie for a long time now. This seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors to me. Like I said, this "format" has been in iMovie for a while. Apple has just managed to convince some manufacturer(s) to put this setting in their camcorders as the default recording format so that when you import the video into iMovie, it won't have to do any transcoding.

Here's more for you all. Even in Sanyo's press release on Reuters it talks about this new "format" using standards-based technologies:

"This new format can also be used with both Mac
and PC compatible applications due to the use of standards-based technologies
such as H.264, AAC, MP4 and MOV."

There you go, video codec, audio codec, and file containers. This is not a new format, but a repackaging of existing codecs and containers in a resolution that has been standard in iMovie since at least iMovie '08. It even says right in the article that this was done for ease of editing (read no transcoding). Rest of the article can be read at the following address:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS90873+13-Oct-2009+PRN20091013

 

[polaris20]

iMovie (at least through '06 which is the last I've used) likes DV format. It'll import other formats but takes a lot of time to convert them for editing. Final Cut Express is a bit better -- it'll let you at least do your edits with almost any file format, but you have to render it out (to DV or AIC or whatever it uses internally) before you can save it out to a shareable format.

What I'm waiting for, if this iFrame thing takes off, is for Apple to add iFrame support to Final Cut Express -- and at the same time make FCE more multi-processor aware. Especially after seeing that the VPC-FH1A is one of the supported cameras and I'd been planning to buy an VPC-FH1.

I've had some funkiness with some formats with iMovie '08 and '09, as the one guy had said. My workaround was to use MPEGStreamClip to get the videos in .dv format, and then both 08 and 09 work fine.

It is definitely more picky than say Sony Vegas, which I had come from previously on the Windows side.

 

[str1f3]

This "format" isn't anything new to iMovie. It may be new to camcorder resolutions, but not iMovie. 960X540 has been the default "Large" video resolution for importing ANY video into iMovie for a long time now. This seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors to me. Like I said, this "format" has been in iMovie for a while. Apple has just managed to convince some manufacturer(s) to put this setting in their camcorders as the default recording format so that when you import the video into iMovie, it won't have to do any transcoding.

Here's more for you all. Even in Sanyo's press release on Reuters it talks about this new "format" using standards-based technologies:

"This new format can also be used with both Mac
and PC compatible applications due to the use of standards-based technologies
such as H.264, AAC, MP4 and MOV."

There you go, video codec, audio codec, and file containers. This is not a new format, but a repackaging of existing codecs and containers in a resolution that has been standard in iMovie since at least iMovie '08. It even says right in the article that this was done for ease of editing (read no transcoding). Rest of the article can be read at the following address:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS90873+13-Oct-2009+PRN20091013

I agree and am well aware of this as a iMovie and MobileMe user but I have to agree with Apple in saying that this is the best kind of resolution for streaming videos over the web. The web is simply not ready for 1920x1080 and probably 720p. Many cable providers can't handle it. AVCHD is simply too much to handle. Editing it takes too much space on a hard drive and converting is also a problem because it takes too long and the file sizes are huge. To me, this is mostly geared towards having this as a web standard for the next 5-7 and to make it quicker to deal with. 1080p is nice but it's only useful for personal use and w/o editing.

 

[gorjan]

Untill Apple fix the quality of DV-video (SD) exported to h264 I'll stay with iMovie HD 6. The quality loss when "upgrading" from HD 6 to 09 is terrible!

 

[MorphingDragon]

I hope the peeps at Mac OSX hints updates the G4 hack info.

 

[appie57]

So they're selling overpriced computers and don't support AVCHD just because they don't want to pay licensing fees? Instead they give us iFrame? AVCHD is supported by most consumer HD camcorders, iFrame by just two... great...

I work already for almost two years with AVCHD in iMovie: works great!

 

[Arisian]

wow

Not to be mean for those of you who love iMovie, but the new (not this update, the major revision) revision is the worst video editing program I've used outside of windows movie maker. Very limited and not as intuitive as I would have imagined, which makes this update kinda useless for me. Which also begs the question, "Why comment at all, you jackass!". To which I answer... I don't know!

Also, doesn't someone own the rights to the name iframe? It's been around forever and has a very specific use and definition. This one really surprised me

 

[Arisian]

Untill Apple fix the quality of DV-video (SD) exported to h264 I'll stay with iMovie HD 6. The quality loss when "upgrading" from HD 6 to 09 is terrible!

couldn't agree more

 

[kiang]

I wonder when iMovie will start using GPGPU for exporting your videos... I'd say soon, since OpenCL could pull htat off in Snow Leopard, but that way iMovie 9 would drop Leopard support... So I'm curious what Apple will do

 

[christian_k]

Not to be mean for those of you who love iMovie, but the new (not this update, the major revision) revision is the worst video editing program I've used outside of windows movie maker.

I completely agree with you. In my opinion iMove (up to '06) used to be an easy to use creative tool. Much easier to use than Final Cut Express (you will need some time to understand this as a beginner), but still very usefull for student or hobby projects.

But iMovie 08 became a simple "video family album". Maybe iMovie 09 got some of the lost functionality back again, but still....
For me HDV still is a great format. Great quality and it could be edited even on a fast G4. But tape does not have enough sex appeal any more and because they see that AVCHD is too heavy for most current computers they introduce some "HD light" format. Who needs that?

Christian

 

[TMay]

So, is iFrame intraframe compression?

AVC comes in various flavors, HD, Lite, and Intra, and an even higher rate version(s) is the preferred standard for Blu Ray authoring. HD and Lite use group of frame compression which is very efficient but requires a lot of computation to decode, and as mentioned in one of the earlier threads, audio is multiplexed. Intra as the name implies uses intraframe compression, and I suspect still multiplexes the audio.

It is possible to edit AVC at each 15 frame (1/2 second) boundary without the heavy transcoding . It's a little less of a nonlinear editor for that, and transitions would be problematic. I suppose the solution is a hybrid where you only decode the 15 frame groups and the relevant audio, create the transitions, and then reencode back to AVC. AVC should play fine on any 9400M or better graphics processor.

Shedworx is working on such an editor and it should be released this month, and they already have preview without log and transfer.

http://www.shedworx.com/voltaichd

iFrame looks to eliminate all of that for consumer video, albeit with lesser resolution and quality. I suspect that Apple can make it succesful, and that it should be easy for camcorder makers to add into the AVC hardware.

 

[coleridge78]

I have to agree about the lack of utility of iMovie. From Motion-JPEG straight off a digicam, to DIVX or MPEG-4 in AVI or QT wrappers, nothing has ever successfully imported into iMovie for me. Apparently it's intended only for camcorder clips, and if you want to do anything else with it--too bad. Or go find yourself a transcoder and guess at what settings might give you a usable file. I gave up on that a long time ago. iMovie remains the only Apple app that I've ever considered impenetrable and brain-dead.

 

[dasmb]

It is possible to edit AVC at each 15 frame (1/2 second) boundary without the heavy transcoding .

Just a note -- for anything slicker than a shoddy wedding video, 1/2s boundaries are far too large. I used to use an mpeg-1 transcode-free editor which allowed cuts about ever 3 frames, and it was really ungainly.

 

[TMay]

Just a note -- for anything slicker than a shoddy wedding video, 1/2s boundaries are far too large. I used to use an mpeg-1 transcode-free editor which allowed cuts about ever 3 frames, and it was really ungainly.

I agree.

It's worth noting that Apple is way behind on getting Blu Ray authoring, though I have my fingers crossed for another FCS release around NAB next year.

 

[ezdz]

couldn't agree more

So I take it they still haven't fixed the problem with importing interlaced DV files?

 

[Bubba Satori]

If iFrame video format = 960 x 540, then color me unimpressed.

Bag of hobby video hurt. This is going nowhere. Doesn't Apple have better things to do ? Like create a complete line of up to date computers.

 

[gorjan]

So I take it they still haven't fixed the problem with importing interlaced DV files?

Nope. I use a progressive DV-cam and still get much worse results in 09/08 than in HD 6.

 

[InfoTime]

Anyone know if this update adds support for the Creative Vado's native video format?

 

[pmarcovi]

They do support AVCHD.

They do not support AVCHD. They supporting converting the AVCHD to something else, also losing (downmixing) the Dolby Digital sound in the process.

Supporting would mean, without any conversion, allowing the playing and the editing of the AVCHD format and producing HD movies in this format like other Windows products do.

 

[krypticos]

Ok I really don't see why they are doing this for this camera. I have an hd-2000 and I record in 1080p at 60 frames a second. my MacBook with iMovie 09 edits it just fine. I mean it takes it 3 hours to render the edited video out but I don't have to transcode or do anything to the orig file. I have had this camera for about 2 months now and I love it. The video quality is amazing and the still images are very good also. Plus the ability to take photos at 2 mpx while shooting a video.

 

[t0mat0]

Who says this is just for some video editing? Could be the new size standard for iChat, iPhones, Touches (there's a 5MP camera lurking i'd imagine), etc? Bringing the minimum up to this, then pushing to 1080p as and when they can.

 

[Fwink!]

I took the plunge and ordered one of the cams. I'll see what's what and report back. It will be awhile before it actually ships and arrives. This iframe formate might be a nice compromise or just hype. If I'm not blown away, it might get returned for a Canon.