iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

honestpuck writes "As digital video cameras spawn in the hands of you, me, parents and tourists like cockroaches in my kitchen we find ourselves needing the kind of technical and aesthetic help not really seen since the advent of 'desktop publishing'. Once again a 'Missing Manual' has come to my help." Read on for honestpuck's review of David Pogue's iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual. iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual author David Pogue pages 456 publisher Pogue Press/O'Reilly rating 7 - Good book, some flaws reviewer Tony Williams ISBN 0596005075 summary A quality introduction to two closely tied products.

I have previously reviewed iPhoto2: The Missing Manual and said "The target audience for this book would probably be a little less technical than myself or the average Slashdot reader, however when I find myself in a field I don't understand well I don't mind a little stuff for the absolute newbie" -- and once again this is true. iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual finds me in an area where I am technically inferior. Once again I truly appreciated this book and its style.

The book is broken up into four sections, one devoted to video cameras and shooting a movie, a large one on editing in iMovie 3, and smaller sections on exporting out of iMovie 3 and on using iDVD. At the end are two useful appendices: the first is a menu-by-menu look at iMovie 3, and the second is an iMovie 3 troubleshooting guide. The latter is often needed and always useful -- iMovie 3 still has more than one bug.

The first section gives a great deal of incredibly useful information about video cameras and how to use them, including hints on various types of shooting such as sporting events, interviews and weddings. The technical information on cameras is perfect if you have yet to buy a camera, including a guide to which features are essential and which unnecessary as you can do the same thing (only better) in iMovie 3. When it goes on to the 'how to shoot' section, you get pretty much the same advice you'll get anywhere, but since we didn't really read all of from the last book on video we read (and forgot half the bits we did read) it's nice to have it there again.

The second section does a good job of explaining the details of iMovie 3, even down to some of its shortcomings and bugs. I also appreciated the way it spent as much time on improving the quality of the finished film as it did telling me how to use the various parts of the software. It follows a logical sequence through the movie-making process, giving good details on how iMovie does the job, how to get the best result and what sort of things to avoid -- particularly useful for things like transitions and effects when less is best.

The third section, titled "Finding Your Audience," is a bit more of a problem. It really has nothing to do with finding an audience and a lot more to do with QuickTime. The section first spends ten pages telling us how to get our edited film back onto the camcorder or onto a VCR, then it spends a lot of time dealing with exporting to QuickTime, including posting movies to the web and some info on using the QuickTime player, including some "tricks" with QuickTime Player Pro.

The attention to the finished product in the second section carries through to the fourth section on iDVD, though the writing here is not quite as good. It is incredibly informative, however. I learned a great deal about putting together all sorts of iDVD projects, including ways of customizing almost every aspect of the finished product.

O'Reilly have the usual marketing stuff while Pogue Press have the handy little Missing CD section with links to all the free and shareware software mentioned in the book. Neither has a sample chapter or the table of contents, you can't even get either at Amazon.

One of the drawbacks of getting free software is that we don't get good free documentation. One of the benefits of free software is that we can choose which 'documentation' to buy. Some people might prefer the style of the 'Dummies' books, others the style of Peachpit's Visual Quickstart Guide. I've had a look at all three and like the balance of depth and explanation that Pogue has in his 'Missing Manual' series. I once again find myself recommending a 'Missing Manual' to everyone. While catering to the beginner, this book goes deep enough that all but the most long-term user of these two pieces of software will find something to learn in this volume.

You can purchase iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:ummm, just a point

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the stats? 90% of slashdot users use windows or mac's ..
Not saying that nobody here is a tech, but honestly, the majority are actually not really techs.

This is the truth, even though many people tend to brush it off as nonsense.
I have lots of non-techie friends who visit /. at least 3 times a day. These are regular users who aren't really computer savvy outside of Windows or Macs. Slashdot is great when you set your threshold to +5 and read the articles with comments. That way you know most of the stuff that's too technical gets filtered out and general posts which don't explain something at detail get left behind.

I also browse at +5 whenever I'm short on time and want a quick rundown of days articles. Otherwise, it's 0-threshold on regular days.

Re:ummm, just a point

[BigDumbAnimal]

This discussion is tiresome and off topic at best, but to review here are some points

Many /. readers read from work where they are forced to use windows.

I use windows and mac and I am every bit as technically proficient as you "average" linux user.

(posted using opera on linux from a dual boot machine behind a linux firewall)

Have you ever tried the software?

[winkydink]

iMovie doesn't need a manual, pure and simple. If you want to extract digital video and put together clips, it's very intuitive (heck, even my computer-phobic wife figured it out).

If you want to figure out how to do neat and nifty things with iMovie, buy the Missing Manual book, but you certainly don't need it to use the software.

IMovie

[BrookHarty]

Reading all the posts about if Mac users are techincal or not. The real issue is what happens when you do something "Non-Standard" that seems logical.

I've had a hell of a time, trying to figure out why 16:9 DV video wouldnt work correctly in iMovie. Seems 16:9 isnt supported even thou sony handycams support it, and seem to be a very popular brand. So now I'm stuck with 16:9 video I cant use on my expensive mac. Being told I need to buy $1000 dollars worth of software to use the video.

Also, why You cant just export into Mpeg2 and have some good utiltiies to cut/chop the video.

Many things I can do under linux and windows, just seem impossible to do with standard tools, or the "Trick" to get something done isnt known to a new mac user.

Why did I buy a mac? Wanted to test out all the features, and ease of use, and play with OSX. There is alot of power there, but there are many missing features, or alternative methods to get a task done. You can dumb down help guids too much, and Apples help file is on par with "Idiots howto Guides". This book is on my must buy list.

Re:IMovie

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods this is a troll or terribly mis-informed post, please moderate accordingly.

1) The only Sony Handycam that supports "True" 16:9 is the DCR-PC330 and has yet to ship, check it out so if you actually have this camera it would be interesting to find out how you acquired it. The other camera Sony sells that is in the palm camera format and does true 16:9 (not shoulder mounted) is the PDX10 which is ~US$3000.
2) If you have a camera that does true 16:9 (which is a multi-thousand dollar camera) why are you using iMovie and not a pro-level suite? Why spend all that money on a camera and expect a bundled in software package to handle the capabilities of that camera? If you can afford that camera and a new Mac then I don't think the cost of Final Cut Express or even Final Cut Pro should break your bank.

I suggest you check out camcorderinfo.com because you're losing resolution when you shoot in your camera's pseudo-widescreen resolution. If you think the widescreen format makes your home movies look cooler at least do it in post so it doesn't look like your movies were shot on VHS.

Re:Um say what?

[BrookHarty]

You don't NEED a 300 page manual to use it.

Thats the problem, crippled manuals only get you so far. There are too many "Gotchas" on iDvd/iMovie that mess up the whole process. Step outside the "Basic" process of making a video, and you find out quick the need for some extend help files.

O'Reilly Annoyances

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember back in the day when, if an O'Reilly book existed on a given topic, it was guaranteed to be the hands-down must-have last-word on the subject?

Now it's worthless Missing Manuals for Dummies in 21 Days. Can anyone pin-point the O'Reilly title that marked the beginning of the end?

Re:Good book

[Cirrocco]

Yeah, but there ARE some nifty things you can do with it if you work hard enough at it.
Example: Here's a short movie I put together (10 secs, 5.9 MB) I was trying to find a way to add lightsaber effects to my videos without having to purchase Adobe products. So here's what I did:

I shot the video and imported it into iMovie. (BTW, I'm using iMovie 2.03 on Mac OS 9.1) I exported it with the Sorenson codec after turning it into B&W (I thought it would be cool to have B&W video but a nice green-glowing lightsaber) I moved the movie over to my Linux box and used MPlayer (do I get bonus points for incorporating another topic on the homepage?) to split the video into individual frames. From there I imported the frames into the GIMP and used the Perl-Fu plug-in 'lightsaber' (from jfedor.org...thanks for making that! You rule!) and added the effect to each frame individually.

I then imported the individual frames back into iMovie (as 1 frame stills) and turned it back into a movie.

Yes, this took friggin' forever. About 4 hours for 10 lousy seconds of video. (However, had I known about the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts to any menu item under the GIMP it would have saved me a lot of right-clicking on the image)

But in the end I did NOT have to use an Adobe product, neither Premiere NOR After Effects.

BTW, if anyone can tell me a simpler way to do this I'm listening! But, yeah, if you have the GIMP you could potentially do some incredible stuff with iMovie.

The iLife suite isn't marketed at pros, period

[ianscot]

Too many users seem chagrined about not being able to create fluid epics via iDVD. I'm always amused by the ones that complain about the 60~90 minute limit of iDVD.

...For those that think they're getting the world with the iLife suite, think again.

Thing is, did anybody think that? Did someone seriously think they were getting professional-level video editing software, in iMovie, with the free suite? Does anyone mistake iPhoto for Photoshop?

Personally I thought I was getting some really handy organizational software for all those digital snaps, a nice little database interface for lots of songs, and movie authoring stuff that'd be great for anything on the level of a home movie. That's what the "digital hub" claims to be, right? Judging by my nine(now ten)-year-old kids' success in using the suite of programs, it's a resounding success. For home users the limits are well-chosen, to judge by us.

For example, the 60-minute limit on highest-quality iDVD burns is a lot of video. We're talking home movies, here. We can fit half a summer's worth of video onto one disk, easily, in anything like an edited form.