[webraider]

[quote name='MacKayaker']

>

webraider said:

> However, your feature can be High Defintion. iMovie '09 shines over iMovie '06 and '08 with it's support of High Def footage. You can burn your HighDef movie to a Standard DVD fine with iDVD. It will still be a High Defintion output.
This isn't correct. The reason iMovieHD 06 was named that was because it supported HD footage and output. I have customers using 06 for just that. And certainly 08 had the ability as well, as has iDVD since iLife 06.

It is correct. I know '06 supported HD input however, '06 converted all footage to DV when it imported and then was sent to iDVD encoded as Mpeg 2. iMovie '09 uses the HD spec .264 natively which is better than DV. However, I'm referring to the way iMovie '09 handles Aspect ratio which in my opinion is much more intuitive. iMovie '09 also supports Mpeg 2 directly without re-encoding it which iMovie HD did not do.

[MacKayaker]

[quote name='webraider']
> [quote name='MacKayaker']
>
> >

webraider said:

> > However, your feature can be High Defintion. iMovie '09 shines over iMovie '06 and '08 with it's support of High Def footage. You can burn your HighDef movie to a Standard DVD fine with iDVD. It will still be a High Defintion output.
> This isn't correct. The reason iMovieHD 06 was named that was because it supported HD footage and output. I have customers using 06 for just that. And certainly 08 had the ability as well, as has iDVD since iLife 06.It is correct. I know '06 supported HD input however, '06 converted all footage to DV when it imported and then was sent to iDVD encoded as Mpeg 2. iMovie '09 uses the HD spec .264 natively which is better than DV. However, I'm referring to the way iMovie '09 handles Aspect ratio which in my opinion is much more intuitive. iMovie '09 also supports Mpeg 2 directly without re-encoding it which iMovie HD did not do.

Again - not quite accurate in your info. The H.264 spec is an output format - intended for final output/delivery. DV is intended for editing. Whether one is better than the other only depends on what one is doing with the video. The DV format is far less compressed, so it's terrible for delivery of a long presentation and won't fit on most media. DV is used for clip collections, etc. but that's because it's a decent compromise between quality and size compared to uncompressed video. The H.264 is excellent for output, because it compresses very well, while retaining great quality - but like most video codecs, it is throwing away a ton of frame info in the compression process, as do the formats used for DVDs. Most of the video codecs are for video what JPEG is for still images - they allow us to throw away significant amounts of info and still get quality viewing or play back, but few of them stand up to editing because the content no longer contains full frames, like are needed for editing.



You can get software to convert homemade DVDs back to the DV format for editing, but it's like an old VHS copy of a copy - what you get is quite compromised compared even to the quality one sees when watching the same DVD. It's pretty tough to accurately recreate info once it has been thrown away.



This is a big part of the problem with a lot of the modern video cameras - in an attempt to save file space they compress the video significantly more than most editing formats would - fine for playback - not so great if you intend to capture and edit the video.

[webraider]

When I Imported in iMovie '06 HD.. My High Def footage stored as DV. When I import into iMovie '08 or '09, my footage is stored as mv4. There is no other option. However, my final output to DVD is better quality than what I got in iMovie '06. Whether this is beause of better encoding to DVD or mv4 which is a type of Mpeg 4 video.I don't know. I've noticed that mv4 takes up significantly less space.

I know that DV is more of a "RAW" footage. but .mv4 much to my suprise works much better in iMovie '09 than DV did in iMovie '06 where I don't loose quality from the original to the output of a DVD. It shouldn't be that way but it is.

[MacKayaker]

And I would suggest that is more a function of iDVD encoding quality, which has gotten better with each iteration, borrowing from DVD Studio Pro. I might be wrong, as I know people have been working on higher quality compressed formats for editing because less data means less horsepower required to encode and decode the content on the fly. But, as I first suggested, I would be more inclined to attribute the difference to iDVD encoding.

[webraider]

MacKayaker said:

And I would suggest that is more a function of iDVD encoding quality, which has gotten better with each iteration, borrowing from DVD Studio Pro. I might be wrong, as I know people have been working on higher quality compressed formats for editing because less data means less horsepower required to encode and decode the content on the fly. But, as I first suggested, I would be more inclined to attribute the difference to iDVD encoding.

Except that even my quicktime Exports from iMovie '09 are better than '06. a lot of Camera's encode in Mpeg 2 so Mpeg 4 makes sense. Keeping stuff in the same format its in when recorded actually makes the most sense. Changin Mpeg 2 to DV doesn't add more frame information because the information isn't there to begin with. That's like going from a high quality jpeg to a tiff file and back to a jpeg. It's also like going from an AAC file to an AIFF file then back. You don't loose anything from the AAC to AIFF file, but you loose it coming back down. However, if you edit in AAC and leave it (or a derivative) you loose less.

At any rate.. iMovie '08 and even better '09 handle this better than iMovie HD '06.

[rab777hp]

Is this link you posted legal? I mean, like, people with very old versions of iMovie could pick up a free upgrade here.

[wolfe]

The Apple provided download of iMovie6HD will only work if you have a copy of iLife'08 on your computer. It will not work with any earlier version nor iLife'09. Legal I don't know.

[kill953]

wolfe said:

The Apple provided download of iMovie6HD will only work if you have a copy of iLife'08 on your computer. It will not work with any earlier version nor iLife'09. Legal I don't know.

Fwiw, it is utterly trivial to get around the block that prevents you from installing on a non-iMovie '08 system, and it doesn't require any hacking, serial codes or third-party tools.

[Steve_S]

[quote name='webraider']
>

Steve_S said:

Thank God it's NOT the iMovie '06 interface.. It's 10 times better.

I think you'd have a hard time qualifying that statement. ;-)

>Now we can finally do some real editing and fast.
Yeah, maybe for a 2 minute YouTube video with minimal edits. How about a real project?

>In reality you can make more precise adjustments with '09 than you ever could with '06 and I'm using '09 now.
You were already challenged on this claim and failed to describe how you can make "more" precise adjustments in '09. How many audio tracks can you work with? Can you do ducking luck you can in '06? No? Tell me again about the "more" precise edits... ;-)

>Incidently the UI of '08 is much better than '06 too. '06's are stuck with a 10 year old way of doing things.
What like the use of industry standard conventions, you know, like timelines, etc? Sorry, abandoning such common necessities is not a step forward.

>I know FCP users who wish Apple would adapt the '08 interface more. I have no doubt FCP will actually be heading there more. Get used to it.

LOL! Don't bet on it. iMovie was dumbed down to the point where anyone with real editing experience has to upgrade to FCE or FCP or Premiere, or Avid, etc. You can make an argument that the YouTube crowd doesn't need such "advanced" features. I'm quite confident that if Apple forced this interface onto their FCP customers, they'd lose market share instantly. Let's see what happens with the next release.

[MacKayaker]

webraider said:

I know FCP users who wish Apple would adapt the '08 interface more. I
have no doubt FCP will actually be heading there more. Get used to it.
> Steve_S wrote:
> LOL! Don't bet on it. iMovie was dumbed down to the point where anyone
> with real editing experience has to upgrade to FCE or FCP or Premiere,
> or Avid, etc. You can make an argument that the YouTube crowd doesn't
> need such "advanced" features. I'm quite confident that if Apple forced this interface onto their FCP customers, they'd lose market share instantly. Let's see what happens with the next release.

I whole heartedly agree with this statement. Professionals do not like companies mucking with major parts of the interface. In a production environment you don't have time to relearn a program with an updated release. If you don't like how the program works, then you don't upgrade or drop it and invest in one that works in a way that makes sense.

[hmurchison]

iMovie 06 is certainly not a modern looking app and I do believe the consensus would arrive at that decision.

Define real project. iMovie was never intended for creating longer movies.

You can do ducking (it's an option in many HUD panels) I don't know the functional limit of audio tracks but

again this is a consumer app. For timelines and other features Final Cut Express is the more ideal solution.



Apple has refocused iMovie into being what it's primary intention was. A simple movie editor.

[MacKayaker]

hmurchison said:

Apple has refocused iMovie into being what it's primary intention was. A simple movie editor.

Perhaps, in the end we'll have to agree to disagree. iMovie was a simple movie editor. But with the current interface - I think it's pretty clear from the reactions of most - doesn't represent a simple movie editor. I certainly don't find it to be so. FCE and FCP have a simpler interface IMO - just too many options to be considered for simple projects.

[hmurchison]

My iLife should arrive today so I'll post my response to using iMovie 09.

I skipped iLife 08 so I never used iMovie 08.

My goals will be a quick an easy movie that's presentable.

[MacKayaker]

I look forward to hearing how it goes for you.