[OsakaBill]

I asked about this on the Mac DV mailing list a couple of weeks ago. After a little bit more testing, I am forced to conclude that iMovie 1 may be better than iMovie 2. In my opinion, it seems that Apple may have gone for style over substance.

How did I come to this conclusion?

Shortly after Apple made iMovie 1.0 available as a free download, I did just that--downloaded it--and used it to put together a couple of little slide shows with a music sound track. I imported a number of .jpeg images, added some transitions, then recorded songs of of some CDs. After making these movies, I wanted the world to be able to see them, so I exported the movies to QuickTime. AS I recall, iMovie 1.0 had:

Email Movie, Small Email Movie, Large Web Movie, Small Web Movie, Large

I chose the Web Movie, Small option. The result was a 2.5 MB QuickTime movie that looked not to shabby.

I recently used iMovie 2 to update one of the slide shows. I deleted the audio track and recorded a different song. When I went to export the movie to QuickTime, the "Large" options for both e-mail and web movies were gone. This was not a big deal. I did not want one of those options.

I chose the Web Movie, Small option. This time the result was a 5.7 MB QuickTime file!! Worse, the sound quality and audio quality had been severely degraded. Images were blurry, lacked the vibrant colors of the earlier version and the audio sounded garbled.

I opened both QuickTime files and compared their information. The exported file produced with iMovie 1 used Sorenson Video compression, Millions of Colors, QDesign Music 2, Stereo, 22.05 kHz at 16 bits per second. The exported file produced with iMovie 2 used H.2.6.3 compression, Best Depth, QDesign Music 2, Mono, 11.25 kHz at 16 bits per second.

I went into the Expert Mode of the Export File option. I manually set iMovie 2's codecs to those used by iMovie 1 in the creation of the first file. When iMovie 2 was done, the result was a 2.7 MB QuickTime file. though a little bit larger, this QuickTime movie generated by iMovie 2 is slightly more blurry than the first and the color is not quite as rich. While these are not terrible distractions, considering that the is .2 MB LARGER, I don't think this is a fair trade-off.

One thing I did notice is that the Data Rate for the iMovie 1 QuickTime export is 19.3 K/sec. whereas the Data Rate for the iMovie is 21.5 Kb/sec.

Are the codecs included with iMovie 2 inferior to the ones included with iMove 1? Is the problem with iMovie 2 itself? Is the problem with QuickTime Preview 3? Or could something else be going on?

Other than the overall appearence, is there anything really all that important (functions, titles, transitions, effects) found in iMovie 2 that make it better than iMovie 1?
Ê


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Resistance Is Futile--Think Different

[GORDYmac]

The issue there is with the QuickTime Public Preview. Most multimedia enabled apps use QuickTime, if you have changed your QuickTime version in the interim that will account for the degradation.

As far as the differences in the two versions of iMovie, I never even considered upgrading. There seemed to be a lot of cosmetic changes and a few bells and whistles in iMovie 2 (slow mo, expandable shelf), but no real need to upgrade.

[qnc]

Where can I down load iMovies1 from I lost my copy stupid but true anyone care to put it on an iDisk

qnc@mac.com

if you can help



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London sorted
24:7 who needs sleep
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[zigzag]

Many of the settings in iMovie use compression schemes introduced in QT 4, and you're using 3.1. This might be the problem. There's an extensive discussion of iMovie/Quicktime issues in "iMovie2: The Missing Manual" by David Pogue.

I had iMovie1 and upgraded to iMovie2 by virtue of the fact that it came with my new Cube. There are some substantive improvements (e.g. ability to move an audio track independently of the video it came with, slo- and fast-mo, etc.), but mostly it's a more efficient interface. I'm glad I have it, but if you already know your way around iMovie1 and don't need those extra features, I don't think it's an essential upgrade, you're not going to automatically make better movies with it.

iMovie 2.0 has many features that I use constantly which weren't in 1.0 including:
way more transitions, slo motion, the ability to play back video to a TV through the camera, full screen display of any portion of the project as opposed to the entire project, better titling. It has other features which I rarely use (like special effects) but for anyone using it regularly its well worth the money.

[OsakaBill]

Originally posted by zigzag:
Many of the settings in iMovie use compression schemes introduced in QT 4, and you're using 3.1.

Who is using QuickTime 3? Not me. I am currently using QuickTime Public Preview 3. iMovies requires QuickTime 4.1 or higher to work.

[Feathers]

Hey, chill Bill! It was an honest mistake!

To be honest, my question is:

Do you really have a question or are you trying to show how clever you are by using the expert settings. To be honest, I sifted through your post and can't really find a question at all. Just bandwidth chugging BS. Oh there was a bit of a "which is better?" question, almost missed it!

iMovie2.0 is more stable, has better features (particularly sound) and supports the Plug-In packs that iMovie 1.0 doesn't.



Stay Frosty.