An iMovie Toolbox

A full-size movie crew can be unbelievably large and take up a city block. You probably won't require that much gear, but a few items are necessary to use iMovie.

• Mac OS X 10.2. iMovie 3 runs under Apple's now and future operating system, Mac OS X, version 10.2 (Jaguar) or later. You also need a Mac with a PowerPC G3 or G4 processor running at 300 MHz or faster. Apple also says your Mac needs to be equipped with FireWire, but that's not technically true. iMovie will work on a Mac without it, but you lose the capability to directly import footage from your camera.

• iMovie 3. If you've purchased a Mac sometime after January 2003, you probably have iMovie 3 already look in the folder named Applications. iMovie 3 is also available as part of the $50 iLife package, which includes iTunes 4, iDVD 3, and iPhoto 2. And, you can download iMovie 3 for free from Apple; see Chapter 6 for more information.

• A digital camcorder. This handy and compact device records the raw footage that you will edit in iMovie. If you own a camcorder that's not digital, you can still import video into iMovie using a third-party analog-to-digital converter. That said, I can't stress how much easier it is to work when you have a digital camcorder. See Chapter 7 for details.

• Lots of hard disk space. Storage is getting cheaper by the day, which is a good thing. You'll need lots. I don't mean a few hundred megabytes tucked away in a corner of your drive. Realistically, if you don't have at least 10 GB (gigabytes) of storage to use for iMovie, shop for a bigger hard drive. See Chapter 7.