Comments on: iMovie 09: Almost certainly maddening

By: E

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:22:59 +0000

iMovie ‘09 certainly does seem ugly and convoluted. Every movie clip is turned into a zillion-thumbnail representation. Video seems to have to be imported only using the import command, instead of merely dragging a video (or audio) clip from Finder into iMovie, like you used to be able to do. For those with limited storage space, ‘09 makes additional copies of your clips plus hundreds of (to me) utterly useless thumbnails of second-by-second action of those clips and puts them into a new folder in your Movies folder called iMovie Events. Does this sound good to anyone? When I merely wanted to join together 7 already-edited clips (edited on old, easy-to-use, intuitive iMovie ‘06) into one contiguous movie, the program seemed to infer that I should do some editing on those clips before “sharing” them. Is iMovie ‘09 now featuring criticism as well as video processing? Remember the Save command, as in saving your project with some other name other than the childish, unicorny “My First Project”? No more Save command in iMovie ‘09. Just a succession of ‘My (1st, 2nd, 3rd & onward) Projects” Why? I believe that the market iMovie’s appearance is aiming at is the Final Cut crowd, and if they can afford Final Cut, they can afford to hire somebody to run the program and do their work for them.

By: Vincent Colombo

Vincent Colombo — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:13:53 +0000

I found iMovie '08 easy to use and understand but simply lacking in features. iMovie '09 seems to add the features I thought were lacking in '08 and more. I already have Final Cut Express and will probably be upgrading to Final Cut Studio sometime in the near future, however iMovie seems like a faster way to quickly cut together a simple video that does not need the advanced features of FCE or FCP. When I edited a 15 minute video I had shot of a competition at a convention I used iMovie '08 rather than FCE because it was much faster and didn't require anything more than a few quick cuts.

I think the market that iMovie is aimed at will find the product easy to use and understand, it's more so people coming from other video editing products that may have issue with how it works.

-Vince

By: geez people

geez people — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:58:21 +0000

Doesn’t everyone know that you can download all mac software, well pretty much any software through the use of torrent sites? Come on!

By: Steven Fisher

Steven Fisher — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:41:43 +0000

I never used iMovie 06, but I did use Final Cut Pro and iMovie 08 for a few hours. I found Final Cut's UI really bizarre and hard to use. On the other hand, though iMovie 08 seemed a little strange I never had any problem actually using it. For the quick editing of home videos I do, iMovie 08 is great.

I don't think the UI has changed so much in iMovie 09. The image stabilizer alone is going to be enough for me to upgrade.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:46:14 +0000

It's a safe assumption that any features that look similar between their pro apps and their consumer equivalents are shared code. They do it all the time between GarageBand and Logic, in fact they are programmed by most of the same people.

Seems to be a smart move on Apple's part to take advantage on multiple levels of features they have created, although I can't help but suspect that Logic's development has suffered because the team had some of their time taken up by work on GarageBand (and the same may be true of their video apps as well, at least to some degree).

By: John

John — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:33:49 +0000

@mike:

If stabilize is 16/1, then it's likely the same technology as SmoothCam in FCP, which was brought over from Shake.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:52:32 +0000

In their video demo, it looks like stabilization takes quite a bit longer than real time - their example looks like a clip under a minute, and the dialogue box said it estimated 16 minutes to analyze the footage. Obviously, no idea what machine they were doing the demo on.

"Anyone who is halfway serious..."

These apps aren't aimed at anyone who is serious about doing video, photos, or recording music. They are intended to be accessible to people who have never done them before, they are the apps that let Grandma edit video and make a website. That said, aiming to make it possible for first time users isn't an excuse for an unintuitive interface.

Obviously iMovie 08/09 is going to feel very odd to anyone who has used a more traditional video editing app already. But I'm curious if it is more intuitive if you hand it to someone who has never done it before. In other words, is it truly unintuitive, or is that just reaction from people experienced with other "standard" apps? It would be interesting to sit a group of grandmas down with iMovie 08 and another group with 06 and compare the reactions.

By: John

John — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:10:16 +0000

@Franco:

There are certainly things FCP/FCE/Avid could crib from iMovie, and that sense of quick-and-dirty throwing things together would be useful.

I'm not sure how the L-cut in the new iMovie is particularly novel. By looking at the demos, it seems like they just hide the audio until you make it visible. After that, it just like a standard audio overlap.

@Evan:

Is iMovie's stabilize real-time?

A lot of iMovie's VFX seem like imports from Motion, which is quite snappy. I agree that FCP needs speedier rendering (or non-rendering) for many of its VFX, and look forward to an upgrade. Or an announcement about when that will come.

By: Farley

Farley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:51:00 +0000

I had to cut a short film using a recent version of iMovie. It was completely hopeless. Usability was nonexistent, which I found weird because I used a version of iMovie way back in 2000 when I was in high school and I remember it being simple and perfectly usable. It surprises me how terrible an entry level program like iMovie can be when all they really need are the very basic tools. Somehow, even those get screwed up. What irritates me about the cheaper editing software these days is they all seem to have this same feature: a magic button you press that automatically makes the movie for you. I have not tried this feature, but I cannot imagine how it works or that it works very well and its very existence is offensive to me. Then I try to cut the movie myself with the program and it doesn’t have some of the most basic things like a fade in/out transition, but instead has transitions that involve computer generated airplanes flying across the screen in a wipe. This is all truly ridiculous stuff that seems marketed towards the lowest common denominator consumer crowd. Man, I gotta get some cash and some real editing software.

By: Michiel

Michiel — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:32:00 +0000

Imovie is ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!! Imovie 08 was great but not perfect. Imovie 09 is great AND perfect. I have worked with Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. FCP and Premiere are very good in making a profesional movie.

But....

Organizing and making fast very good looking movies of home footage is only possible with Imovie 08 and 09.

Example: to make an overview of last year. Just all kind of home footage like my son playing football, conversation in the garden. My wife cooking etcetera etcetera. You can do it perfect in Imovie.

I pre-ordered imovie yesterday. I'm so excited.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:06:09 +0000

@Kristan -

What don't you like about iWork?

Personally, I think it's a much better approach an MS Word. And the whole suite is only 2 years old (pages being a little older).