iMovie 08 is a dream!

[Daan Pol]

Oh man!

I use FinalCut Studio 2.0 for pro jobs and hate it. It's too clunky and way too technical to use fast and easy. Capturing HV20 material is usually a disaster and takes a long time to setup properly.

So I bought iLife and tried out that iMovie goodness I saw Steve Jobster using.

Capturing is a Dream.

Only 2 settings possible with my HV20 and that is quarter 1080p and Full 1080p. No weird stuff happening, the entire process is made as easy and foul proof as possible.

To test this iMovie/HV20/Macbook concept I took it out on a weekend to Belgium with my parents. I taped as efficiently as possible to keep capturing time down. I would capture the material at the end of the day, edit it and do some minor color corrections while we were still sitting at the table waiting for Desert! Color correction requires no rendering and everything is realtime. By the end of the evening I have a total summary of the day with some nice music added to it!

Here is a 45 minute total time example of my first movie;

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=1879

Now my parents want a macbook with iMovie (my mom loves editting) and a HV20 or 2.

[skinnyboy]

Daan,

Interesting. I used iMovie for a while, then switched to Final Cut about 4 years ago.
I have the exact opposite opinion - if I want to do something fast I use Final Cut. I only use iMovie these days if a family member gives me a bunch of footage they want burned to a DVD or something, because the "instant movie" function is nice.
But for any editing, I can't use iMovie because it limits what I can do.

I'm just curious - what is it about FC that you find difficult vs. iMovie? I'm always getting asked what program people should use, and could use the perspective.

FC has a much steeper learning curve for sure, but once you get past that, it is fluid and simple to use. iMovie is easy to just launch and work in, but limited in how many tracks (of video and sound) you can use.

Let me know what you think, please. Thanks!

[Daan Pol]

Daan,

Interesting. I used iMovie for a while, then switched to Final Cut about 4 years ago.
I have the exact opposite opinion - if I want to do something fast I use Final Cut. I only use iMovie these days if a family member gives me a bunch of footage they want burned to a DVD or something, because the "instant movie" function is nice.
But for any editing, I can't use iMovie because it limits what I can do.

I'm just curious - what is it about FC that you find difficult vs. iMovie? I'm always getting asked what program people should use, and could use the perspective.

FC has a much steeper learning curve for sure, but once you get past that, it is fluid and simple to use. iMovie is easy to just launch and work in, but limited in how many tracks (of video and sound) you can use.

Let me know what you think, please. Thanks!

Well FCP works Great on a big MacPro with a nice monitor attached to it. It's perfect in many ways since you can preview your edit in realtime using RT extreme and editting is 'nice' enough to get things done in an okay time. Ofcourse it is not that hard to learn. However, were I work we use it rather extensively and have seen the weirdest of errors popup exactly when you do NOT want them to pop up! FCP userfriendliness isn't really there, it is way too technical for the simplest of tasks. And it can be a true pain in the ass when it comes to filecompatability (avi anyone?) I am so glad Premiere Pro CS3 is coming to the mac, editing makes more sense in there and compatability with weird files seems to be really well. However FCP has some great integration methods with Motion/Color and whatnot. There is no better way of editting on a mac than FCP I believe.

Unfortunatly FCP for portable use still stinks. Using FinalCut Express on a macbook just hurts. It's clunky, harddrive intensive and unnescessary limited. On top of that editting is a disaster, you need to render your footage all the time, change a clips position and you can render the stinking thing all over again!

I have a macbook for in the field capturing and iMovie lets me do 10x the work in the same time without any of the technical difficulties I encounter using Final Cut on it. iMovie 08 lets me capture instantly, it allows me to create a quick edit so the client can see what's up and even color correct it a little! All realtime. No prerendering, no Raid0 4 disk array, no double rendering to h264 just to get a decent playback framerate.

Last week I was helping with a Porsche shoot. I brought my HV20 with me and my macbook. I shot the exact same shots the Digibeta guy was doing of cars doing flybys. My cam was so small I could position myself next to him very inconspicuosly. If he needed my help I'd just fold up my HV20, put it in my pocket, help him unmount the camera from the tripod and move to the next shot were we set up again. At the end of the day I shot around 30 minutes of tape. I captured all my material on the macbook while the crew was debriefed, after that I selected all of my favourite clips, editted them together at lightspeed, put some nice music under it and rendered it to h264. The results was a color corrected 1080p clip with music under it editted in 15 minutes. Ofcourse no endproduct, but it came pretty close.

Needless to say the client was REALLY happy to see the results so quickly! I put the file on a memstick for him to take home with him, he was happy as a child and telling everyone he got an editted version of today's happenings!

Next is the capturing disaster with Digibeta. We will have to bring the tape to a company an hour away, that uses mostly PC's and clunky BlackMagic cards and codecs. That means we get AVI files that will play perfectly on a PC but that make FCP hang in an instant. Re encoding costs 3 hours per tape and a load of HD space (uncompressed that is). The entire workflow stinks, it takes 300 euros and 1 day to get the material from tape safely into FCP. Ofcourse that is inherent to the Digibeta workflow, just trying to show you how much faster the hv20=>imovie workflow is :).

Ofcourse if I want to capture HV20 material the Pro way (read slow) I'd use FCP on the MacPro at home that will give me perfect results, if I want to do it the 'creative' way I just plug iMovie in and start rightaway on the spot.

My personal Conclusion; FCP is great for studio use, iMovie is great for 'on the move' work.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

I hate iMovie '08. It is not an iMovie. It is a joke IMO. David Pogue and the majority of users who have filled app Apple's imovie forums the last few days agree:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/technology/16pogue-email.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1187338195-qy9nl1T5sUJbKvWTJDsGTQ

[Daan Pol]

I hate iMovie '08. It is not an iMovie. It is a joke IMO. David Pogue and the majority of users who have filled app Apple's imovie forums the last few days agree:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/technology/16pogue-email.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1187338195-qy9nl1T5sUJbKvWTJDsGTQ

Yep and I can imagine you hate it. It is limited but in a sense perfect. iMovie is actually really convenient for a lot of people that really do not care (why should they) about codecs, rendering and better than basic editting tools.

This is the first time in my life I see my parents enjoying editting their homemade movies. I explained the basic principles to them within 5 minutes and they are good to go.

So in some way they hit the Jackpot with iMovie 08 because they just made DV/HDV editting a whole lot easier for a crapload of people.

We still got FCP, iMovie '06 and the likes so it is not like WE got downgraded or something?

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

My problem is that iMovie 06 has HD related problems and no AVCHD support and NO guarantee that it will continue working after Leopard. If Apple was to UPDATED imovie 06, I wouldn't mind the imovie 08 to exist. But now, I do.

[Daan Pol]

My problem is that iMovie 06 has HD related problems and no AVCHD support and NO guarantee that it will continue working after Leopard. If Apple was to UPDATED imovie 06, I wouldn't mind the imovie 08 to exist. But now, I do.

Hm I see your point, than I can greatly imagine you hating the new iMovie. I read the newyorktimes review and I can see a little better why people are going up in flames about it.

Maybe if we all ask Steve Really nicely he'll do something about it :hv20-smilie81:

[Herve]

Hello,

I read that Daan is from the Netherlands, therefore I presume you have a PAL HV20.
I bought my PAL HV20 in June, and tried it with iMovie6 on my iMAC G5 1.8 Mhz with 1.25 Gb of RAM, and I experienced big problems (sound, import at 3/4...) which I don't have when forcing the HV20 to DV.
Is iMovie 8 compatible with PAL HV20s ?
Have you experienced the same with iMovie8 ?
Does anybody know if FCE is compatible with PAL HV20s ?

Thanks for your answers !

[bmaltais]

When I got my HV20 last week 1st thing I tought was: Cool, let try iMovie 8 and see the great clips I can make out of it!

Was I in for a run. iMovie really stink when it comes to 24p on the HV20. I mean, I could not even export from iMovie 08 to AIC 1080i and get a proper pulldown in JES (by the way, I learned about the whole process and software through this great forum ;-)

Apparently iMovie 08 screw things up when exporting to AIC 1080i60. Not sure why. iMovie 06 does it just fine... why not 08?

Any way, I now use FCP6 instead of iMovie and I am happy with it! So far the HV20 and FCP6 are a perfect combo. It is still a pain to have to deal with 24p pulldown but with compressor 3 it is easy enough. I personally do my pulldown at the end of the process since I don need perfect video with no left over artifacts during transitions, etc.

If I need perfection then I will probably use JES on individual scenes captured via FCP6.

[Charles Gerungan]

I bought my PAL HV20 in June, and tried it with iMovie6 on my iMAC G5 1.8 Mhz with 1.25 Gb of RAM, and I experienced big problems (sound, import at 3/4...) which I don't have when forcing the HV20 to DV.
iMovie 6 works fine on my MBP with the HV20 using either 1080i50 or p25. I know this doesn't help you, but at least you know it should work and try to find a solution.

[Daan Pol]

The PAL version of the HV20 doesn't require pulldown, you will get 25p though so no 24p. I filmed using Cinemode (everything at -1), 25p mode. Imports perfectly well into iMovie. I get 2 options for capturing;

quarter 1080p (960x540) Is playable in realtime in quicktime or iMovie.
And full 1080p which gives me 1920x1080 MOV files.

[Herve]

Charles, Daan,

Thanks for your answers.
I suspect that my problem is :
- either lack of RAM, and I should upgrade from 1,25 Gb to 2 Gbytes (maximum for my iMAC G5 1.8GHz)
- or Hard drive related and using an external Firewire HD would help
- or a CPU problem, in which case I will have to buy a new computer...

Is my analysis correct ?
Could you say a couple words on your Mac configuration ?

[Charles Gerungan]

Hello Herve,


Is my analysis correct ?
Could you say a couple words on your Mac configuration ?

15" MBP, 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, external S-ATA 500 GB Hitachi drive used for FCS2/iMovie.

I don't feel qualified enough to comment on your analysis …

[Herve]

Just a quick note : I Tried my iMac G5 1.8 Mhz with 2 Gbyte of RAM, an External Firewire HD, but I still couldn't import at full speed.
An Intel Core 2 Duo processor is mandatory for HDV editing.

Herve

[xzu]

Just a quick note : I Tried my iMac G5 1.8 Mhz with 2 Gbyte of RAM, an External Firewire HD, but I still couldn't import at full speed.
An Intel Core 2 Duo processor is mandatory for HDV editing.

Herve

hummm.... sorry, I got PPC G5 2x2Ghz and it works fine. I guess, like always, trying to run after software updates makes our hardware obsolete. I do not (and will not) upgrade, and I'm fine for editing with current version of iMovie/FCP on my PPC. iMovie/FCP = both are real time on most fx
cheers

[daci]

I really like new iMovie for its realtime/non destructive workflow. Live scrubbing and clip management is excellent. I do see the concern of lost features of iMovie HD but they'll come back on next version or two.

My biggest concern though is its quality. To obtain realtime performance through Core video iMovie runs all the footages through fixed pipe of 960x540. So DV footages get stretched and squashed and so does full HD clips. So unless you imported HD footage in 960x540 which won't entail any resizing, you seriously damage the quality of original source. Even a simple drag-and-export to DV stream of DV goes through this resizing and recompressing and produces very blurry DV footage.

So if you want to do best possible quality editing with these consumer tools, you have to stick to iMovie HD 06. However, 08 can still be a very valuable tool for importing and managing clips. AVCHD footages get encoded with AIC and you end up with same kind of Quicktime file as HDV source. So use iMovie 08 to import AVCHD footage and drag them into iMovie 06 project (1080i format). iMovie HD will import it instantly without recompression and you can cut your AVCHD movies in iMovie HD.