OxMUG Meeting Minutes 13 April

iMovie 08

Can:

• supports recent cameras using:
  tape: miniDV
  hard drive
  dvd
  USB 2 cable
  MPEG-2 (standard definition)
  AVCHD (high definition)
• adjust video colour
• multiple audio tracks
• add a photo as an overlay or mask
• include stills and video
• include different resolution and aspect ratio video seamlessly
• crop video
• publish to iPhone, YouTube, .Mac, iPod, AppleTV plus normal formats e.g. AVI

Cannot:

• do much with transitions
• do much with sound other than play it
• no custom transitions
• no DVD chapter markers
• no slow/fast motion

Is:

• superbly fast at scrolling through clips
• a bit buggy – loses video and picture sync!
• vicious when opening old projects; strips out audio edits and replaces custom transitions with dissolves
• very good at cutting together quickly

It may:

• give you more export options if you pay the QuickTime Pro tax ;-)

Why did Apple change?

• a bit too similar to Final Cut?
• codebase creaking at the seams?
• if the iPhone does video in the future will there be an iMovie ’lite’ for it ?

"What it does do, it does very well – but it doesn't do much"

iDVD

Pros:

• Looks fantastic
• Super-easy to use
• Can create photo or video slideshow DVDs

Cons

• The program is large because the menus are fully rendered
• The working files are even larger – 100% of the DVD size you are encoding!
• If you add audio, the transition time defaults to the length of the audio track
• Turn off the option to add titles - they obscure the image

Thanks to presenters: Conrad Weiskrantz and Paul Heritage-Redpath