[migeon]

Amen to that. From what I can see iMovie 09 doesn't have the control of sound that 06 had. I usually take apart the sound in the movies I have, sometimes hacking out a single word to change sentence structure of the narration; get rid of annoying "ahs", "ums", long silences etc. I don't see any of that in 09. Frakes says that 09 starts to excel over 06. Well, duh! Yes, all Apple had to do was add the features such as image stabilization to 06 and WOW, what a product. And regarding the "not everyone wants to be a Spielburg" comment, I definitely support that. iMovie 06 offered ease of use plus Spielburg exactitude so we all could do which ever we chose. I love the stabilization feature and don't care a bit about the length of time it takes. Of course it takes time. My question: can I export the resulting stabilized clip so I can get it back into iMovie 06? BTW, the whole splash bit that Schiller showed to wow the audience, could be done as easily in 06 and better. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to the reviews.

[rladd]

Wouldn't the easiest way to add audio tracks be to open the movie in GarageBand? Any downside to that?

[hillstones]

I can't wait for the complainers on this one:

"The downside to image stabilization is that it takes time: up to eight times the length of a clip to analyze that clip."

8x times longer? Wow, that is a long time, even on an Intel Mac. People are going to complain about how slow the new version is because of this new feature. A 1 minute clip to be stablized will take 8 minutes, longer clips just get progressively worse! Ouch!

Sorry, iMovie '08 sucked so bad that Apple made iMovie HD 6 available as a separate download for iLife '08 users to downgrade. iMovie '09 appears to add some features, so we will have to wait and see what the real-world experiences determine.

Funny, Apple thought YouTube would be the ultimate way to show off videos (Jobs claiming no one burns to DVD anymore), but people proved him wrong and they restored iDVD required features into iMovie '09.

[tallscot]

WintersNight said:

if you're a prosumer than Apple didn't design this with you in mind. Final Cut Express exists for a reason. as far as "glitz" themes and titles are exactally the sort of thing apple should have added it. the majority of people out there want an easy way to organize the clips of their kids school play, and a fast way to cut it together and make it look fancy.


your attitude is like criticizing a Ford Focus for not being able to go from 0-60 in under 4 seconds. THAT'S NOT WHAT IT'S DESIGNED TO DO!!!!!

What if the 2006 Ford Focus could? That's his gripe, I think.

It's now a grey area as to what is a "pro" feature and what is a feature consumers would want too. Image stabilization would be listed as a pro feature before iMovie '09, IMHO. Also, if another consumer product has the feature but iMovie does not, it's legitimate to want it.

[macnews]

I don't know about this being better than '06. I know of many TV editors who used a mac laptop and imovie '06 (and prior) to create quick simple edits. Matter of fact, if you watch CNN a few years ago with middle east clips, odds are pretty good you were watching a piece put together with iMovie '06.
As to the interface, I love and hate it. Like the previews and scanning - that is very nice and something I would love to see in FCP. What I find very confusing, and think '09 will make it worse from this article at least, is how the heck do you know which is your active material/project? The visual cues are very poor and due to the fact you can switch the screens around (in '08 at least) it is confusing. I will spend at least a few minutes getting familiar with the interface again each time I use it (about 1 every 3 months). I never had to do this with prior versions once I learned it so to me - that is bad.

[macdsl]

naw, he means iMovie '08

[Orytek]

I switched a few months ago from Final Cut Express to Premiere Pro only because Apple has decided to not support native editing of avchd files. I was hoping iMovie 09 would support it because that would signal this change to their upcoming updates for Final Cut Express and Pro. I haven't given up hope but it doesn't appear to be looking good for native avchd support. Going through an intermediate codec just isn't an option I can accept. Especially when so many entry level editors for the pc support it, like Pinnacle 12, Vegas, Ulead VideoStudio, and yes, even Nero.

[gatorade03]

Does anyone know if iMovie '09 still uses single field processing? I remember Macworld's review of iMovie 08 identified single field processing as the reason why DV projects made with iMovie '08 looked crappy when exported to DVD.

[jeffcarlson]

As someone else mentioned, iMovie '08 (and '09) does support multiple audio tracks. In fact, you're not limited to just two audio tracks as in iMovie HD 6... you can keep adding as many audio clips as you want.

(To be fair, you can add lots of audio clips to the two tracks in iMovie HD 6, but they get stacked and smashed together in the two-track interface.)

Jeff

[Jeffco8]

I misspoke - I meant to say adding all your clips from the clip viewer.
If there is a way to add say 100 clips all at once and add them to a project timeline - I will take back about 1/2 of the bad things I had to say about iMove '08 (which I believe to be the worst piece of Apple software ever released).

[parlour]

If you do not actually try out the software it is pretty logical that you will deem it horrible.

This is possible in the current iMovie ?08: click on the first clip, scroll to the last clip, shift-click on it. Bravo, you just selected everything. Now drag all that stuff into an event. All done.

Pretty logical. I must say that it would be even cooler if a simple Command-A with no clip selected (and the clip viewer active) would select all clips (at the moment that does nothing), but considering that what you do is not what any average user of iMovie will do all the time (Why use all your footage? Don?t you make any mistakes? Perfect?), the way it works is now is pretty comfortable and even logical (Finder behaves in the same way with files and folders).

[Dan Frakes]

mvallance said:

Apple now needs to develop a new iMovie - one that is so simple to use that teachers can focus on teaching WITH the technology and not ABOUT the technology. iMovie 1 to HD helped teachers and students so much to focus. iMovie 8 and 9 is just too complex. We will stay with iMovie HD at our institute. I don't see youngsters creating fantastic movies with 08 like they did when the original iMovie was released. I thought education was in Apple's genes :-/

I'm a bit confused by your comments here. In my opinion, iMovie '08 is considerably easier to use -- especially for a beginner -- than iMovie HD was. (In fact, that was the biggest criticism of '08: It was too simple and lacking too many features.)

[Dan Frakes]

macnews said:

I don't know about this being better than '06.

To be clear, I didn't say it's better. I said that it bests HD ('06) in many ways. But HD appears to still best '09 in many ways.

Quote

What I find very confusing, and think '09 will make it worse from this article at least, is how the heck do you know which is your active material/project? The visual cues are very poor and due to the fact you can switch the screens around (in '08 at least) it is confusing.

From what I saw, '09 is better in this respect. You can browse all your projects in the Project Library, but when you choose one, the Library slides out of the way to make room for the chosen project. The title bar of the iMovie window shows the name of the current/active project, and an iPhone-like back-arrow button at the top-left corner lets you go back to the Project Library.

[Dan Frakes]

Warning said:

Beggars can't be choosers, eh, Frakes?

I and my fellow editors are still trying to figure out what this comment actually means ;)