Philip Hodgetts, long a Final Cut authority, asks if the rumors about a new 64 bit Final Cut Pro might be true and speculates on what that would mean. It’s only speculation, and the comments include lots of wishful thinking, but it’s informed speculation. After the unveiling of the new iMovie for iPad and the praise it’s had, there’s apparent reason for anticipation.
Well, here’s some good news. It’ll only work on the latest iMovie announced yesterday, which means a $49 upgrade or the purchase of a new Mac, but it’s good nonetheless.
When Apple radically changed iMovie between the ‘06 and ‘08 releases, one of the biggest criticisms was the abandonment of the traditional editing timeline. […] Well, if you’ve been pining for a “real” timeline, it’s time to re-evaluate iMovie ‘11. With a couple of clicks, you can have it back. Here’s how.
Via TidBITS Media Creation for posting this.
John Gruber pointed to this video made entirely on an iPhone 4: “Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film on Vimeo.
Further evidence that it’s not the tools, but how you use them.
Helping a student burn a DVD on a laptop that for some reason wouldn’t accept the blank DVD. I hooked the MacBook up to an iMac in the lab with a firewire cable, booted the laptop while holding down the T key, and voila! The MacBook’s drive mounted on the iMac’s desktop, and I could access the DVD project and start burning. The latest MacBooks don’t have firewire any more :( but the Pro series and desktops do. Useful.
Macworld’s Chris Breen offers valuable info in Converting AVCHD files for iMovie. The lack of direct support for AVCHD in out-of-the-box iMovie stinks though. Camcorder manufacturers often include Windows-only conversion utilities, and one commenter suggests installing them using VirtualBox, a free Windows operating system virtual machine. That’s a lot of hassle for an increasingly common video format that will rapidly become ubiquitous.
I didn’t know about these nice tricks.
They’re from Jeff Carlson, author of Peachpit’s iMovie ‘09 and iDVD for Mac OS X Visual QuickStart Guide. Well done.
Well, I am re-evaluting my opinion of the not-so-new “new” iMovie. I was so used to the older version, iMovie HD, which had been expanded but not fundamentally changed, since it was introduced in 1999 (Ten years? Yow).
Ken Stone, a source for so much great Final Cut information, posted the most complete one-page overview of iMovie I’ve ever seen. He loves it:
So why am I writing about iMovie 09 if I work in FCP? The answer is simple. At the demonstration I saw a number of features in iMovie 09, that I wished were in FCP and I wondered if there was a way to use iMovie 09 in conjunction with FCP, utilizing some of its features to supplement the FCP workflow, most importantly in the rough cut phase of editing, as ‘09’ has an amazing skimming/edit tool. iMovie also sports a new and modern tool for exact clip trimming, the Precision Editor, and it’s stunning. And, iMovie provides full Real Time playback, no rendering required, ever.
[...]
iMovie is very intuitive and easy to use, despite the fact that it has some very advanced features, features that it would be nice to see incorporated into Apple’s other editing application, Final Cut Pro. iMovie is a very modern editing application and it works in a much more visual way than editing applications that were first created over a decade ago. This graphical aspect of iMovie is more persuasive and powerful than one might first suspect. And don’t let the fact that iMovie ships in the iLife package and comes free on new Macs fool you, this is an amazingly modern and capable editing application.
This is not only a detailed examination of iMovie but a great and generous example of technical writing
I had my first workshop for iMovie 09 last week. I’ve used the earlier version of iMovie for years, and had allowed some reviewers negative comments to scare me away from the update. It takes getting used to, but it makes its own sense once you start working with it. Its biggest weakness: its audio capabilities remain less flexible than the older version.
To make the new iMovie work better for you (I guess it’s not so new, now that its been out a year and a half), Jeff Carlson of the indispensable TidBITS posts four little-known improvements to the 8.0.1 update to iMovie 09:
TidBITS Media Creation: iMovie ‘09 8.0.1 Update Brings More than Just Bug Fixes.
I used to use iMovie much more often; now I do almost all my video editing in Final Cut Pro. Many in the college either use our small Mac lab for video and DVD creation or have their own Macs now. The new iLife, which incorporates iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, and more, has achieved hit a sweet spot in power and usability. It’s still not a piece of cake for those used to Windows, but it’s stable, flexible, and really easy. Read through this exhaustive review from uber-tech site Ars Technica for a solid learning experience whether you’re a Mac rookie or experienced user.
Ars Reviews iLife ‘09: making the cut with iMovie and iPhoto – Ars Technica.
There are alternatives to some of the paid apps they link to in this nice list of quick tips. Regrettably I don’t have time at the moment to link to them.Those aside, this is a good list for the Mac newbie, from TechRadar UK: 69 really useful OS X timesavers | News | TechRadar UK.