[bastion]

As much as I like the feature set of iMovie HD, I have to disagree (with my assertion that iMovie 6 wasn't that difficult to use)
Perhaps I had an atypical affinity for it, but I don't recall having any difficulty doing basic import/edit/output cycles when I first started, or moving on to more significant editing tasks. Quite simple, for example, to put chapter breaks into an old home movie that had been imported from VHS.

[elroth]

"Need to grab a shot out of a clip? Easyjust skim, click and drag the portion of the shot you want, then click and drag into the project window."
Just one little problem - you can't grab exactly what you want. There is no frame-accurate editing. You can't stop at a particualr point in the footage - you click "in the neighborhood," and take what iMovie 08 gives you (or extend it a half second before or after).

[CallMeMatt]

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That said, I'm so glad I made a decision regarding my Sony HC3 camcorder that I stuck with since I got it last year: I captured all my videos to HD using a program from Apple's Firewire SDK, DVHSCap.app, which leaves my videos as unedited whole .m2t files complete with time code... in other words, bit-perfect copies of my tapes. M2t files are not convenient to edit with any of Apple's programs (the workflow requires MPEG Streamclip conversion to AIC) or to watch (requires VLC, which has some trouble with .m2t), but they're perfectly ready for future editing in Sony Vegas. If I had not made this decision last year I would now be faced with reimporting all my tapes. With over 30 hours of accumulated videos, I would have wasted a lot of time just on the reimportation.

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Machound, I'm in the same camp as you, and I'm interested in learning more about this.... I would like to archive all my DV (not HD) footage to disk to make it easier to work with, but I really do want a bit-accurate copy of the tape contents, not a transcoded or proprietary database format. It seems that the video catalog feature in iMovie 08 will not do what I want? Is there a website somewhere that I can use to learn more about these file formats etc.? I was considering using something like FootTrack, CatDV, iDive, etc. to keep my video organized. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Thanks for any help!

[Machound]

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Machound, I'm in the same camp as you, and I'm interested in learning more about this.... I would like to archive all my DV (not HD) footage to disk to make it easier to work with, but I really do want a bit-accurate copy of the tape contents, not a transcoded or proprietary database format. It seems that the video catalog feature in iMovie 08 will not do what I want? Is there a website somewhere that I can use to learn more about these file formats etc.? I was considering using something like FootTrack, CatDV, iDive, etc. to keep my video organized. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Thanks for any help!

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I'm not sure about video cataloguing software. I've read positive reports about Delicious Library.
To get unbroken DV recordings onto your hard drive, I've used a free program Vidi by Mitz Pettel with excellent results. Although it says it's for Formac DV devices I used it with my Canopus ADVC 300 A-to-D video encoder. Vidi should work with most DV camcorders.

For video terminology Wikipedia may be a decent place to start. I'm not sure there's any single page that will tell you everything. You might want to become active in specialty forums for your camcorder, for instance SonyHDVinfo for Sony high definition cams or pana3ccduser.com for Panasonic camcorders. There are lots of other specialty web pages where cam owners trade tips. Good luck.

[montgomery_burns]

Can Final Cut Express edit MPEG-4/H.264 content? Can iDVD burn Final Cut Express projects, or does Apple want people to buy Final Cut Studio for that?

[Machound]

I think you answered your own question, didn't you? Maybe the analogy of a blind man wandering in the desert isn't correct after all. I hope Apple doesn't really think this way. Planned obsolescence seldom works well as long term business plan despite its short term appeal to some bean counters.

[Czachorski]

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There are TWO issues here.
One is, is iMovie 08 a good product for people who want a very simple video editor?
The other is, is Apple leaving more advance video users high and dry by removing iMovie HD and replacing it with a much more simple video editor?

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Well said, but there's a third issue: HDV camcorder owners are left holding an empty bag. Forget all the U.I. concerns. We can't use iMovie '08 at all with our camcorders except in 480i mode. And the people who imported dozens of 1080i tapes into iMovie HD can no longer see nor access thier recordings except by using the EOL'ed iMovie HD. Thanks a lot, Apple!
A number of people writing here seem to think a polished Final Cut Express update is due soon. I see no evidence to support that thinking. I find lots of evidence that FCE is being quietly EOL'ed, just as iMovie HD was EOL'ed. FCE is another un-Mac-like program with a steep learning curve. It shares many of iMovie HD's shortcomings, such as poor video transcoding quality and lack of native MPEG2 (HDV) support. Apple needs to get busy working on FCE or give FCE a proper funeral!
I've been upset with Apple's crppy MPEG2 support for years, and that's not going to get any better. Meanwhile, the Windows OS alternatives to this Apple mess just keep getting better. Sony Vegas has a huge-and-growing following including quite a few former Mac users. It's the new "switch" campaign in reverse. Sony Vegas, BTW, offers no-hassles Blu-Ray burning since last year. It works directly with HDV files (.m2t) without intermediate codecs. It reportedly has superb transcoding quality, unlike Apple's video editors (even FCS). The downside to Vegas, I've read, is its learning curve for those used to other NLEs.
I'll jump on the Sony Vegas bandwagon once version 8 becomes available this autumn. Bye-bye Apple video editing! Hello Sony Vegas!

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I just finished importing and editing HDV video in beautiful 1080 full resolution in iMovie '08. What, exactly, was the basis of your statement about the unusability for HDV camcorders? You seem quite upset and aggressive about a fact you don't even have straight. Let this news be good news for you. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Machound]

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I just finished importing and editing HDV video in beautiful 1080 full resolution in iMovie '08. What, exactly, was the basis of your statement about the unusability for HDV camcorders? You seem quite upset and aggressive about a fact you don't even have straight. Let this news be good news for you. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Wow! Your experience runs exactly contrary to what Mike Curtis wrote in this iMovie review. Let me refresh your memory:

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For interlaced video such as DV and 1080i HDV, iMovie now uses single-field processing. This means every other horizontal line of the video is thrown out, which reduces the sharpness of the footage. High definition (HD) footage is processed internally at 960-by-540 pixels at most, and thats not as high resolution or sharp as it could be (and was in prior versions), but with the output from many HD consumer cameras, the visible difference between Full (1,920-by-1,080) and Large (960-by-540) will likely be slight to negligible for most users. In short, if you want maximum quality output from an HD device, dont use iMovie 08.

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I don't think I was being excessively harsh. I do have my facts straight. iMovie '08 lost 1080i HDV editing and that defeats the purpose of owning a 1080i camcorder. If I wanted to produce SD video I would have bought an SD camcorder.

[Czachorski]

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I just finished importing and editing HDV video in beautiful 1080 full resolution in iMovie '08. What, exactly, was the basis of your statement about the unusability for HDV camcorders? You seem quite upset and aggressive about a fact you don't even have straight. Let this news be good news for you. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

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Wow! Your experience runs exactly contrary to what Mike Curtis wrote in this iMovie review. Let me refresh your memory:

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For interlaced video such as DV and 1080i HDV, iMovie now uses single-field processing. This means every other horizontal line of the video is thrown out, which reduces the sharpness of the footage. High definition (HD) footage is processed internally at 960-by-540 pixels at most, and thats not as high resolution or sharp as it could be (and was in prior versions), but with the output from many HD consumer cameras, the visible difference between Full (1,920-by-1,080) and Large (960-by-540) will likely be slight to negligible for most users. In short, if you want maximum quality output from an HD device, dont use iMovie 08.

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I don't think I was being excessively harsh. I do have my facts straight. iMovie '08 lost 1080i HDV editing and that defeats the purpose of owning a 1080i camcorder. If I wanted to produce SD video I would have bought an SD camcorder.

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Strange how I am editing in something besides 480i, which is what you said. Even the article refernces a higher resolution that 480i.
PS - just opened up the file I imported and edited in iMovie in quicktime. Check the video settings - 1920 x 1080 and the single-field toggle is unchecked. Looks like full HD to me. What is the basis for this single field editing at 960x540? I am just not seeing it in the footage I am working with.
Edit: I just did some additional searching and played with exporting clips from iMovie '08. It appears that it will indeed import at full native HD, but the internal processing indeed appears to be limited to the 960x540. My basis for this is that when selecting 'export to quicktime' video that was imported in full 1080 HD has a present for size that says 960x540 (current), which makes me believe that as soon as you drag a clip to the timeline area, it does indeed work with it at a limited resolution. The single field toggle, however, is still unchecked, so perhaps that is for a display to screen only?
Clearly, this limitiation puts the HD editing into the consumer-level only realm. Like any good consumer, the question I was asking was - how will this affect the quality of the finished edit, given my consumer level HDV camcorder as input? So I took the native 1080 full HD clip unedited and opened it in quicktime, and did the same with the exported clip at 960x540. I opened the full HD to full size, and doubled the size of the 960x540, to make them the same size on my monitor. Making sure the high-quality playback was toggled in both, of course. I'll be darned if I can tell a difference between the two, even on a still-frame by frame comparrison. Of course, the real question is how does it look when played back to my TV - for this I'll have to wait until I have an HD TV, but for now, as a comsumer-level hoobyist with a consumer-level HD camera, I'm satisfied. I am also a little relieved at the ability to import and store all my footage at the "large" level or 960x540 at 12 GB an hour, becuase I was getting a little worred what I was going to do with all my footage at 40 GB per hour!!

[Machound]

In our household we import all our HDV video as bit-perfect 1080i copies at 11 GB per hour (.m2t files). Downscaling everything to Apple's proprietary format at 12 GB per hour for 960x540 video is an unwelcome trade-off, especially as Apple has shown their proprietary formats may or may not be supported a couple of years from now. Doesn't any of that concern you? It surely concerns us -- enough that I'm spending valuable time here griping.
Ordinarily I'm among the strongest of Apple & Mac supporters, but this nonsense is inexcusable. And I'm not the only one who sees problems with Apple's wanderings. At this point there's no certainty about where Apple's video strategy is headed. I feel my time, money, and video is much safer with Sony Vegas as Sony's direction is crystal clear. Certainly they're not going to take their HD editor and chop it down to an SD editor as Apple has done.
As I wrote before, we're waiting for Vegas 8 to come out. In the meantime we'll keep saving our videos as standard 11 GB/hr .m2t files, which Vegas handles natively and without fuss. Whether Apple software will become part of our family's workflow anytime in the future remains doubtful. The current state of Apple's video offerings isn't encouraging, excluding FCS which is beyond our budget.

[Czachorski]

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In our household we import all our HDV video as bit-perfect 1080i copies at 11 GB per hour (.m2t files). Downscaling everything to Apple's proprietary format at 12 GB per hour for 960x540 video is an unwelcome trade-off, especially as Apple has shown their proprietary formats may or may not be supported a couple of years from now. Doesn't any of that concern you? It surely concerns us -- enough that I'm spending valuable time here griping.
Ordinarily I'm among the strongest of Apple & Mac supporters, but this nonsense is inexcusable. And I'm not the only one who sees problems with Apple's wanderings. At this point there's no certainty about where Apple's video strategy is headed. I feel my time, money, and video is much safer with Sony Vegas as Sony's direction is crystal clear. Certainly they're not going to take their HD editor and chop it down to an SD editor as Apple has done.
As I wrote before, we're waiting for Vegas 8 to come out. In the meantime we'll keep saving our videos as standard 11 GB/hr .m2t files, which Vegas handles natively and without fuss. Whether Apple software will become part of our family's workflow anytime in the future remains doubtful. The current state of Apple's video offerings isn't encouraging, excluding FCS which is beyond our budget.

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I would prefer a bit for bit import of HDV at 11 GB/hr. That would be best.
What trumps that for me is ability to easily work with, edit and see my videos. If I did the side-by-side test, and the quality drop off in AIC at 960x540 were even noticeable at all, I might reconsider. But for now, a complex work flow that involves booting into windows and moving between formats that are supported in the different platforms would create such a hastle to watching, editing and enjoying my videos each day, that I would rather "take my chances" and work with a down-sampled resolution (that happens to preserrve amazingly well the quality of my consumer level HDV camcorder), and use a codec that may or may not be supported. It is a trade off for the organization of iMovie, the ease of access of the content, the ability to easily send it to my TV, etc.
Would I prefer that there was no trade off: yes. Would I prefer to edit in HDV natively in iMovie: yes. Am I going to create a major inconvenience and hastle in my work flow to watch and edit my video for these: no.
What is the reference on Apple "may or may not support the codec in the future". What is the historic example? I ask out of interest. I'm only new to the Apple game for 5 years now, and in that time, I don't recall a codec that was dropped for support. Was it before then?
Is it really a big risk, anyway? If they dropped support for AIC, I would just re-encode everything to h-264 or whatever the current standard is. When I first started doing this 5 years ago, I was absolutely paranoid about preserving the original footage bit for bit, and not compressing anything, and worrying about re-encoding loss of quality. I have come to realize that this approach has created such burdensome requirements for working with my footage, that I found I just stopped doing it. It felt to much like work - like a project. Now I just want something that is easy, has nearly the bit-for-bit quality, and doesn't make it feel like work. I also could always just go back to the original HDV footage on the tapes if things get too weird in the future. It's all digital, anyway, so will the quality of the tape degrade over time? I didn't think that was a big concern with digital tape.

[Machound]

Everything degrades over time. Tape is no exception. But if you take care to store your tapes upright and avoid extremes of heat or cold they should last many years. On the other hand, there's no substitute for off-site backups. That's where hard drives come in handy. I can backup 30 hours of bit-perfect 1080i video in about 2 hours via drive-to-drive copy. That's a lot less trouble than duplicating tapes. Tape copying would involve at least 40 hours of our time instead of 2 hours. It's more work & less fun.
So we aim for an all-HDV workflow. For now, we can play our unedited videos perfectly in VLC for Mac OS X (or Windows.) Once we get Sony Vegas running we'll be able to do all the slick transitions and overdubs, then burn the edited video to Blu-ray discs for pristine 1080i distribution. The only barrier to our plan is the unending Blu-ray versus HD-DVD stalemate. Pox upon the warring parties!

[tlindaas]

I've done some tests to find out if iMovie 08 is capable of producing good quality HD output, using a Canon HF100 and a Mac Pro, and I am glad to report that iMovie actually produces excellent HD, almost as good as Final Cut Pro (6.0.4). I understand that the word "almost" means different things to different people, but I am a person who is really picky about image sharpness ? I have worked with Photoshop at the image desk in a newspaper for 12 years, trying hard to get as most sharpness out the pictures as I possibly can. I would say that the resolution I get from Final Cut Pro, using ProRes 422 in and out, surpasses the resolution I get from iMovie 08 with (subjectively) around five percent. To get these results, you have to choose 1920 both at import and export.

Framegrabs of Final Cut Pro vs iMovie 08 HD output:
Final Cut Pro, ProRes 1920 in/out: http://gallery.me.co...-&bgcolor=black
iMovie 08, AIC 1920 in/out: http://gallery.me.co...2&bgcolor=black

IMPORTANT: You have to DOWNLOAD the pictures, because they are displayed in low resolution in the image gallery. When you download them you will get the original size. The download button is near the bottom of the page, for each individual image. You can also download all the pictures in one go, by pressing the Download button at the top of the gallery page.

Gallery page: http://gallery.me.com/norhagen#100209
All images/ files, in "list view": http://public.me.com/norhagen

One source of the "bad for HD" perception might be that to get really good results with iMovie 08, you have to export the file with the Sharing - Export to Quicktime option (size 1920). You do not get full quality if you just view your footage inside iMovie ? it doesn't matter if you use the preview window or the full screen option (command-G):

iMovie 08 quicktime export, size 1920: http://gallery.me.co...2&bgcolor=black
iMovie 08 fullscreen (same video clip): http://gallery.me.co...-&bgcolor=black

When I mention the Quicktime export option, I am sure someone will point the finger at the "Size" dropdown menu nested away here, where the "current" size is displayed as 960 x 540 even if you have imported the footage as 1920 x 1080. But I believe this has to be a bug or misunderstanding of some sort, because when I compare movies exported as "current" (960) and then scaled up to 1920 in Quicktime player or Photoshop, with the movies supposedly scaled up to 1920 right there in the export menu, there is a huge difference in quality. The movie supposedly scaled up in the export menu is much, much sharper than the movie saved as current and then actually scaled up, in Quicktime player or in Photoshop:

iMovie 08, export at 1920 (supposedly up-scaled in export menu): http://gallery.me.co...2&bgcolor=black
iMovie 08, export at 960, then upscaled to 1920 in Photoshop: http://gallery.me.co...3&bgcolor=black

Some have suggested that it is only when video clips are being edited that resolution loss takes place. But it doesn't matter if the video clip has been edited or not:

iMovie 08, unedited clip: http://gallery.me.co...3&bgcolor=black
iMovie 08, slightly color corrected (same clip): http://gallery.me.co...2&bgcolor=black

When I recorded the footage, I made two shots, one with the camera set to a resolution of 1440 and one with the camera set to a resolution of 1920 (xp 25p, and Fxp 25p respectively ? "xp" meaning 1440x1080 12 mbit/s and Fxp meaning 1920x1080 17 mbit/s - this is just Canon HF100 lingo). I imported them both in Final Cut Pro and iMovie 08, using the ProRes 422 codec in Final Cut and of course the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) in iMovie. In Final Cut I imported them only at a resolution of 1920, but in iMovie I imported them both in 1920 and 960 (no 1440 option). Same thing with export - I exported the clips at a resolution of 1920 in Final Cut, and both 1920 and 960 in iMovie. I felt this was the most real-life relevant testing I could do. After the import, I did nothing to the clips (with the exception of the color correction test), just exported them back out (without touching Final Cut's timeline), using different output codecs ? ProRes, AIC and H264 (max quality). (ProRes becomes an export option in iMovie once you have installed Final Cut Pro.)

Make your own conclusions - my conclusion is that what matters most, is to both import and export as 1920 ? the 960 option is really bad, both at import and export. Codecs does not matter much, other than that some give a darker, more contrasty result (ProRes and AIC, compared to H264). The resolution is almost the same, no matter what codec used on import ? as I hinted earlier ProRes is only (subjectively) five percent better in this department than AIC (I know AIC is internally 1440, but I just don't see this technical 25% difference in real life output ? see below). It does matter that you choose max quality in the camera, choose Fxp (1920) over xp (1440) ? even if you are using iMovie (AIC). Xp is heavier compressed than Fxp, which results in softer images. Also, since we are talking about consumer cameras here, it is better to use 1920 in your camera if you have the chance, because AIC, even though its internal resolution is 1080x1440, can handle the real-life-resolution of your 1920 recording ? consumer HD cameras such as the HF100 currently has a max real-life-resolution of roughly 675x600 (http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-Vixia-HF100-Camcorder-Review-35094/Performance.htm).

I have included a disk image of the SD card where the raw material is stored (the actual AVCHD video clips - http://public.me.com/norhagen). Mount it (ignore the warning) and open iMovie/Final Cut to import these small movies. As you will see I originally shot four clips, not two ? I originally tested both 25p and 50i. There were no practical value to include framegrabs of the 50i video clips, because they told exactly the same story as the 25p clips, so for simplicity I left them out. But they are there if you would like to do your own testing. First clip is xp1440 25p, next is xp1440 50i, third is Fxp1920 25p, and fourth is Fxp1920 50i.

[Beowulf2007]

I would not be so upset except that when I upgraded to OS X 10.5.4 Apple disabled my perfectly good iDVD 5.0.1 software. I am no video pro but I am also not a novice. It would be nice if Apple at least warned you when their software was going to downgrade your computer. I might have passed if I knew what would happen. I will probably try to but iLife '06 online rather than having to shell out more cash for a software package that doesn't do what mine did before Apple disabled it.