iMovie 2.0 Mac Video Editing Software Review by David Gordon Published on Dec 8, 2002 12:00 AM
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As with all things technical, eventually the costs of equipment and software eventually came down, however, a few years ago it was still costing 10,000 dollars cover charge to enter this club. Then, along came Steve Jobs from Apple with iMovie1 in 2000, and all was right with the world again, but this time, not just for the professional videographer, now home users had this capability bundled in with their new Mac computers. One short year later, and Apple releases the next iteration, iMovie 2, fixing all of the shortcomings of the original version, before the digital video world had gotten over the revolution inspired by the release of iMovie1.

A Quick Review of Principles

I would like to spend a little time discussing the principles of nonlinear digital video editing prior to reviewing iMovie software in order to build a foundation. Nonlinear video editing is a process of steps as follows:

1. The footage is captured on the camera (preferably digital).

2. The video is transferred to a computer hard drive (again, preferably digitally via digital interface such as firewire).

3. If the source material or connection is analog, then an analog to digital conversion step is needed.

4. As it is captured, the video will be laid down on the hard disc, which allows for randomly accessing any data regardless of the relative time of this footage (an important distinctions from tape media).

5. The footage, usually indexed as discrete pieces of video or clips can then be edited (shortened, lengthened, slowed, speeded up, and modified in a variety of ways).

6. Audio editing is also done, either separately, but linked to the video, or mandatorily linked to the video in the more rudimentary programs.

7. Effects, labeling, and text can be added as desired.

8. Once complete, the edited clips are then reassembled, in any desired order, and with any desired transition effects (audio and video) in between.

9. Finally, the finished product can be transferred to its’ new home; back to tape, or, as is currently very popular, to optical media such as DVD.

What sets one software apart from the other are the number, and breadth of available effects, level of control over each element and feature, and most importantly consistency, reliability, and ease of use. In all honesty, editing is a long and arduous process. It can be fun in small doses, however, if you are to compulsive about it, demanding of yourself that every second of video you ever shoot is thoroughly edited via this process, you will quickly lose your affinity for the task. This is why, for some, this is a full time job. The enthusiast, on the other hand, should consider what he, or she, is undertaking so as not to lose their zeal for the process. I suggest editing only a portion of what you shoot (particularly if it is mostly home videos you are dealing with).

Concerns to keep in mind have to do with the nature of this process. That is to say that today’s digital video and audio data is very high quality and takes huge amounts of hard drive space(about 3.6 MB per second!!). Your equipment will need to be pretty robust to keep up, and even then, many of the steps in the process will require a lot of memory and time on the part of your computer. Professional stand-alone equipment still costs a healthy 5 figures (approaching 6).

A Review, in Reverse

When imagining the perfect editing software, a laundry list of characteristics spring to mind:

1. Simplicity, as this is already a tedious and complicated task, you don’t want the software to complicate the matter.

2. Reliability, there is nothing more frustrating than to spend hours working on a task only to crash and have to start all over.

3. Compatibility, as there are a plethora of different camcorders and equipment out there, you do not want to be stymied by having to work around incompatibility issues.

4. Ease of use, or the fun factor. As a lot of time will be spent in this endeavor, a user-friendly interface will ease the pain considerably (a little eye candy doesn’t hurt either).

5. Availability of a complete set of features and effects so you don’t hit a brick wall and have to make compromises part of the way through.

6. A guiding hand, but not an overbearing one, too much manual control is not a good thing, but neither is too little. Ideally, many functions will be bundled automatically, but can be controlled manually if you want.

7. A good safety net, you do not want things deleted and irretrievable until the results have been checked, and double-checked.

Well, how does iMovie fair in these categories?

1. iMovie is so simple that there is no users manual, merely an electronic tutorial to walk you through the features (don’t forget to throw it out when you are done to free up 160 mb). I think Apple does this to make the point that iMovie is easier to use than anything else. To be honest, I would not mind a hard copy reference manual to refer to, however, Apple is truly justified in its’ claim of simplicity. The controls are completely intuitive to anyone who has ever clicked a mouse, and where they are not; the program will walk you through the process step by step. iMovie gets an A in this category.

2. Reliability is as much a result of the iron clad operating system (OS X.2, Jaguar), as it is the iMovie application. Suffice it to say, I have crashed my Mac once in 3 years by stupidly deleting a crucial system file, which I was easily able to fix. Likewise for iMovie (an Apple product, not third party). Just try to do that on a PC!!! Here also, iMovie (and Mac OS X.2) get an A.

3. So long as your camcorder has firewire connectivity, it will work with iMovie. If it does not, you may have a problem. You will need to have an analog to digital converter, or a video/audio card combination compatible with the computer to work. Usually, this is not a problem, however, I give iMovie a C in this category.

4. iMovie corners the market in user interface, ease of use, and having a pleasant appearance to boot. As alluded to in number one above, using iMovie is as easy as falling out of bed. Not as true for the first version (iMovie 1) however. Again, iMovie gets the A.

5. iMovie has a decent set of effects and features sufficient for just about everyone, except the highest-level videographers. It cannot compare however, to Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere in this category. As a result, iMovie gets a C+.

6. Bundled functions abound in iMovie, some of which you can turn on and off, as you desire, but not all. At my level, I like the automatic nature of this software as it makes things quite easy. On the other hand, the serious professional probably won’t take so kindly to this software’s patronizing approach. I give iMovie a B+ here (but some might rate it much lower).

7. iMovie almost compulsively prevents you from deleting forever pieces of discarded footage. It seems to go to lengths just short of fingerprinting or retina scanning for authorization to allow you to delete your unused clips. I like this also, as I tend to be too hasty to get rid of things to soon, and then it is too late. As such, this tendency on the part of the software has saved many a rear end. iMovie gets the A again.

As I tally it up, iMovies GPA is a solid 3.37, not bad, but not a 4.0 either. When you take into consideration the price, (it is either free with purchase of the computer, or 49 dollars) however, iMovie is in a class all by itself. Another huge advantage is that it runs on the rock solid Mac OS X.2 platform. This might be worth a bonus half a grade bump, giving us a 3.87, now we are talking.

For those who have not tried iMovie, I encourage you to do so as I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Actually, it can be sort of addictive once you start. Who knows, maybe you will edit all of your home videos after all?