Justin Williams details the latest revisions to iMovie 4, included in Apple's iLife '04 suite. He shows you what's new, what's changed, and what is still missing from the iApp that started it all.
Making Movies Suck Less
When iMovie 1.0 first came on the scene, it changed the way we looked at home movies. No longer are we stuck with 60-minute tapes of footage. Now, we can easily add titles, include music and edit the clips into a short movie that we can share with our friends and our family. As the years have passed, iMovie has matured into a tool that is used not only by home users, but also in movies worthy of an invitation to the Sundance Film Festival. Yes, for a mere $218, a Mac user used iMovie and his Digital 8 camcorder to create a film that that was worthy of one of the biggest independent film festivals in the world.
iMovie's Improved Features
With the initial release of the iLife Suite, Apple released iMovie 3.0 as a completely new application. The entire core of the application was rewritten in Cocoa and given a windowed interface, along with several new features. Along with the update came several bugs: audio was out of sync, the application's performance was atrocious, and after several bug fix releases it didn't seem like there would be much hope. Luckily, iMovie 4 improves on these issues and provides users with a tool they can trust for their most important projects.
Rendering, in general, is now quicker than it was in iMovie 3, according to Apple. I don't know an exact percentage of how much faster the rendering is, and I can't personally tell a big difference. That may have something to do with me using a Dual 2Ghz G5 to do all my work.
Editing Audio has been improved as well. Now you can see a graphical waveform of the audio clip. This is good because you can see where the bass hits and position a clip right on it for impact. You could do this before, but you had to listen to the audio several times, make sure the clip was placed exactly at the right spot and then double check. Apple hopes you are able to cut out a part of that process now. Another useful feature is hearing the audio as you scrub through your project. I had issues with getting this feature to work, so if anyone could offer some help with that, it would be appreciated.
Additionally, Apple has added several new transitions and titles for you to use in iMovie. You can also have your titles over a color besides black now, which opens up all sorts of bad design ideas (White text on yellow back).
New Features
There are more than bug fixes, however. Apple has also added several new features to iMovie 4 to make your movie making experience more enjoyable. The most notable new feature is its non-destructive editing technique called Direct Trimming. Before, if you wanted to remove parts of a clip, you had to delete it from the timeline and it was gone for good. Now you can simply grab an edge of a clip and drag towards the center to remove the part of the clip you don't want. Make a mistake? Decide you want to keep a piece of that clip after all? Simply drag away from the center and it will be back.
If you have ever spent way too much time trying to get an audio and video clip perfectly synced, you will appreciate the alignment guides included in iMovie 4. Borrowed from Keynote, the alignment guides will make a popping noise and show a yellow bar when you hit the end of a clip. This makes it insanely easy for you to know where you want to place the clip. I had a bit of trouble getting this to work at first, but then I realized there was a preference I had to enable. To save you a bit of time, follow these steps:
- Open iMovie's Preferences
- Under General, select "Enable Timeline Snapping." If you want the snapping sound, make sure that option is checked as well.
If you have an iSight, you can now use it to take video. I used this feature to test out the new features of iMovie since my DV camera is at home, and it works well. You simply switch to Import mode in iMovie and select "Record with iSight" and go from there. When you are finished recording, click the buton again and iMovie will convert the video to DV.
Bookmarks allow you to mark key frames in your audio or video. You can identify a bookmark by the green diamond in the scrubber bar above the time line. To set a bookmark position the playhead where you want the bookmark and choose Bookmark -> Add Bookmark. To move through bookmarks simply use the tab key.
When you have everything finished and you want to share you work with the world, there are a few new options you have at your disposal. Apple has created a share panel that lets you easily e-mail your movie, put it on your .Mac homepage, export it to a DV Cam, iDVD, Quicktime, or a Bluetooth phone. Since I assume it is pretty obvious how to do all of those but the Bluetooth, I will leave those to your disposal. Let's just concentrate on sending a video you create to your cell phone.
I am assuming you have a phone on the supported device list. We will go through the setup using a Nokia 3650. If you do not have your bluetooth cell phone paired up with OS X, follow these steps. Pairing is basically establishing a one to one connection between your Mac and the phone so you can send data between. To pair a new device open up System Preferences and select Bluetooth. Select Pair New Device. A setup wizard will pop up and walk you through the process of configuring the phone. It is that simple.
Now, select the Share from the File Menu and the Sharing Panel will appear. Under Bluetooth click the "Share" button. iMovie will compress your video into the 3GPP format, which is what phones such as the 3650 use to playback video. Once complete, another dialog will popup asking you to select your device. The connection will be established and your video will be sent to the phone. That's it.
Conclusion
I like everything Apple has added to iMovie. I haven't seen many of the bugs that were present in iMovie 3 and the Direct Trimming feature is awesome. If you create anything using iMovie 4 feel free to post a link to it in the comments, so that people can see what creative works people are putting together using this awesome piece of Apple software!
Justin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at
Reader Comments (23)
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#1) On January 23, 2004 6:13 PM
Another fantastic addition that is the ability to export (or “share” as they call it now) a the selected clips only. In previous versions I would have to move a few clips to the timeline, then edit them and export. When I wanted a new export from the same movie, I had to delete the previous work, move a new clip to the timeline and edit that. Lots of wasted work.
This selected export feature with non-destructive editing are welcomed and fantastic additions to the application.
-jOhn
#2) On January 25, 2004 1:04 PM
I’m running iMovie on a 1.25 GHZ 20” iMac with 768MB RAM. I have always had trouble with the audio editing features of iMovie and thought certainly that Apple would have been able to fix the bugs with iMovie4. For instance, when fading a clip in, there is a split second of full volume sound, right before the audio begins to gradually fade in. Also, when using the cross dissolve transition, there is a “static” sound that plays only during the transition, as well as other audio glitches.
I have also found that the ‘edit volume’ feature has been extremely sluggish. I had no problems with this in iMovie3. In iMovie 4, there is a significant delay from the time I click on the line representing the volume level to the time it responds. This has become very frustrating and I’m considering trashing iMovie4 and going back to iMovie3 unless someone has some suggestions that can help me resolve this. Thanks!
Patrick
#3) On February 13, 2004 12:49 PM
Have just run into the iMovie4 sound bug that lowers the sound level during the duration of a title. In most cases even adjusting the clips level will not bring the level back to a match to adjacent clips. Also does the same thing during transition. After getting my G5 Dual 1.8 I mastered two concert DVDs in iMovie3 that came preinstalled with absolutely no problems (56 minute and 58 minute each). Funny thing was -it did not do this on the first title I placed, only the subsequent ones. Also cannot get the audio waveforms to appear as they should -just straight lines. (Not at all like what I see in the brochure)
#4) On February 24, 2004 5:04 PM
I teach Media Arts at a Fine Arts Middle School and we just upgraded to iMovie 4 last week and have had a great deal of problems already.
The titles are VERY grainy (low giff looking) and low quality, along with many problems in getting them to type without boxes filling spaces up between words, some boxes are even present between letters within words.
The overall quality of the picture is grainy as well. The playback is set to high quality- but then the picture is jittery. When set to standard- the picture is even more aweful and the movies play with many starts and stops.
We are in our 6th month of school and many of these students have been working on movies since day one. They were very excited to get the new imovie and are now devistaded to see such poor quality movies, awkward sound and frustrating titles.
We are working on G3s- with 450 MHz processors- but we haven’t had any problems for the past 4 years with the our imovie programs.
Can anyone help me- or give me light as to why our $ and students are both exhausted!!!!
#5) On March 8, 2004 11:03 PM
I really don’t like iMovie4. I thought the new improvements would be manifest in performance, but I find it more sluggish. Also, when I switch from capture to clips…each time, the volume goes back to zero! The program actually zeros my system volume. It’s extremely annoying and increases my workflow tremendously.
I’m looking for any way to go back to iMovie3. If anyone knows how I can uninstall 4, please email me. Thanks!
#6) On March 18, 2004 12:29 PM
is there away to properly uninstall ilife04?
#7) On May 6, 2004 8:19 AM
i dont have my mac yet but ive heard to run imovie youll need at least a g4 800mhz. Im getting a emac 1.25ghz and have heard it works great.
#8) On May 13, 2004 3:50 PM
I cannot share to my dv-cam….. It keeps saying it lost its connection…. everytime I check the connection, it is OK. It is driving me mad……
I have tried with 4 different cam’s all with dv in…….. help me please……….
#9) On May 13, 2004 3:59 PM
HELLLOOO Zealots…. there are some questions to answer!!!
get your behind together…… Knowledge is power so consider how you use it!!!
#10) On May 13, 2004 5:37 PM
Why should I help you? You are rude.
#11) On May 20, 2004 6:01 AM
Why should you help? Because helping makes the world go around. I’m having the same problem as Mark Chou (the system volume sets to zero when I switch between capture and clips). If anyone knows a way around this I would be very greatful.
#12) On May 21, 2004 2:03 PM
I love iMovie 04, in fact I love iLife in general. I haven’t found any problems at all, and I work extensively with all of my iLife apps especially iMovie. All you people who are having troubles you should go into the apple store. The facilities are very clean and the staff is excellent. They’ve helped me more than once when I’ve messed up my powerbook.
#13) On May 24, 2004 1:35 PM
I recently upgraded from iMovie 3 to iMovie 4. Now when I go to audio and try to move a sound track into the movie, there is no sound. This only happens with the music I have purchased through the iTunes store. I can put music from a cd into the timeline and it has sound. I didn’t have this problem in iMovie 3. What can I do to fix this?
#14) On July 15, 2004 7:29 PM
So, it turns out my ‘problem’ that I had wasn’t really a problem at all. It’s a feature of iMovie 4. It’s not something you can change.
I think they put that there to eliminate feedback loops. So, if you use iMovie extensively ‘in the field’, then maybe you should stick with 3 and not 4.
#15) On September 5, 2004 2:33 PM
I have upgraded to imovie 4 (ilife 04) I have a mac 1ghz with 1gb of ram running osx 10.3.5. I was editing a birthday party where i used a lot of transitions and I letterboxed about 30 minutes worth of video. Whn i try to use a effect now it will preveiw but it wont render. I dont know what to do. Please help me I CANT FINISH MY PROJECT.
#16) On December 23, 2004 10:48 PM
hi, i am having a problem uninstalling ilife 04. does anyone know the proper way in which this is to be done?
#17) On March 1, 2005 5:58 PM
Hi, I’m having trouble importing mpegs into Imovie 4.0 (at home) but not in Imovie 3.0.3 (at work). I need to finish off a project at home but need the capability of using mpegs. What can be done to fix this? help help
#18) On May 9, 2005 1:12 PM
I have been successfully using iMovie 4 for about a year now and have edited and burned one DVD of four short productions without encountering any serious problems. For the last few months I have been working away on five more productions. Around two weks ago I downloaded an iTunes update and ever since then theaudio in iMovie 4 doesn’t work properly. I can’t move music files into position or edit them (i.e. fade out tracks where I wan to). I click on the sound file on the timeline and iMovie just churns awy forever…. then.nothing happens! I click on it again and it churns away for an another age then it might actually highlight the audio file but as soon as I try to do anything with it, it just reverts to how it was before. This is driving me nuts! Can anyone help me get around this problem as I am so close to completing this second DVD.
#19) On May 23, 2005 2:42 PM
Hi all- I just got this emac (with extra memory) at the school where I work. I was doing great with a 4 minute imovie until last week- I also cannot edit the music or do anything in the timeline mode- I was so close to scompleting my movie, now I am stuck.Any suggestions to be able to edit more quickly- do I need to buy Imovie 5?
#20) On July 4, 2005 11:54 AM
To uninstall iMovie5, I deleted the iMovie.app, iMoviePluginAPI.framework, com.apple.iMovie.plist and to be sure, the packages for iMovie in /Library/Receipts
Tiger then let me install iMovie4 from my Panther discs.
#21) On July 4, 2005 11:57 AM
Make that iMovie3 off the Panther disc. No wonder my transitions and audio are broken :)
#22) On August 15, 2005 10:02 PM
I am having I movie 4 issues..actually just upgraded (4.0.1)when I had other issues, I was making clips through Real 10 Export and the sound and picture was out of sync. I was renderring clips in Quickime and now my Imovie is crashing. Any clues a to what is going on? I have a G-5 with 2.5 gigs of ram. Should I take it in to a tech?
#23) On March 19, 2006 10:39 AM
All discussions of iMovie consider importing from a video camera. My source is Super 8 movies. I had them transferred to a DV (uncompressed) DVD. But iMovie 3 will not import it because it says the file is too large. My DV file does not have the scene breaks that are made by a video camera, so iMovie perceives my file as one, huge scene. I wonder if iMovie 4 might correct this problem. Does anyone know? Does anyone have any other suggestions? I will be grateful for your help.