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iMovie 3.0.1 Users "Upgrading" to 2.1.2
gsfprez writes "It seems that the general consensus is that iMovie 3.0.1 really sucks bad. Compaints range from randomly splitting cuts when importing, audio/video syncing issues, random crashing, and most common - performance issues so bad that capture and playback at full framrate is unattainable - and that's on DP machines. My experience is all this and worse on my previously very useful iBook 800. One can only wonder how galactically awful iMovie 3.0.0 was. Can anyone give a positive report on iMovie 3.0.1?" It looks nice. I just wish I could use it without it crashing.
Props to the team!
Sorry people that are experiencing problems. My first time running iMovie3 was slightly slower then subsequent uses. Havn't experienced any crashes or bugs yet myself. Been havin a blast with it's new iTunes integration.
I played with it a little bit. I wanted to make a slideshow out of some (big) photoshop files, with some pan & zoom, nice transitions, music, etc.
The main problem was that 80% of the PSD files came in wrong.. they were "folded over" as if you shifted the pixels over and they wrapped around. Bizarre.
Also at random times (maybe when an effect was still rendering) it gave me an error message about "unable to convert to JPEG, but was imported anyway" which means it couldn't apply the pan & zoom, but it still showed up in the movie. Bizarre again...
I also couldn't figure out an easy way to turn OFF the pan & zoom and just have a static still image.
Finally, I just exported a plain slideshow from iPhoto and left it at that.
On a related note, I hope Apple takes a look at Photoshop Album for ideas for a future version of iPhoto. Album looks like iPhoto on steroids.
Yeah, so iMovie doesn't recognize my analog-digital firewire bridge with any kind of reliability. It didn't before, and it might not for some time.
In the mean time, Final Cut Express does as much for me as Final Cut Pro, is within my price range, and supports my hardware. iMovie is nice, but it's still a free (as in beer) product coming from a commercial company.
Those buying from Apple because of the good things they've heard about the video editing should really consider shelling out some money for a better video editor. I've been a mac user for 15 or so years, and I know they're often pricey. Paying a little more to get more functionality than iMovie provides should make sense to those who want a decent looking video.
And to those who want a more refined iMovie, go ask for a refund. Really.
Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
I downloaded that monstrosity, started using it and immediately hated it.
If I were Ken Burns, I'd want my good name back... Importing an iPhoto seems to take forever, and there seems to be a 33% chance of crashing.
The only good thing, that I can tell, is the easy import of iTunes Library as a soundtrack. It actually works as described.
I'm not that much of a iMovie user (the lack of a digital video recorder is the primary reason). Oh well, 4 (Keynote, iPhoto, Safari, and X11) out of 5 aint bad.
My father is a blogger.
Just created a nice iPorn clip from bits and pieces of Limewire downloads... it works fine. You might want to check on the permissions for that new application. Some apps that i installed as a regular user (even though i typed in the admin password when I was prompted) led to the application crashing and performing really bad.
Can anyone give a positive report on iMovie 3.0.1?
Yes.
First things first: the machine I'm using to run iMovie is a dual-processor 1 GHz with 512 MB of RAM. A faster machine will undoubtedly run it better, while a slower machine will undoubtedly run it less well.
I've used iMovie 3.0.1 to import a fair amount-- about 40 minutes, I think-- of DV footage from files I had on my computer. I don't have a camera myself, so I can't comment on how well or poorly the camera interface works, but I do have lots of DVCPRO footage left over from a previous project. The footage plays back in real time from the timeline with no problems at all.
I have about 5,000 songs in my iTunes library, and the first time I clicked the "audio" button I had to wait about five seconds, maybe ten, for the list of songs to appear. After that, there was no noticeable delay.
The effects and transitions seem to work just fine. I don't think I've tried all of them, but I haven't had one fail or work in an unexpected way yet.
Integration with iPhoto is, in a word, incredible. Just click a picture, set a duration, and poof, there's a clip on the timeline.
Do I have any complaints? Not really. Sure, this is just the free iMovie; it would be nice if it supported multiple video tracks on the timeline or such, but that's what Final Cut Express is for.
So, to summarize, iMovie 3 does not really suck, and no, I have had no problems with it at all.
I write in my journal
"...the iMovie update just mentioned...it is reportedly going to suck wind." :)
===========
You people stayed for the entire speech, right?
Ok, so here's how it worked out for me. I tried it on my G4...just tried it. It ran, is all I can say. No big tests, so I'm afraid I can't comment otherwise, sorry. But no crashing or lockup, slowdown, etc. Remember, use 16 bit audio (camera setting) and keep lots (+/- 10gb min for me) of free space on the boot drive. Make sure not to use weird image file formats for slide shows and have tons of patience. The good news is that blank DVD's are still going down in price.
According to entries in the Apple support area (and some personal experience): Old (iMovie2) projects are trouble. "Reverse clip" is trouble. 800x600 resolution is simply not possible - real trouble for 800x600 LCD displays.
On the bright side there is probably a non-crashing code path in there somewhere.
What do you expect from a program that is produced by the mainstreem industry of "do it in ten days because we pay _you_, and _you_ have a dead line".
A real programmer is an artist.
Have you seen that Microsoft movie editor? It may not be that buggy but is so minimalistic is totally unsuable.
Some companies become dedicated to what their doing so they give all efford on 1 or 3 projects so they are good at it. Still can't compare on a 6 months' work of a programmer doing it at home for him/erself
Like Alias Wavefront, they give all efford on projects like Maya so they're good at it. Or Adobe, they are good at After Effects. But still, they take 1 or 2 years for a single year or 3 months to fix 2 or 3 bugs.
True programmers are artists, and it will be some day, where we all respect programming as self expression and personal efford.
Raise your hand if you have any idea what the fuck this idiot is talking about.
Hmm. Nobody?
I see.
I don't know what you guys dl'd ;)
imovie 3 has been way better than imovie2 for me. I've used it to capture a few hours of dv just to see. it actually captured better, and even captured in the background while i was working in photoshop7, Dreamweaver, and graphic converter and downloading in chimera, ichating and running mail.
the bin scrolling and moving of clips was remarkably more responsive too.
I do agree that the ken burns effect needs a little improvement, it seemed to frame blip a little while zooming and panning.
Also it does take curiously longer to open imovie projects.
Hardware (if you care)
Quicksilver G4 DP 800, 1.5Gigs ram, 80 gig ata, 9 gig Ultra2scsi, 320 gig ata raid, geforce3, radaeon 7500.
Camera: Sony VX2000 miniDV
just my 3cents. -Si
also, make sure you have quicktime 6.1
Apple greatly improved their DVcodec (speedwise)
-S
It's a bit slower to load and switch between clips but no crashes or glitches(yet!). There's a lag in importing iTunes libraries that's worth the wait. It's nice to have playlists listed and it seems to load in whatever view was last used in iTunes (i.e. if you had your lib sorted by date added etc.). And you can sort by artist, length, etc.) and new the sound set is really good. A tip for people new to iMovie: the Little Rascals music is very VERY versatile. :)
Text effects are enhanced and the the new FX (of limited application I hope!) are gee whizzie like aged film and electricity but where it really shines now is in audio control with vector like user determined points. Resizing the window is restrained and I'd like to be able to resize each pane individually but at least the desktop is that much closer now.
iPhoto is dog slow. Couple iPhoto with iMovie = double dog slow. Why is this so on Mac of all platforms? Hell, I still use PS 4.0 in classic over iPhoto. Is iP 2 altivec enhanced?
So yes, I've had quite positive experiences with iM 3 even on my humble hyzer G3 600/256 10.2.3
I shot a simple video last halloween with my friend's kids (as you do) which I edited in iMovie 2 on my iBook 800.
The major reason I wanted to upgrade to iMovie3 was the audio volume levels so I upgraded once it came out for download (incidentally didn't Jobs say that it would be available on the 25th Jan?)
I loaded in the old project and hit play - unwatchable jerky playback and choppy audio. I actually had to export the movie just to be able to show it to people at a party the other night.
Very disappointing.
For some reason I've always had trouble with iMovie 2. My Sony TRV-240 would allow maybe 10-15 min of capture, and then there'd be a huge blip where the computer (400 G4, 1.12GB) would just stop recording, and then start again. The transfer between recording intervals also generally lost a few seconds or had the first few seconds of the next interval tacked onto the first one (or vice versa).
As soon as I d/l iMovie 3 I tried to re-import the xmas videos that I had unsuccessful attempts at before.
Ahah! It worked flawlessly! The only problem was that the camera's fully-charged battery died at 40 min (the first time I've gotten far enough for that to be an issue). Plugged it in and got the last 20 minutes, and all are in sync and wonderful.
My only complaint - the widescreen (16:9) mode of the camera is not recognized - the video is still imported as 4:3 and is just squeezed so everyone is tall and narrow. Does anyone know of a way to get iMovie to do 16:9, or must I upgrade to FC{E,P} to get that capability? (It works great with plain-old RCA jacks on my 16:9 TV).
Dan
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
Just not "insanely."
my cheap little camera streamed just fine into iMovie, played fine, edited fine (I made a special effort to use most of the new features including the iTunes crap, even though I really don't care).. Donno what all the fuss is about.. I kind of don't like how it's not full screen anymore.. although I have 2 monitors running at 1280x1024 each so I guess that's why. I just don't see what everyone's talking about.. maybe I should try it on my roommate's 1st gen iMac.. too bad it doesn't have firewire........
Latewire
"First off, I never actually ran iMovie 3 on account that it will not run on my Clamshell iBook, for it requires a 1024x768 display, something that my poor ord Indigo will never have."
http://pixelcort.com/
I just put iMovie 3 through its paces just to see if your statments were true.
The machine I used is a PowerMac G3/333 (an old Beiege tower).
I imported ~30 minutes of video from my JVC DVM-70 via my OrangeMicro FW/USB card, no problems. Clips were only split where I had paused the recording.
The preview window was choppy during import, but that's happened on every video app I've used.
Playback of clips from the timeline was fine. Clicking on certain interface buttons led to a lot of disk churning and some delays and lessened responsiveness. Inserting a transition or an effect took sime time. The app is certainly useable, and reasonably fast on my system.
In the hour+ that I used iMovie 3 for my tests, there was not one error, and no crashes, quits, hangs or anything unexpected.
I can only imagine that with even a mere 400MHz G4, things would zip along much faster. A newer machine with duals, and around 1GHz should certainly run this app like a champ.
Perhaps you don't have QuickTime 6.1 installed as the installer for iM3 strongly suggests?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The overwhelming majority of user comments here indicate exactly the opposite of the story -- that iMovie 3 works exactly as advertised (though it might not be totally bug-free).
I edited a one-hour VCD project the day iMovie3 came out. No problems whatsoever.
Those of you who are having problems might try repairing permissions and defragging the drive.
At what point does Slashdot rescind a story that is so obviously mistaken?
I have also received e-mails for 3rd party plug-in manufactures that state: So some folks have "fixed" there system by removing all third party plug-ins.
Some people say that shrinking the window to the smallest it can be "helps" with performance.
Some people have reported that running your Unix cleanups and prebinding "fixes" everything up: I am personally not having any issues other than the following:
With all that being said Apple should have released this as a beta or done a a better job in QA. I have told them so too! I urge everyone to keep on Apple's backs and report all errors to them. They must have expected this in some way because "Report feedback to Apple" is a menu option!
Dan Slagle Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ
It was horrid the first time I ran it on my MDD Mac. After fixing permissions and running MacJanitor - it's much better. I think I'll keep it.
So far I've noticed iMovie is faster than before, transitions seem quicker(full screen seemed to have issues with audio, and multitasking in general, hence why it was probably made as a full screen app.)
The previews for effects are a bit misleading to when I apply them (thinking Rain effect here). Generally all over it's faster for me, it (or previous versions) are yet to crash, or act in an unusual manner.
I find it easier to edit clips than in previous versions. I'm pleased with how quickly the transitions are applied to the DV res footage I import. My athlon 1.4ghz couldn't do it anywhere near as fast.
I also use final cut pro, which I believe is infinitely better than iMovie, but with a respectable extra level of difficulty.
I'm wondering if the problem is entirely with iMovie itself. I experienced major video sync and overall system performance problems when I upgraded OS-X to 10.2.2 on iMac flat panel 800 mhz w/ 512k RAM. I was using FCP on a previously produced project to dub release prints. Several hundred copies later I discovered that lip sync near the tail of the program was way off and audio was stuttering badly. Had to reboot to Sys 9 and run FCP from there wherein the problem disappeared. Overall performance in OS-X 10.2.2 was so bad I ended up downgrading back to 10.2 and problems again disappeared. Couldn't understand why I wasn't seeing anyone else complaining about these major performance issues. Under 10.2.2 rebooting system several times a day would temporarily reduce performance problems. After a few weeks I got brave again and did the combo system update directly to 10.2.3 and now everything's working great again. In retrospect, the problems really didn't seem to be related to FCP itself, just the system's flaky performance. Can't comment in iMovie 3 issues since I don't use it, but since there is such a vast array of good and bad experience being reported here, I can't help wondering if it's system performance problems creeping into the mix.
but iMovie 3 is completely unusable.
For instance, in the clip shelf, to select 3 clips, I hold down shift and click clips 1, 2, and 3. On iMovie 2, they would highlight as I clicked them. In iMovie 3 it takes about 5 seconds after I click them for them to highlight. Seriously now, what can it possibly be doing during that 5 second period when the computer's not doing anything else, but trying to highlight 3 icons? There are some seriously bloated architectural models/algorithms being used here. Yes, I know my computer is three years old, but iMovie 2 is proof that it's plenty of computer for the task.
Also, I find iMovie 3 to slow down my workflow.
In iMovie 2, to edit out a part of a clip, I bring the controller to the first frame, hold down the shift key and select the stuff to edit out, then hit delete. Very Mac-like. This functionality appears to be gone in iMovie 3. Instead, one must drag the start and end controller independently, then use Edit..Clear. The end controller must be dragged first, so you wind up having to scroll past your first edit point, go to the end of the edit, drop your marker, go back to the first edit point (wait, I was already there) and drop the second edit point. This is completely backwards.
Also, of note for Toast VCD users, the option to export to a Toast VCD can now be found after selecting "Export to Quicktime" and "Expert Settings". Previously it was available on the first screen. Yeah, I know, VCD's cut into DVD-drive sales...
I'll be re-installing iMovie 2 since it satisfies all my requirements. I was hoping for something great and snazzy in iMovie 3. No complaints, for the price, but if I had spent $50 (iLife) on it, I'd be far less pleased. Of course, I suspect that 10.3 won't run iMovie 2, then they'll be wanting me to buy a new computer.
On the plus side, I can export directly to MPEG4 now, without having to save to DV first.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Could the bad performance be related to disk journalling?
IDE drives are pretty sucky for Video work. HFS+ is a relatively slow filesystem. HFS+journalling might just be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
I have iMovie 2 and iMovie 3 both on the same journaled HFS+ disk. iMovie 2 flies, and iMovie 3 moves like an excited barnacle.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
tested on bth systems to see if older systems had problems. I have had zero issues importing or exporting from a Canon GL1 or via a Sony Media Converter. The B&W G3 is obviously slower, but no flakiness whatsoever.
The KBE filter on photos is REALLY slow but you can hit the escape key which cancels rendering.
I would say people need to check permissions, look at any third-party plugins, and slashdot editors need to check their stories out completely.
In fact, vido plays back better during capture than in FCP. Likely do to less resource hogging.
Does iM3 let install if you dont have the updated QT? That may contribute if they have not done that upgrade.
I like the iPhoto and iTunes integration, very handy. I can't tell you the number of times I would have to describe to a new user, how to navigate to the iTunes folder then how to import the audio into the project. Kudos to apple. - jr
I'm using imovie 3 on a mac for several days not on a powerbook g4. it is working reasonably well, Except I did experience two application-suddenly-quit during rendering of transitions/effects. But I have not lost any work or had any problem importing DV, .mov clips, , .mp3 audio, or .jpg pictures. Nor has it split my clips wrong. If I have other programs running in the background sometimes the playback will mometarily glitch
but that's to be expected when you are heavily multitasking I think.
But I would not regress to 2.0 the feature set and the ease of use are fantastic.
I've been playing with exporting to different formats. the odd thing I have noticed is that quicktime format when compressed to the same level is superior to Mpeg-4. I find this odd. is not quicktime now mpeg-4 under the hood?
the other thing I am puzzling over is that when I export a movie in quick time I got two files one was the 4.4 megabyte file I asked for and the other was a 156KByte file hiding in the project directory. When I play them they are identical. What the heck is this lite weight 156K movie or why is the 4.4MB one so bloated. I suspect this has something to do with the export settings for "movie, self contained" versus "movie only" but cant confirm this. can anyone shed any light?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
the story says the "consensus" on the accelerate your mac bulliten board is that imovie sucks. Not true. read the article.
I think the people having problems are ones using obsolete imovie2 plug ins or camera drivers.
I would say that rest of the people are posting some non-problem but simple issues thay are discovering unexpectedly
like
- "imovie3" cares about file permissions more than "imovie2",
or
- it complained it could not locate my mp3s on my fire wire disk that was turned off. Or
- it was slow the first time I ran it.
Or
i accidentally dragged the sound track and my audio became out of synch (well duh!).
Whoop tee doo. this also sounds like the false alarms sounded when safari came out.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The active chemicals in Marijuana are insoluble in water.
I experienced a lot of trouble with iMovie - in fact as it appeared after software update had done its tricks, it was indeed unuseable.
I then deleted the entire iMove app from the Mac, and downloaded the entire install from Apple's web. today I captured six hours from a DV camera directly to a FireWire harddisk on a 700MHz iBook with no appreciable problems.
in particular, updating from 3.0.0 (which has circulated on the net) to 3.0.1 (which is a very small download) is not a good idea.
-- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
Haven't played much with 3.01 yet, but I will make this suggestion: for those seeking a better variant of the 'Ken Burns' effect, I highly suggest taking a look at Photo to Movie. I have been using it for a while to achieve basically the same effect and it works wonderfully...
From MacFixIt
.Mac account) at iDisk:Software:Apple Software.
Finding an older version of iMovie Several readers note that iMovie 2.1.1 is available on the Apple iDisk (if you have a
I've only been toying with iMovie 3.0.1 (no current video projects, sorry), and for the most part, it's fine for me. I'm running a stock G3 450MHz iMac DV+ with 386MB of RAM.
Some of the functions are a bit slower -- the Ken Burns effect, while neat, takes a while to render -- but nothing has caused any crashes or been a showstopper. Titles, effects, and transitions are all as expected. I had a problem getting iMovie to recognize my iPhoto library for a while, but that was due to me using multiple iPhoto libraries, and I can't blame Apple for that. Haven't noticed any sync problems, though maybe that won't appear until I work on a larger video project.
My only concern so far are the scattered reports that iMovie 3 won't export to digital/analog converter boxes -- I've got a Sony converter for the job, and if iMovie 3 borks with it, I'm hosed. But to be fair, Apple has been historically good at responding to major showstopper bugs in their software, and I wouldn't be surprised if iMovie 3.1 shows up in a week or three to address the avalanche of complaints.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
I ran it on my eMac, 640MB mem, and it worked. It was slow because it insisted on rendering every time I added a photo from iPhoto. Never crashed on me, and I look forward to making a dogumentary on my k9s...
I do wish you could lay out the whole thing, THEN have it render the whole thing. Then I could tweak it, the re-render the parts I need to... It did seem to render things that were going to be needed to be re-rendered after I added something new...
but I can't import the Muxed MPEGs that the Sony Cybershot P9 makes without splitting out the audio to an aiff file using Audacity (which often just crashes), then openng the movie in the quicktime player, saving it as a standalone .mov file, then opening that .mov file, pasting in the aiff audio and resaving the whole lot as a .mov file. this is hardly the sort of plug and play of quicktime movies I was led to believe iMovie3 would provide.
I mean the quicktime player plays those Muxed MPEG files perfectly, with perfect audio, but iMove doesn't recognise them and the Quicktime player won't export them with their audio. Perhaps Apple and Sony should get together for a beer and work this out - would save me many hours as I have many hundreds of these Muxed MPEGs as source material.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
Your post brought this to mind.
When journaling was added to OS X client as a command line option there were warnings about not using on drives you want to use for video capture/editing. I wonder if some of the problems people are having might not stem from having this option turned on?
Something else to check, anyway?
Got my iLife a couple of days ago. It all works beautifully on my B&W G3/350 with Sonnet G4/500 and Pioneer 105. Imported a bunch of iMovie2 movies of the kids, burned them to a DVD, played it in my JVC player. I nearly cried when I saw how great it looks. Thank you Apple.
Installed and ran dailys/prebinding and permissions. I've had pretty good success with the app. One exception, and it's a big one. Audio editing is almost guaranteed to crash the app. Audio edititing is one of the big breakthroughs I was looking for. It's a shame it's crashing the app like crazy. Editing sound on the video file and editing music beds and sound effects in the two audio fields will bring down the app about every other edit on one of the files. I'd like to hear if other folks are experiencing this. Hopefully a fix will be on the way. I forked over 50 bucks for this upgrade with the new idvd, I'd like it to work sooner than later.
G4 TiBook 800 MHz, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB 4200rpm internal drive, 40 GB 4200rpm external FireWire drive used for captures/editing, Sony DCR-TRV120 Digital8 camcorder.
Not a single problem here. I can capture DV to either my internal or FireWire drive with NO lost frames or other jerkiness. I can even do this while switching between multiple apps, playing MP3's, etc.
The new features are awesome! Importing music/sfx tracks in iMovie 1/2 was a pain, and if you wanted to do any sort of custom fading (fading out to catch a line of spoken dialogue or whatever), then forget it! MUCH nicer in iMovie 3, where you can edit volume levels in music clips at will,.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that all of my installed iMovie plugins still worked perfectly with 3...
Also the integration with the other iApps is great. I spoke earlier about the iTunes integration. And the iPhoto stuff with the Ken Burns effect is great as well. I was able to enhance some of my older video footage of family birthdays, Christmas, etc. by adding Ken Burns-ized pictures from my iPhoto library with some music and/or narration. I can't really comment on the iDVD integration, since I don't have a SuperDrive, but it looks pretty neat.
Rendering (transitions/titles/etc.) seems *slightly* slower, but not really a big deal to me. That's about the only downside I noticed.
Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
I stumbled on a fix for this.
Open your movie in Quicktime, tell it to export to "DV" format. The resultant file will be huge, but you will be able to import it into your movie.