The only reason I've avoided FCE is the cost...
If you're making money on those videos, then $199 is a very inexpensive investment. Ditto for the $299 for the new Final Cut Pro X coming out this summer. And these investments tend to be a tax write off in most places.
The poor import of interlaced video would just kill my projects. Much of what I shoot are high school athletes who want highlight videos for scholarship purposes. The jerky motion that would result from dropping frames would make my videos look terrible.
From descriptions I've seen, I agree, but I think you should do your own experiment to make a better judgement.
I'm aware of the Panasonic 60p video incompatibility because I have researched getting new Panasonic HD cams.
Yea, I don't think 60p material works with iMovie. I don't know as I haven't tried it. Just seen it mentioned here and there.
Are there any other HD brands or formats that specifically won't work in iMovie 11? Are there any that are acknowledged as being especially iMovie friendly? I would still share these as standard def DVDs for now until more people have blu-rays.
I don't follow what brands work better than others. At times I've seen people complain about a camera model and others pipe up saying it works fine for them. Often the person complaining doesn't understand the 'tricks' in camera use. Search the forms for the cameras you are interested in to figure out if there are problems and resolutions.
I'm thinking that Panasonic's have had issues with Apples consumer editors in the past. Perhaps they have improved.
Another problem is file size. I appreciate the non-destructive quality of iMovie, but in my shooting it results in enormous files. If I shoot, say, eight soccer games focusing on one player for a highlight film, and then edit those videos down to a five-minute final video, I still have all the overhead of the unused data. I have had five-minute videos of nearly 100 gb in size because of this. I would really like to be able to truly trash the extra unused video. I guess I could export it as DV and then re-import the movie as a new file.
Media management is a big issue that even the high end pros have issues with. I'm no pro, just a curious individual. You need a workflow that works for your particular situation.
I believe that in iMovie 08 and above, you can strip out unwanted footage and have iMovie remove it from the imported content. You do that by first rejecting pieces or whole sequences in the Events section and then telling iMovie to trash those rejects. Try it out in your copy of iMovie 11.
As for older DV material and iMovie 06, that is tricky. I suppose that once a project is done, you could do a high quality export, say using DV or AIC codecs to a file. That version of iMovie also has the ability to export to camera, so you could export the project to a 'master' tape for safe keeping. Once you are satisfied with the export, trash the iMovie project. This assumes their isn't other material still to be used. Also, you can trash entire clips from within iMovie 06 which would allow to remove unused clips. I think you need to learn the abilities of the editor and work within that.
100GB of DV material is about 7.5 hours of time and 5 minutes is just over 1GB. Even if you are working on 10 videos, that is only 1TB of data required. Given the low price for such drive capacity, I'd say buy two external 1TB drives. One for working, the other as a backup. Backing up an iMovie 06 project is a simple drag & drop since all material is within the project file. iMovie 11 is almost as easy, but comes in parts and can get complicated with reference issues for external sources of materials like pictures and music.
Sorry if I ramble too much - just lots of questions while I enter the 21st century!
No problem. This is a good place to learn. No sales pressure here.
