[Macworld]

Post your comments for iMovie ?09: What you need to know here

[Warning]

Beggars can't be choosers, eh, Frakes?

[derkathon]

Second paragraph:
"...it appears to be a dramatic improvement that even bests iMovie ‘08 in many ways."
Is that meant to be a reference to iMovie '06?

[WilfredLaurier]

Any word on 64-bit support. With Snow Leopard inbound this year, now would be the perfect time to add 64-bit support to the iLife suite.

[spim]

my dumb comment edited - didn't read enough

[Jeffco8]

Can you select all the clips and add them to your timeline?
iMove 08 did not allow you to do this! 95% of my home movies are created by importing all of my video and making a DVD or Quicktime video.
Chapter markers have returned, but can I use them in a Quicktime export?
It seems to me Apple thinks everyone wants to be Steven Spielberg. I don't want to edit in most cases - just transfer what I have captured to a medium I can view.

[Schneb]

Adding features to iMovie 08 is like adding scenes to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace to make it a better film.
Rather than focusing on useless fancies such as titling and Indy maps. They should have taken a Snow Leopard approach and fixed what was wrong. This they did only partly with its timeline editing, which was a disaster from those who work in prosumer editing.
Not to totally down it, the Stabilization looks awesome and the ability to finally work with audio is a welcome change. Perhaps by iLife 10 we will see a proper timeline approach with less glitz and effecty interface.

[Casademike]

Is there multiple audio tracks so you can run a VO and some background music? Does the precision editor allow you to properly line up sound effects with specific frames? That's what I miss most from iMovie 06. Even if it just had 2 stereo audio tracks it would do.

[Schneb]

Casademike said:

Is there multiple audio tracks so you can run a VO and some background music? Does the precision editor allow you to properly line up sound effects with specific frames? That's what I miss most from iMovie 06. Even if it just had 2 stereo audio tracks it would do.

Yes, I think it can from what I saw in the tutorial video at Apple. And, btw, there were more than 2 stereo tracks in iMovie 06 because you could layer sounds one on top of the other. Many people did not realize how powerful that iLife app truly was!

[dreyfus]

Wow, quite a lot of stuff that was not even mentioned or detailed during the keynote... While I normally use Final Cut Pro, I used to resort to iMovie for quick and private stuff a lot until the dreaded '08 version came out. But with the precision editor, slowmo, shake removal and (fanfare!) DVD chapter markers (drool) added I will be back. Hopefully a plugin interface will make it into the 2010 edition - some of the third party stuff was quite nice. Great update it seems (hopefully the stability is also improved). Did you check, if the library location can be changed now?
Astonishing how many things they did not mention, I was also quite surprised when reading up on GarageBand 09... a lot of sweet stuff that should be more important to most people than the lesson feature...

[Casademike]

I know I used VO, background music and sound effects in a lot of different vids. That's why I was disapointed with iMovie 08 - couldn't even really properly work with the single audio track you were allowed.

[Schneb]

Best to wait until Macworld actually gets their hands on a copy for a thorough review. My mistake last year was running to the Apple Store to buy iLife, only to be severly shocked and disappointed at the hack job done to my beloved iMovie. If it were not for the brilliant improvement to GarageBand, I would have demanded my money back!

[webraider]

Jeffco8 said:

Can you select all the clips and add them to your timeline?
iMove 08 did not allow you to do this!

I'm not sure what you mean here. You can very easily select all you the clips in your timeline in iMovie '08

Quote

Chapter markers have returned, but can I use them in a Quicktime export?

Although I haven't played with it yet, I have put the same markers that iDVD responds to, in a clip via GarageBand, and then viewed it in QuickTime. It works, so I'm assuming that would be the case here. QuickTime does respond to "Chapter Markers".

Quote

It seems to me Apple thinks everyone wants to be Steven Spielberg. I don't want to edit in most cases - just transfer what I have captured to a medium I can view.

iMovie '08 has always been quicker about this than '06 and I think '09 will be the same. (more stable than '08, and faster)

[webraider]

Schneb said:

Adding features to iMovie 08 is like adding scenes to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace to make it a better film.

Sorry, but I disagree with you. I think iMovie '08 was so much better than iMovie '06, and I know some pro's who hope that Final Cut Adopts more of an iMovie '08 feel to it's work flow. a "Prosumer" should quite honestly step up to Final Cut Expres however if you want to do Truly Cinematic stuff, but I believe '09 is the best Consumer iMovie ever released. Definetly more powerful than '06