Introduction

Over the years , home movies have developed a bad name , one that's not entirely undeserved . After all, you know what it's like watching other people's camcorder footage. You're held prisoner on some neighbor's couch after dessert to witness 60 excruciating, unedited minutes of their trip to Mexico, or maybe 25 too many minutes of the baby wearing the overturned spaghetti bowl.

Deep down, most camcorder owners are aware that the viewing experience could be improved if the video were edited down to just the good parts . They just had no idea how to accomplish that. Until iMovie came along, editing camcorder footage on the computer required several thousand dollars' worth of digitizing cards, extremely complicated editing software, and the highest-horsepower computer equipment available.

Some clever souls tried to edit their videos by buying two VCRs, wiring them together, and copying parts of one tape onto another. That worked greatif you didn't mind the bursts of distortion and static at each splice point and the massive generational quality loss.

You know what? Unless there was a paycheck involved, editing footage under those circumstances just wasn't worth it. The fast-forward button on the remote was a lot easier.

All of that changed when iMovie came along. It certainly wasn't the first digital video (DV) editing software. But it was the first DV-editing software for nonprofessionals, people who have a life outside of video editing. Within six months of its release in October 1999, iMovie had become, in words of beaming iMovie papa (and Apple CEO) Steve Jobs, "the most popular video-editing software in the world."

Apple only fanned the flames when it released iMovie 2 in July 2000 (for$50), iMovie 3 in January 2003 (for free), and iMovie 4 in January 2004 (part of the $50 iLife package).