New iMovie- Good or Bad?

[GFLPraxis]

What's with all the FUD? I'm trying to figure out what iMovie legitamitely has, and I'm seeing posts that claim it doesn't have stuff I saw Steve Jobs do during the keynote (transitions, for example), so I don't know what to believe.

Honestly, the old iMovie was NOT that intuitive (nor were other video editors); the new interface looks easier than every other video editor I've ever used.

I'm curious about system requirements. FCP required a good GPU for real time effects. Will iMovie support skimming on my MacBook with a GMA 950?

I figure there might be less transitions and effects than iMovie HD, which I'm fine with; they did say they started over from scratch. I want to know, though, if it supports two audio tracks; I want to do a podcast with both a voiceover and music.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I figure there might be less transitions and effects than iMovie HD, which I'm fine with; they did say they started over from scratch. I want to know, though, if it supports two audio tracks; I want to do a podcast with both a voiceover and music.

I'm very interested in this also as I would hope it still has two if not maybe four audio tracks to support. If not this new iLife might not be for me after all. I don't do heavy things but some stuff I do would be nice to "add in" extra audio tracks at the least.
I think this is like other new things where I have to go and play around with it at the Apple Store for my own peace of mind

 

[GFLPraxis]

There's an easier solution. When I installed iLife with iMovie 4 on my Pismo, I had noticed that iMovie 2 was pretty fast and had sound effects iMovie 4 didn't, so I simply renamed iMovie.app to iMovie2.app and when I installed iLife I suddenly had two versions of iMovie, both 2 and 4.

It shouldn't be hard; rename iMovie to iMovieHD.app. Install the new iLife and bam, you've got two versions of iMovie.


Really, if it supports two audio tracks, I'll be perfectly happy with deleting the old iMovie for it. I LOVE this new interface; I was always frustrated with how long it took to edit video in the past. And iMovie's encoder is HORRIBLE, iSquint is easily four times faster when encoding MPEG-4. I'm glad to see it die as long as this new one isn't missing anything major. It looks amazing.

 

[belovedmonster]

I want to do a podcast with both a voiceover and music.

Yes it will. Having a background tune picked for the video doesn't stop you from then using the voice over recording feature. If you watch the new iLife 08 tutorials for iMovie there is a video on how you record voice over.

Though you might wanna consider using garageband if voice over is like super important to the video. Just open the iMovie into Garageband and then use the dedicated audio app to do the audio

 

[GFLPraxis]

Yes it will. Having a background tune picked for the video doesn't stop you from then using the voice over recording feature. If you watch the new iLife 08 tutorials for iMovie there is a video on how you record voice over.

Though you might wanna consider using garageband if voice over is like super important to the video. Just open the iMovie into Garageband and then use the dedicated audio app to do the audio

Perfect; and if I already have the recording as an audio file, I can overlay that over the part of the video I want, right?

 

[belovedmonster]

Yup.

Worst come to worst... Apple is allowing people to download iMovie 06 for free if you have iLife 08. Maybe because they knew people would moan?

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html

 

[GFLPraxis]

Then why the heck are people complaining? As far as I can tell, this has MOST of the features of iMovie 6, + a ton of incredible new things, and Apple is making the old one available for free if what you want to do is one of those few old features that it lacks.

Sigh. FUD is stupid.

 

[dswoodley]

So much fud. Can people please get their facts straight?

exactly what facts are in contention?

 

[sigamy]

Then why the heck are people complaining? As far as I can tell, this has MOST of the features of iMovie 6, + a ton of incredible new things, and Apple is making the old one available for free if what you want to do is one of those few old features that it lacks.

Sigh. FUD is stupid.

Sigh. iMovie '08 does not have MOST of the features of iMovie HD. Not even close. iMovie HD gave us full motion graphics themes, basic color correction, audio filters, video effects and a plugin architecture. Most iMovie fans were looking for more of the same in addition to more stability and improved performance.

And what incredible new things does iMovie '08 have? New ways to scub and trim video? Please.

This is similar to Apple including TextEdit in iWork and calling it Pages '08.

 

[yoyo5280]

Well, iMovie 08 has BETTER color correction, and do you know for sure that it can't use plugins??? It can also use kind of motion effects, and it does have audio editing. Want to really edit, you can put your audio track in garageband.

 

[faustfire]

I use FCP for professional editing, but iMovie has always been so much quicker and less hassle, that I often choose it over FCP to put together projects quickly.

I call B.S. on this one. Anyone who is at all proficient at FCP would not find iMovie to be quicker and less of a hassle. iMovie has the most backward, god awful workflow I have ever worked with. iMovie would only be quicker if you were extremely unknowledgeable within FCP.

 

[jd1]

I call B.S. on this one. Anyone who is at all proficient at FCP would not find iMovie to be quicker and less of a hassle. iMovie has the most backward, god awful workflow I have ever worked with. iMovie would only be quicker if you were extremely unknowledgeable within FCP.

Or FCE (for those not so rich) i personally like the look of it, not the features. but the new name (excluding HD) was a smart decidsion.

 

[SWC]

exactly what facts are in contention?

The ones I can remember that are there but people say arent are:

-Transitions
-Multiple Audio Tracks
-Video Effects
-Insert Black
-Start music before video (just insert black)

there are some others. It looks like some of the audio editing features that are missing you can handle in garage band according to some other members.

While I won't really use these I find it a better workflow as I go from FCP <-> soundtrack a lot as both tools are meant for different things rather than trying to cram tons of crap into one app.

Also what exactly do themes do in imovie? I can't really see them adding anything that isn't titling (which is there) or a menu (which is in idvd). I've never used it so I'm just asking.

 

[GFLPraxis]

The ones I can remember that are there but people say arent are:

-Transitions
-Multiple Audio Tracks
-Video Effects
-Insert Black
-Start music before video (just insert black)

there are some others. It looks like some of the audio editing features that are missing you can handle in garage band according to some other members.

While I won't really use these I find it a better workflow as I go from FCP <-> soundtrack a lot as both tools are meant for different things rather than trying to cram tons of crap into one app.

Also what exactly do themes do in imovie? I can't really see them adding anything that isn't titling (which is there) or a menu (which is in idvd). I've never used it so I'm just asking.

Never did figure out what the themes did.

And yeah, that's the stuff I was referring to. As far as I can tell, most of it is wrong; transitions, multiple audio tracks, etc are there. Audio rubberbanding isn't though, but you can have it fade.

 

[SWC]

Honestly my biggest fears about all of this is that apple is starting to abandon optical media creation. They pretty much left iDVD untouched (from what I gather) and they didn't touch DVD Studio Pro with the last FCS update. The only thing I can figure if they aren't abandoning it is that they are completely revamping their tools to take advantage of HD burners they will add to their lines.

 

[Ghibli]

I'm not a professional user, but I love to do some small demo videos for some friends (at present time I'm editing a wedding video for a friend of mine). Using more than an audio track and the ability to fade in and out them is a must for me. From what I've read this seems to be not possible anymore (unless opening the audio track in garageband- which is so time consuming when you try to adjust video and audio on the fly). Is anyone with a REAL copy of iMovie 08 at hand able to confirm this? Please do not respond just to say "I saw SJ do this and that". I watched the keynote too, but that isn't clear.

Thanks in advance for any reply.

 

[Cormac]

Well, iMovie 08 has BETTER color correction, and do you know for sure that it can't use plugins??? It can also use kind of motion effects, and it does have audio editing. Want to really edit, you can put your audio track in garageband.

>We got our copy of iLife '08 today. The new release of iMovie '08 is a
>complete rewrite from the ground up and lacks the support for plug-ins.
>There are just a handful of transitions and titles, and no effects in this
>new version. It is nice if you need to create a very basic video quickly,
>but you will likely want to keep using iMovie 6 for most of your video
>projects. Fortunately, if you install iLife 08, a copy of iMovie 6 stays on
>your system. Please bug Apple to update iMovie'08 to support third party
>plug-ins. Hope this info helps.

>Best Regards,

>GeeThree Customer Service

************

I have @ $150 worth of plugins from GeeThree that are now worthless in iMovie 08. For right now, I am sticking with iMovie 6. Probably will if and when I get iLife 08.

 

[imacanyone]

no thanks

i do not like the new imovie at all. i have used imovie for years. i will continue to use the "old" imovie. in my opinion the "new" additions do not out weigh how basic the program has become. if the old imovie is english then the new imovie is spanish.

 

[Father Jack]

Has anyone else discovered that the help files in iMovie 08 are the iMovie 06 ones !!!!! (or at least the ones I checked. e.g. Fading music tracks etc.) ...

 

[DavidLeblond]

Ok, so I just used iMovie '08 for the first time and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

I had about an hour of footage of my daughter's birth that people have been wanting to see. So I loaded it into iMovie. This took some time because iMovie crashed about 10 times while trying to import it (each time I had to wipe the preferences file to get it to load again.) I figure this will be fixed in the next patch, so I'm not worried.

I was afraid of the lack of a timeline, but for doing what I was doing I think '08 has it spot on. And I understand why Apple is going away from the timeline. iMovie isn't necessarily for the creative, just like iPhoto isn't. iMovie is geared at editing home movies.

This video took me about 10 minutes to create. (not including importing) The same video would have taken me at least an hour on iMovie '06. I see why they did what they did. Who needs themes and effects? All that does it put the "I made this in iMovie!" stamp all over it.

 

[dextertangocci]

I do not have the new iLife, but I'm going off what I have read and seen on the internet.

It looks like iMovie has been stripped down clean from what is used to be.

So far, I think there are no:

-Themes
-Transitions
-Audio Rubberbanding
-Multiple Audio Tracks
-Extracting Audio
-Video Effects (even fast/slow/reverse?)
-Timeline
-Insert Black
-Start music before video

This is rediculous. Apple made a huge mistake with this. iMovie 08 now has less features than iMovie 1 came out back on OS 9!

Yay! That means I'll be able to understand it now

 

[DavidLeblond]

Yay! That means I'll be able to understand it now

Yeah, seriously.

I remember I was going to edit my wedding video in old iMovie, thats 3 hours of video... wasn't happening.

New iMovie > old iMovie.

Let me go over some of the "missing features."

Themes: Not available in iMovie '08, so you can't make your road trip movie look like every other iMovie road trip movie.

Transitions: Nope, they're there.

Audio rubberbanding: ??? not sure what this is.

Multiple Audio Tracks: Technically, they're there.

Extracting Audio: Not sure, haven't tried it.

Video Effects: Not there. Not missed either. Again, this is for home movies... why do you need to make your home movie go in reverse?

Timeline: It may not look like a traditional timeline, but the project view is pretty much a timeline... and it is so much more usable too.

Insert Black: I didn't even look for this. I just made a black jpg and threw it in there......... is that REALLY that difficult?

Start Music Before Video: As mentioned before, just do an insert black (see previous point) at the beginning of the movie.


This is from someone who has used both programs... I admit when I saw the preview of iMovie during the keynote, I thought the same things. "No theme? No timeline? This is a HUGE step backward." But now that I've used it, I see exactly what he meant when he told the story about the engineer who couldn't make a home movie in old iMovie. It was cumbersome as hell to work with clips. Working with clips in '08 is easy as hell.

Give iMovie '08 a shot before you shoot it down and then download '06 if you still feel like it sucks.

 

[sushi]

Yeah, seriously.

I remember I was going to edit my wedding video in old iMovie, thats 3 hours of video... wasn't happening.

New iMovie > old iMovie.

<snip>

Give iMovie '08 a shot before you shoot it down and then download '06 if you still feel like it sucks.

Good informative post.

However, I would add that Apple must have anticipated folks not wanting to switch so when you install iMovie 08 they keep iMovie 06 installed as well.

My guess is that they will update iMovie O8 with the "missing features" based upon customer feedback.

As for me, I will wait judgement until after I've had more time to play with iMovie 08.

 

[Applespider]

Just because you're not using some of those features doesn't mean that others aren't. I'd be happy to use iMovie 08 for some quickie projects where the output is under 2-3 minutes. That's what I used to use the old iMovie non-timeline view for. But I can't see using it for making holiday trips where I really want to end up with a 10 minutes DVD for the holiday participants since there the timeline feature is critical.

Themes: Not available in iMovie '08, so you can't make your road trip movie look like every other iMovie road trip movie.

I never used the roadtrip themes but the white/black reflections and the other big letter theme were useful on occasion.

Transitions: Nope, they're there.

But not all of them - and they are more limited than they were before in terms of timings etc.

Extracting Audio: Not sure, haven't tried it.[/quote
It's not there and that's annoying. It was really useful to be able to take the background noise from one clip (say of the sea crashing onto the beach and overlay it on the other beach clips where the wind or speech interrupted the sound).

Video Effects: Not there. Not missed either. Again, this is for home movies... why do you need to make your home movie go in reverse?

When you realise that it would have looked better to pan from left to right rather than right to left when you put the movie together or zoom out rather than in? When you want to speed up the footage for amusement factor? And yes, I've used a few of the others too.

Timeline: It may not look like a traditional timeline, but the project view is pretty much a timeline... and it is so much more usable too.

It's usable for very short pieces. It doesn't work so well when trying to cue music in exactly etc.

Not being able to set the photos start/stop for Ken Burns is bugging too. I rarely used the default option and tweaked it.

Give iMovie '08 a shot before you shoot it down and then download '06 if you still feel like it sucks.

I'd be delighted too for shorter projects except it doesn't work on my G4 so I'll have to finish the current piece in iMovie HD. I had a quick play with it in a store to try out a few things.

Overall, I think iMovie has been dumbed down - which isn't too bad since they're still giving out iMovie 06. It is a v1 app again so let's see how it develops.

But there are a lot of semi-serious users who don't need the power of FCE (or the cost) who now can't work as they used to.

 

[liketom]

not keen on iMovie 08 - for a basic user it is kinda nice if you just want simple things - but i think Final Cut Pro features wrapped around the new interface of imovie would be a killer app

but that will not happen will it , o well hello iMovie 06