Getting Started with iMovie

Apple's iMovie enables you to transform the raw footage you capture with an analog or digital camcorder into a real movie with transitions, a soundtrack, sound effects, special effects, titles, and other elements. Using iMovie, you can make your own digital masterpieces and watch them on your Mac or put them on DVD.

Because this is a book on Mac OS X and not on iMovie, in this chapter, you'll get a fairly basic overview of this excellent application. Fortunately, iMovie is so well designed that a basic overview is likely all you need anyway.

NOTE

The current version of iMovie (version 5.0) is called iMovie HD because it supports the capture and editing of high-definition video. Unfortunately, at press time, HD camcorders are well beyond the reach of most consumers, with the minimum cost of about $3,500. Additionally, most consumer video playback devices, such as DVD players, don't yet support HD resolutions. The time is coming when all video equipment will be HD capable, but until the cost of these devices comes down, HD will be a nice, but impractical, feature for most iMovie users.