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 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 thenas part of the iLife software suiteiMovie 4, iMovie HD, and iMovie 6 in successive Januaries. Note: The icon and welcome screen for iMovie 6 still say "iMovie HD." But that's also what the previous version was called! To avoid completely confusing you, this book refers to the iLife '06 version as iMovie 6, and the previous version as iMovie HD. Meet iMovieiMovie is video-editing software. It grabs a copy of the raw footage from your digital camcorder or still camera. Then it lets you edit this video easily, quickly, and creatively. iMovie is the world's least expensive version of what the Hollywood pros call nonlinear editing software for video, just like its much more powerful (and much more complex) rivals, like Final Cut Express ($300), Final Cut Pro ($1,000), and Avid editing suites ($100,000). The "nonlinear" part is that no tape is involved while you're editing. There's no rewinding or fast-forwarding; you jump instantly to any piece of footage as you put your movie together. Your interest in video may be inspired by any number of ambitions. Maybe you want to create professional-looking shows for your local cable station's public-access channel. Or you aspire to create the next Blair Witch Project (which was created by nonprofessionals using a camcorder and nonlinear editing software) or the next Tarnation , an iMovie project that was a hit at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. On the other hand, maybe all you want to do is make better home moviesmuch, much better home movies. Either way, iMovie can accommodate you. The world of video is exploding. People are giving each other DVDs instead of greeting cards. People are watching each other via video on their Web sites. People are quitting their daily-grind jobs to become videographers for hire, making money filming weddings and creating living video scrapbooks. Video, in other words, is fast becoming a new standard document format for the new century. If you have iMovie and a camcorder, you'll be ready. What's New in iMovie 6iMovie 6 represents only a light overhaul of the program, so iMovie veterans won't have a lot to learn and unlearn. Big-Ticket FeaturesHere's a summary of the really big improvements in iMovie 6, the ones that Apple either advertises or should:
You'll also find lots of smaller tweaks. Some are unheralded but fantastic, like a revised Ken Burns effect ( graceful zooming or panning across a still photo) that slows down, rather than speeds up, as it approaches the end. Others are unheralded but less joyous, like a redesign of the main control-pane buttons that requires an extra click to view, say, your effect options. iDVD ChangesAs you may have noticed, this iMovie book comes with a free bonus book: iDVD 6: The Missing Manual , which constitutes Chapters 15, 16, 17, and 18. If your Mac has a DVD burner , iDVD can preserve your movies on home-recorded DVDs that look and behave amazingly close to the commercial DVDs you rent from Netflix or Blockbuster. iDVD 6 is loaded with enhancements that help you make your DVD look even more like a commercial Hollywood DVD.
There are other nice touches, too. A single Project Info window shows you the status of your project, and warns you if anything is amiss before burning (like you've got too much video to fit on one disc). New stage-by stage progress barsand even a live video thumbnailshow you exactly where you are in the burning progress. There are ten new menu Themes, too, five of which are coordinated to match iMovie's new Themes. More flexibility awaits when it comes to the buttons on your menu screens, too; you have greater typeface and transition control, for example. About This BookDon't let the rumors fool you. iMovie and iDVD may be simple, but they're not simplistic. Unfortunately, many of the best techniques aren't covered in the only "manual" you get with iLifeits electronic help screens. This book was born to address three needs. First, it's designed to give you a grounding in professional filming and editing techniques. The camcorder and iMovie produce video of stunning visual and audio quality, giving you the technical tools to produce amazing videos. But most people don't have much experience with the artistic side of shootinglighting, sound, and compositionor even how to use the dozens of buttons packed onto the modern camcorder. This book will tell you all you need to know. Second, this book is designed to serve as the iMovie/iDVD manual, as the book that should have been in the box. It explores each iMovie feature in depth, offers illustrated catalogs of the various title and transition effects, offers shortcuts and workarounds, and unearths features that the online help doesn't even mention. About the OutlineiMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual is divided into five parts, each containing several chapters:
At the end of the book, three appendixes provide a menu-by-menu explanation of the iMovie menu commands, a comprehensive troubleshooting handbook, and a new master cheat sheet of iMovie's keyboard shortcuts. About These ArrowsThroughout this book, and throughout the Missing Manual series, you'll find sentences like this one: "Open your Home Library Preferences folder." Thats shorthand for a much longer instruction that directs you to open three nested folders in sequence, like this: "In the Finder, choose Go Home. In your Home folder, youll find a folder called Library. Open that. Inside the Library window is a folder called Preferences. Double-click to open it, too." Similarly, this kind of arrow shorthand helps to simplify the business of choosing commands in menus, as shown in Figure I-1. Figure I-1. In this book, arrow notations help to simplify folder and menu instructions. For example, "Choose Dock Position on Left is a more compact way of saying, "From the menu, choose Dock; from the submenu that then appears, choose Position on Left," as shown here.Technical Notes for PAL PeopleIf you live in the Americas, Japan, or any of 30 other countries , your camcorder, VCR, and TV record and play back a video signal in a format that's known as NTSC. Even if you've never heard the term , every camcorder, VCR, TV, and TV station in your country uses this same signal. (The following discussion doesn't apply to high-definition video, which is the same across continents.) What it stands for is National Television Standards Committee, the gang who designed this format. What it means is incompatibility with the second most popular format, which is called PAL (Phase Alternating Line, for the curious ). In Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and China (among other places), everyone's equipment uses the PAL format. You can't play an American tape on a standard VCR in Swedenunless you're happy with black-and-white, sometimes jittery playback. Tip: France, the former Soviet Union countries, and a few others use a third format, known as SECAM. iMovie doesn't work with SECAM gear. To find out what kind of gear your country uses, visit a Web site like www.vidpro.org/standards.htm. Fortunately, iMovie converses fluently with both NTSC and PAL camcorders. When you launch the program, it automatically studies the camcorder you've attached and determines its format. However, most of the discussions in this book use NTSC terminology. If you're a friend of PAL, use the following information to translate this book's discussions. The Tech Specs of NTSCWhether you're aware of it or not, using the NTSC standard-definition format means that the picture you see is characterized like this:
The Tech Specs of PALWhen iMovie detects a PAL camcorder (or when you inform it that you're using one), it makes the necessary adjustments automatically, including:
About MissingManuals.comAt www.missingmanuals.com, you'll find news, articles, and updates to the books in this series. But if you click the name of this book and then the Errata link, you'll find a unique resource: a list of corrections and updates that have been made in successive printings of this book. You can mark important corrections right into your own copy of the book, if you like. In fact, the same page offers an invitation for you to submit such corrections and updates yourself. In an effort to keep the book as up to date and accurate as possible, each time we print more copies of this book, we'll make any confirmed corrections you've suggested. Thanks in advance for reporting any glitches you find! In the meantime, we'd love to hear your suggestions for new books in the Missing Manual line. There's a place for that on the Web site, too, as well as a place to sign up for free email notification of new titles in the series. The Very BasicsYou'll find very little jargon or nerd terminology in this book. You will, however, encounter a few terms and concepts that you'll see frequently in your Macintosh life. They include:
If you've mastered this much information, you have all the technical background you need to enjoy iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual . |