Benny Logan - 13 August 2007 08:43 PM

BunsenHoneydew - 13 August 2007 08:15 PM

It seems though you are trying to make the argument that iMovie 08 is less capable than 06.  I would like to know why you think this.  Yes the timeline is gone, but can you not still edit clips into a movie, add effects and transitions and such?

I’m with Kate on this one. The timeline is gone and that means the multiple audio tracks are gone. Using iMovie 8, try to add background music as an additional track to the movie. You could do it in iMovie 6.

One other thing-- iMovie 8 breaks a bunch of the iMovie plugins for text, effects, and transitions. So, if you had such in older movies, and go to edit them in iMovie 8, they’re broken. That’s not nice.

Thats fine, but not a lot of “the masses” are going to need to edit multiple audio tracks, and I think you sould just use garageband for this (I know separate program, but it can be done easily).  I don’t think you can fault Apple for “breaking” plugins.  Anytime a new app is released I just assume that my plugins will be broken, so I generally will either wait until there is an update to said plugin, or I deal without, or use the new and old versions in concert.  I don’t blame Apple for this though as it is not their responsibility to ensure that all 3rd party stuff continues to work with their app, it is the resposibility of the 3rd party to update their app or plugin IMHO.

Ron McElfresh - 14 August 2007 01:10 AM

You’ve really identified the apps that cause the most grief. I can’t use iPhoto to manage photographs for me, but it works fine for the family photos we take. Aperture rules, though I’m fond of Adobe’s Lightroom; just can’t figure out why to have both. None of those professional apps is as intuitive as iLife apps, and I’ve had good success with Adobe’s Elements instead of the full version of Photoshop.

I like some aspects of the iPhoto, but there are others I don’t care for (like capitalizing the second letter of its name).  I shoot alot of photos in raw format so the files are large.  iPhoto ‘06 handles them okay, but the sheer volume of data is slowing it down.  I have Lightroom, but was never really taken by it.  I’ll guess I need to give it another look.  It seems to me it did something I didn’t like, but I can’t recall what it is.  It’s clearly is a very powerful program that allows people to do way more than iPhoto would ever dream of.  I guess nobody makes perfect software.  If they did, they’ll ruin it with the next version…

On iMovie, I guess you can create the soundtrack in Garage Band, but then getting that to sync up with events in the video is difficult.  Then any change in the video sends you back to garage band to modify the sound track.  I think its easier to do that in the editing software where you could see clips and audio in the timeline at once. 

I guess the upshot here is this:  Why did Apple dumb down iMovie?  Some think is was an evil corporate attempt to lighten your wallet, others think it was to try to make the movie process faster and easier for casual users.  I think it was some of both.  Making it simple to use and cheap to buy means simplifying the software.  Its only a question of what to leave out.  Even people on this site can’t agree on what features are nice to have in the iLife suite.  Maybe Apple made some of these feature choices based on software architecture that increases stability but doesn’t really make sense to end users.  Now, back to work…

I think that is about right, although I think its more the latter.  Just as an FYI here is Macworlds first look and he actually has a shot of multiple audio tracks in a movie.  I haven’t dug deep enough to see exactly what it can do but I found the review informative and interesting.