iMovie '08 - ugh?
The reviews are decidedly mixed on iMovie'08, part of the new suite from Apple.
Andy Dickenson generally likes it but points out some flaws, such as the inability to extract audio.
Chuck Fadley, in comments to the same post, says it's "almost completely useless for journalism," and Angela Grant pretty much seems to agree.
Rich Hernandez at Multimedia Shooter doesn't seem too impressed, either.
Dickenson links to a good post by Bakari Chavanu listing major features available in previous iMovie versions not available in '08. Among the most serious I see are lack of audio extraction, loss of control over fades and the inability to bring older projects into the new program.
I agree with the general sentiment that Apple has mucked this one up, or as Hernandez put it, has made it DUMB. Loss of audio extraction is a nonstarter for me; I use it, for instance, to remove the reporter's voice track from news video to create video and soundbite packages that my beginning writing class learns to write to. (And, no, using Garageband to deal with the audio is not convenient nor particularly practical for this case. And while I can lear FCP or FCE easily enough, it's still a pain when there was a perfectly good simple enough program to do what was needed.)
I admit to not having actually used '08 yet -- and I don't know when I will. But there are enough voices out there that I hope Apple hears, listens and redesigns things.
posted by Doug @ 12:13 PM
3 comments|
3 Comments:
Just to make clear, I liked imovie in the sense that it was a great program to do a very simple job - cut video.
But I agree that as an upgrade to imovieHD it's pretty 'dumb'.
I don't agree that it's useless for journalism though. It's useless if you are doing your journalism with imoviehd and you don't want to do it any differently. Hey, why should you if it works. But that's a different thing from how good or bad it is.
There still is a simple enough programme to do the job - Imovie HD. You can run both old and new versions on the same machine. So no looses out. It's more a question of the rest ilife08 being of any use. If it isn't then don't upgrade.
We can all be disappointed with apple that they are taking this route (separate apps for separate bits of the process) but it fits with the straqtegy they have taken with their pro apps and with the broader strategy that all the big players have. Love it or hate it apple have their own strategy and they have never had a good track record on listening to users and redesigning.
I wouldn't hold my breath for a more HD version of 08 just yet. It will get there. We just have to wait for the jobs muse to strike him. :)
Andy:
Thanks for the comment. Didn't mean to short you with the shorthand "generally likes it but ..." and hoped folks would follow the link for the fuller explanation.
Doug
Two of the three limitations that Bakari listed are still possible in iMovie '08. I have started a little iMovie blog where I post tutorials after I have learned to do things on my own. Here are two you might find useful.
How to fade audio
How to extract audio
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