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.

Comments

On a powerbook 800..

[skinfitz]

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.

Works great on a DP800 and Canon ZR20

[slughead]

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........

Works fine for me

[gerardrj]

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?