iMovie: Which one was the good one?

I know that one of the earlier iMovies was a really good movie editor, back before it became a dumb-ed down clip assembler.

Which one was the good one? And does it still work on 10.7.4?

You are mistaken.

In what way? Was there an earlier, well-polished imovie before the current one?
Or is the current one more than just a clip assembler intended for people making one or two home movie DVD's over their life?

keybounce said:

I
Or is the current one more than just a clip assembler intended for people making one or two home movie DVD's over their life?

Click to expand...

Yes...much more. You have a lot of homework ahead of you.

Alright, then let me tell you what I'm running into; you tell me what to do.

First, I'm looking at a goal of around 100 videos a year. I need to organize what I'm working with. iMovie gives me a single list, sorted by date, all inclusive, with no directory structure at all. How can I organize and work with a large collection?

Second, QuickTime Player wants to record at about 22,000 bps. I want to shrink that down to about 3500 bps just to keep the raw files smaller, and then down to 1000 bps for archival once I'm done editing. That is ... painful, and error-prone right now.

Third, iMovie keeps altering the dates on my event recordings.

Fourth, all of the commands behave differently when I'm looking at clips in the event library and clips in the movie project.

Fifth, iMovie cannot work with two projects at once.

Sixth, when I'm exporting, I cannot do *ANYTHING*. I have to wait, sometimes hours, for it to finish.

Seventh, I cannot schedule several exports to run sequentially.

8th, if I do single-pass, exports are fast. If I do multiple-pass, exports are slow. I have no control over how many passes are made, I have no feedback on how much the last pass has improved quality, nor any way to say "Finish and let me see what you have after this next pass" (imagine breaking for lunch, and wanting a "quick preview" to work with when I get back).

9th: Keywords are apparently global, instead of project. I cannot re-organize them, I can use keyboard numbers to assign keywords that I used in my first test projects but not keywords that I'm using now.

10th: I cannot split a clip in event view. I have to try to find a specific frame in the event viewer, but cannot mark it, so I never get things in the event viewer at the point that I want. I wind up having to import the entire clip into the project and edit there.

That's just off the top of my head. That's before I go over my list, or play around and take notes.

11th: I cannot add audio tracks. I do not mean music from itunes. I'm not working with music or sound effects. I mean audio tracks of people talking from chat while recording a program.

12th. About half the time the export just fails. No warnings, no notices, just the output file never appearing, and a failed message send error in the console log.

There is currently no single software that will address all your needs 1-12... Parts of your "wishlist" are basic editing techniques that are achievable with iMove 11.

First. When you import into iMovie, it gives you the option of Naming that import. That probably the best way to keep track of imports.

Third. That seems unlikely, although it gives you the option to do that in the Event Browser.

Fourth. Which commands?

Fifth. True, but you can switch between Projects easily.

Sixth. True. It takes a long time to render depending on your processor speed.

Seventh. True. Can any of the other editing apps?

10th. The Event Library is for storing your Events. The Project is for editing. You don't have to put the entire clip in the Project, just select the small portion that you need, then edit more precisely in the Project.

11th. Are you talking about voices that are recorded with the video, or do you want to add voices later? For the second, search for Voiceover in iMovie Help.

I have switched to Final Cut Pro X and Compressor 4. And I think it could address most of your issues. And with 100+ movies per year I wonder why you didnt go pro already:

1 - With FCPX you can build your own Directory structure
2 - Compressor can export to almost any settings you can dream of
3 - FCPX doesn't do any thing you dont ask the app to do
4 - FCPX lets you customize all commands and shortcuts
5 - I thing that your machines hardware is the bootle neck here. FCPX lets you shift quickly between projects
6 - Compressor takes over and lets you continue work while it renders and compresses
7 - Compressor does the trick and even let you use mulitiple machines for quicker rendering
8 - Compressor.... (c:
9 - FCPX has keywords per Event not globally
10 - Doesnt understand this one...
11 - FCPX lets you add as many connected clips and audioclips as you can dream of.
12 - FCPX and compressor has this error sometimes as well(quicktime error) - but FCPX lets you export in Apple ProRes which you can use as master for any format. Whithout breaking you workflow !

Pleas let me heare if you have more questions...

I would agree with the above...but caution you to have a properly spec'd machine to perform those tasks fluidly.