iMovie... what is my problem?

Not sure what to tell you other than I'm currently running iMovie just fine on a 3-year-old G3/400 Powerbook. You shouldn't be getting 'jitters' on a G4/800 iBook. Perhaps the jitters were caused when you imported the video to your iBook (dropped frames). If you bought it at an Apple Store, take it back and show them the problem... they should be able to help you troubleshoot.

 

I recommend upgrading to iMovie 4, iMovie 3 has given me a lot of problems with dropped frames, and destroying audio. I have hear 4 is a lot more reliable and less prone to these kinds of problems.

 

What video camera are you using? All digital video cameras are not the same and you may not be compatible.

 

I agree with the iMovie 4 recommendation; I never could get iMovie 3 to work satisfactorily for me, but iMovie 4 seems pretty good.

That said, my first guess would be that either you're running something in the background that's eating enough processor time or requiring enough disk access that playback stutters, or they were added when you imported the video to begin with. If your hard drive is fragmented, or for some other reason wasn't quite fast enough to handle the rate of incomming data when you imported, you might get something like that.

Try re-importing the clip and see if it looks the same. No jitters = problem the first time you imported. Identical jitters = problem with the clip on the camera. Similar but not identical jitters = something else.

 

Try exporting your movie, and see if the exported copy plays properly. I sometimes have trouble with iMovie dropping frames in the editor, but the finished product is always fine.