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Feb 07, 09 - 11:23 am Comment from: Wandering joe

Good thing it's getting some features back. 08 was a dog compared to 06 hd

Everyone always slams Apple for the feature regression between '06 and '08. It had to happen. iMovie '08 would have taken Final Cut Express's customers if it kept down the same road as '06. Not to mention '06 was getting hard to learn by many people who had no editing experience, which is what iMovie is made for. iMovie '08 and '09 are great for that crowd.

Feb 07, 09 - 01:26 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

Joe, that's what I thought as well. Until a large project came along. My daughter-in-law was the Wicked Witch in a church basement production of The Wizard of Oz and my son used two cameras each of three performances to capture it. That's twelve hours of video. Just loading it up was a chore! Then I tried editing. Didn't work. At all. Not enough RAM (1.5GB) may have been the explanation. Switched to '08 and it all worked. Sort of. At a much less sophisticated level. But ... it WORKED. Couldn't do MUCH editing, but got SOME in. We got a MOVIE out of it. So, '08 wins.

Feb 07, 09 - 01:35 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

Second Joe, my original opinion was that Apple wanted to regress iMovie to make more room for FCE. And, MAN was I "annoyed". OK, Mad As Hell and Wasn't Taking Any More. Which lasted right up to the editing experience discussed above. HD was way more powerful but demanded many more resources. I have yet to buy '09, waiting for my Quad-Core iMac, but expect it to offer many more features than '08 without a huge jump in resource usage.
I'm not a candidate for FCE, maybe 20 hours of personal editing in a year, but want as many toys as my system will support. I'm greedy, I admit it. I also have the skills, though ... that's important when it comes to using the larger feature set.

I still keep a copy of iMovie HD in my Apps folder! I never used iMovie '08 because it was so weak compared to '06. Guess I'll finally have to learn to use '09.

iMove 6 HD: Apple giveth. You pay.

iMovie '08: Apple taketh away. You pay.

iMovie '09: Apple giveth back. You pay.

Something is wrong here or what?

Feb 07, 09 - 04:39 pm Comment from: SKY LARK

Something is wrong, what is the "You pay", bit about?

Feb 07, 09 - 05:29 pm Comment from: Cubert

SKY LARK,
He's upset that the version he downloaded off a peer-to-peer network F-ed up his Mac.

Dimwits. What's with everybody using caps for the 1st letter of every word. Only dweebs do that.

People that are used to FC or FCE would never use any version of iMovie. I doubt that had anything to do with it.

I think Apple just wanted a clean slate so that they could take advantage of future intel, multi processors, OS X, etc. Remember, iMovie started out as a OS 8 program running on G4 processors. I did one of my first projects on a Umax 180 MHz PowerPC 604e and immediately maxed out my 2 GB hard drive!!!

Does it really surprise anyone that Apple would eventually have to rewrite the whole thing?

If the iLife cost any more than $79, i'd be p.o.'d but I just kept iMovie 06 and every thing was fine.

I purchased a student edition of DVD Studio Pro for $150. Registered it.
Then Apple offered a Final Cut Studio upgrade for $250 for DVD Studio Pro users, and I took the bait. On a iMac, Final Cut runs awesome and makes you forget iMovie HD. Just learn the interface and don't let it intimidate you. It didn't run great on a Macbook, but is very powerful. Once you have a sunroof, you always want one.

Feb 08, 09 - 01:06 am Comment from: Jim - TIV

As one that also blew a fuse over the feature removals from HD to 08, I gotta admit, 09 is a whole lot better. The writer gets it right. A lot has been put back in. I still use HD on a regular basis, and FC, but 09 will soon be working it's way in to my quill.

Feb 08, 09 - 11:13 am Comment from: DLMeyer

Mr Caps ... I used caps for the first letter of a quote (paraphrase?) and Cubert used it ONCE. Where do you get off saying "everybody using caps for the 1st letter of every word"?
BTW: Wicked Witch (of the West) is a character name from the musical entitled The Wizard of Oz ... perfectly standard usage.

No timeline? Still sucks then.

If memory serves, iMovie 6 was a free download for purchasers of iLife 08. The squeaky wheel got the grease.

DLMeyer,

Mr. Caps may need to take a refresher course on English grammar.

I, too, was disappointed with the feature changes in iMovie '08. For the limited amount of video editing I have time for iMovie HD worked for me (although the stripped-down version of '06 available as a free download after installing iLife '08 was limiting). I've bought 2 versions of FCE over the years, 1.0 and then 3.0 as an upgrade, and both times the interface wasn't intuitive enough for me. I didn't have time to sit down with the program and really take advantage of its features. One day I'll just have to bite the bullet and do so (By then, I'll have to upgrade FCE again!).

I professionally edit, and will tell everyone who listens, FCE/ FCP
gives better results easier, so it's worth the cost. Professional results usually require 1) finding the edit point 2) trimming it
3) leave it as a straight cut, or add a crossfade. In FCP editing video or audio is very straightforward, simply remove the bad parts. If your edit is overly complex, poor camera work is usually involved. The problem is I feel newbies try to learn 80% of imovie, which is a non-conventional editor, as opposed to 40% of FCP which translates to a basic education on solid techniques. I'm results orientated, so it only made sense for me to learn FCP, edit weddings, and have money plus a skill to move forward with. Of course, I bought books and video training also, but as I advise all young or ambitious people, often, the best course of action is to invest in yourself, shortcuts will leave you cut short.