Apple recently announced it’s new iLife ‘08 Digital Lifestyle application suite. Most of the apps got some nice new features, but iMovie was selected to be completely replaced with an entirely different application (albeit still named iMovie).
And in doing so, it was made easy for people who don’t enjoy video editing, and made useless to those that do…
First off, we’ll look at a before and after:
Before (iLife ‘06 / iMovie HD): |
After (iLife ‘08 / iMovie ‘08): |
The first thing to notice about iMovie ‘06 is that it includes a LARGE viewer of my 1080i footage (filmed as 1080p24…I love my Canon HV20) to show more detail. In iMovie ‘08 I have a much smaller view, and have to view fullscreen to get much detail.
In iMovie ‘06, on the right is your bins of footage. These are clips imported for THIS PROJECT, because frankly if I’m editing a small movie I only want clips for that movie, not footage I shot three years ago for something else. iMovie ‘08 takes up the majority of the screen filling the bottom half with a selection of every clip you’ve ever shot (though to be fair, it does let you narrow it down, and lists by clip). You can argue yourself as to whether or not it’s more powerful, or just more information you likely don’t want/need. iMovie ‘06 shows one picture per clip, while iMovie ‘08 can either show one per clip, or one per every .5, 1, 2, 5, 10, or 30 seconds of a clip. In iMovie ‘06 if you want to add a clip to your project, you drag it down to the timeline, and then trim. In iMovie ‘08 you select within the clips clicking and dragging (each clip is like its own mini-timeline) and then add that selection to your movie.
iMovie ‘06 gives you the option of per-clip views of your movie flow, or a more standard timeline (seen in my screenshot). In timeline view you can see your clips lengths, edit them based on time, and also align footage and audio down to the frame in order to line things up nicely. You have timecode based support for fading in / out audio, switching effects, etc. In iMovie ‘08 you have some videos you added on the top (this and the clips list can be swapped), and you can throw in a song or sound effect by just dragging the file the clip you want it to play during. iMovie ‘06 shows your audio via a nice waveform, allowing you to look for spikes in the audio and other features of the audio for betting syncing of audio and video. iMovie ‘08 gives you a green line to say there’s audio there. I haven’t found a way to do much more with footage or audio in iMovie ‘08.
I really liked iMovie HD, because I saw it as a near complete (albeit low-weight and low-priced) video editing solution. I could see using it to edit small videos and even short movies without much worry, because it was basically Final Cut Express-Express, a more light weight version of their more professional products. iMovie ‘08 on the other hand is designed for people who want to take some movies, throw them together, and spit out the results. Don’t get me wrong, there’s certainly a market for that, but it’s not me.
One place where iMovie ‘08 does a nice job over iMovie ‘06 is the sharing options, as it allows you to easily export to multiple files (with simple options such as mobile phone, iPhone, small, large, DVD, etc). In iMovie ‘06 I’d have to do each export separately, one at a time. Being able to select multiple export targets at once means I can tell it to export, and get some sleep for the night while it churns out a bunch of highly encoded h.264 files.
I honestly think iMovie ‘08 does a better job of fitting the iLife target audience better than iMovie ‘06 did, it just bothers me because I’m not strictly in that target audience. I’m more apt to enjoy Aperture over iPhoto, and Final Cut over the new iMovie (neither of which I own yet). I already use Logic, not Garage Band, when recording audio. It’s a bonus to the consumer, and a strike against the prosumer on this one…
I’ll say one good thing - it doesn’t overwrite iMovie HD when you install iLife ‘08, and if you’ve registered your copy of iLife ‘08, Apple allows you to download iMovie HD for free. Obviously other people are seeing the same frustrations I am.
In closing I’d like to thank my son for volunteering the footage of his first steps used in those screenshots - yes he really is that adorable in real life.
bizzyb0t | 10-Aug-07 at 9:33 pm | Permalink
I can’t seem to import AVI (DivX) files into iMovie ‘08 — grrr. Changes.
In any case, I found your review very informative and interesting. I liked iMovie HD but I can see iMovie ‘08 as a great application for getting people into video editing who have never edited anything before. It’s very “entry-level” but it’s also very quick and very user friendly.
They should have called it iVideo and left iMovie HD alone, perhaps with a few upgrades and a few more codecs.
Will | 12-Aug-07 at 2:59 pm | Permalink
I just got the new iLife and I agree with you, the previous version of iMovie was much better, there isn’t much you can do now with clips, and to me its just confusing with all the events, then projects- in iMovie HD you just had a project. I can’t even figure out how to split clips.
I will definitely be sticking with the older version (it was marked: “iMovie (previous version” in a folder in my Applications).
I do like the new iPhoto though, don’t really use GarageBand or iDVD or iWeb (since I don’t have a .Mac account).
Jeremy | 15-Aug-07 at 3:13 pm | Permalink
I am in the exact same position. I produce Web/TV Shows and find that Movie 06 was great for a fast turnaround. I have actually got Final Cute Express but i just can’t do things as fast there. I was really looking forward to iMovie ‘08 but with this lack of timeline it just might be a waste of money. I really do hope this is fixed, because iMovie ‘08 looks excellent.
bryan | 17-Aug-07 at 10:59 am | Permalink
Really the ONLY thing I can see that iMovie ‘08 has that ‘06 (HD) didn’t is support for AVCHD…but the question is - is that just a Quicktime codec? Could I now import AVCHD files into iMovie HD? If so, then the ugprade’s worth it to get the codec, as a lot of the newer HD camcorders are AVCHD instead of HDV (personally I like HDV…cassettes are cheap and act as a form of backup I suppose…SD cards are more expensive per-hour of video…but I guess the idea is you have one and then just backup all video across multiple harddrives?
IRONHEAD | 15-Sep-07 at 11:04 am | Permalink
YES as i can see that imovie 08 is atotal different app from imovie HD it works totally different and everything works completely different
BUT for me who is just looking to do pod casting video i think imovie 08 drag and drop option is great feature it make it easy for me to select a section of a clip and edit it on the fly which imovie 06 work in a more pro manner which the regular consumer won’t figure out.
Imovie 08 also let you export direct final cut pro which i don’t see in imovie 06
I also must say that i do missed the ability to drag n drop clips from imovie 06 straight to my deskto and create a quicktime movie clip which i can’t do imovie08
But think both of them works good great for different needs and consumer
tony | 16-Sep-07 at 4:07 pm | Permalink
I agree with all of you guys … it bothers me that to edit audio with Imovie 08 you have to transport the movie to a channel of Garage Band .. thats the only way to edit audio with a time line .. but you have to finish the movie before send it to garage band .. and that doesn´t work like that …
I will keep on using Imovie 06 ..until they sove this.
Excuse me for my english (i´m not pretty goos at it).
Jimmyc | 22-Sep-07 at 9:23 pm | Permalink
This is a strange move by Apple; could be trying to get us to buy FC Express but I agree, its got a pretty steep learning curve. I have had it since 1.0 and just bought the upgrade. I think though I’ll probably use imovie HD/06 to edit and iMovie 08 to publish and archive video; its really like a combo iPhoto and iWeb for videos; could have called it iVideo. For example - I put together a quick and dirty video blog entry with my iSight in about 5 minutes; that was easy (See my weblog). Trying to build a video for some neighborhood kids of them skateboarding was a step back; no slow-motion, effects, precision editing - not easy. Putting it no YouTube - easy. I think I know where Apple is going here - but its an odd move.
Dally Messenger | 24-Mar-08 at 12:40 am | Permalink
I imported the movie into iMovie 08 as Quicktime - a 4 minute clip - and wanted to split off some rubbish. I selected the frame I wanted to start the new clip, but the “Split event before selected clip” but it was grayed out. I watched the Video tutorials about 4 times and can’t see what I am doing wrong.
- Gladiator
Marc | 03-Apr-08 at 12:27 pm | Permalink
Gladiator, i have the exact same problem as you! Did you find a solution, or does anyone here have an idea of how to solve it?
Cheers,
Marc
Quick link: iMovie 08 vs iMovie HD 6: My Mac Journal | 08-May-08 at 5:22 am | Permalink
[…] There’s also another article comparing the two. […]
Chris | 08-May-08 at 7:01 pm | Permalink
I too am unable to “split event before selected clip”. Thought I was going crazy. If someone resolves this please post up.
Cenk Tukel | 01-Jan-09 at 8:37 am | Permalink
This was the most informative discussion on the issue… I used to use moviemaker in Windows before moving to a Mac and it was great. I guess that Imovie 06 is similiar to that amateur sprit that we want to exercise, versus a quick fix without adding much from our own. Both version will have a demand and thank you for the comments as it has helped me to decide which one is my choice- the old style.
juan | 29-Dec-09 at 7:22 pm | Permalink
fghf
Tommy | 25-Jul-10 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
You could not be more on the money here. I returned my copy of ‘08 after getting frustrated one too many times.