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Kelvin · Jan 31, 2004, 03:55 PM

As a prospective Mac purchaser who is interested in either an iBook or Powerbook I decided to go down to the local Apple Store at Willowbend Mall in Plano, Texas to check out the new iLife applications. I took my Canon ZR60 and imported an 8 minute movie clip into three notebooks; an iBook 12", Powerbook 12" and a Powerbook 15" using iMovie4.

On all three machines iMovie 4 crashed or got stuck with that spinning rainbow wheel. On the 12" Powerbook everytime I tried to add a title at the beginning of the clip I could see a red line progress along the bottom of the title clip and when it finished the rainbow wheel appear. I tried it several times and got the same result. Forced quit on every instance. I even rebooted the 12" Powerbook and it didn't help. On every machine I started a new project before importing.

I'm very dissapointed because I had no such issues testing iMovie 3.03 at the same store.

Since these iLife applications are a big reason to buy a Mac laptop their stability and robustness are important to me with the major emphasis on iMovie.

Guess I'll stick with my PC desktop a while longer until Apples fixes these issues. I don't understand how someone like me who doesn't even own a Mac and doesn't use iMovie can come across such instabilty within 10 minutes of using it on three separate machines. Shame on you Apple.

Horsepoo!!! · Jan 31, 2004, 04:29 PM

Originally posted by Kelvin:
As a prospective Mac purchaser who is interested in either an iBook or Powerbook I decided to go down to the local Apple Store at Willowbend Mall in Plano, Texas to check out the new iLife applications. I took my Canon ZR60 and imported an 8 minute movie clip into three notebooks; an iBook 12", Powerbook 12" and a Powerbook 15" using iMovie4.

On all three machines iMovie 4 crashed or got stuck with that spinning rainbow wheel. On the 12" Powerbook everytime I tried to add a title at the beginning of the clip I could see a red line progress along the bottom of the title clip and when it finished the rainbow wheel appear. I tried it several times and got the same result. Forced quit on every instance. I even rebooted the 12" Powerbook and it didn't help. On every machine I started a new project before importing.

I'm very dissapointed because I had no such issues testing iMovie 3.03 at the same store.

Since these iLife applications are a big reason to buy a Mac laptop their stability and robustness are important to me with the major emphasis on iMovie.

Guess I'll stick with my PC desktop a while longer until Apples fixes these issues. I don't understand how someone like me who doesn't even own a Mac and doesn't use iMovie can come across such instabilty within 10 minutes of using it on three separate machines. Shame on you Apple.

Shizznit happens. I have all tales of that sort from the PC side also. Ya just gotta be a little more open-minded and patient.

mdc · Jan 31, 2004, 04:40 PM

I'm sorry that you had these issues.

i have a 12" Powerbook and have imported files into iMovie 4, without any beachballs or freezing.

Chuckit · Jan 31, 2004, 05:22 PM

Three separate computers? That's nuts. I hope you mentioned it to the employees there.

FlatLyna · Jan 31, 2004, 06:22 PM

Damn, that exact same thing happened to my other half as she added a title to a clip today - again only a force quit got her out of it.
The clips were still there but the whole timeline was missing.
Only got iLife04 yesterday so it was a shock as I hadnt yet read of this issue.

On the whole though, iMovie is way better than equivalent pc offerings I've tried.

Webscreamer · Jan 31, 2004, 06:35 PM

YUP

I was showing it off to a PC guys and he loved it, till I added a Title and got the Beach Ball and had to force quit ;-/

damn

arrlin · Jan 31, 2004, 08:10 PM

I had the same issue with imovie 4 until I went and deleted the old preferences for imovie 3. Works great now. Great improvement in performance over imovie 3.

arrlin · Jan 31, 2004, 08:15 PM

Just to add, at least with a mac, the prob is usually just a quick fix.
I find if an app is acting up, just go delete the old preference files. They're all in the library folder and labeled. I usually just click on the library folder and search for let's say 'imovie', and then delete the old prefs. In this case, I believe the search showed up a pref file labeled imovie3. It was an obvious quick fix that worked.
That said, this should not be necessary.

Kelvin · Jan 31, 2004, 08:26 PM

I didn't post this thread because I advocate PCs. iMovie4 has some serious stability issues. I've been looking at purchasing a Mac notebook for a while now with the intent on doing some home video editing. I still need to keep my old PIII desktop and desire a notebook to connect into my wireless network so I can work on it anywhere in the house, especially when my daughter needs to use the computer, so I've been looking at the Mac.

I'm really impressed with OSX and despite iMovie having to be force quit several times the OS kept chugging along.

I did mention it to a couple of employees that asked if I needed any help but they didn't offer any advice.

nickm · Jan 31, 2004, 09:39 PM

You can always run iMovie 3.

Kelvin · Jan 31, 2004, 11:52 PM

Originally posted by arrlin:
I had the same issue with imovie 4 until I went and deleted the old preferences for imovie 3. Works great now. Great improvement in performance over imovie 3.

I've read this is a common issue with a lot of upgrades and not just with Apple applications. I wonder why the installers can't delete the old preferences and build the new ones.

Where are the iMovie preferences located? I could then go back to the Apple store and try the same tests.

Thanks

OreoCookie · Feb 1, 2004, 01:22 AM

Well, that's why I `had to' switch to Final Cut 3. I haven't tried iMovie 4 yet, but after a long odyssee to edit my sister's graduation video, using iMovie 2, iMovie 3 and Final Cut 3, I don't wanna go back too quickly. Imagine editing the same video three times, it took me about 80 hours of work (4-5 hours of raw material): crashes, trying to circumvent reproducible crashes, learning how to use Final Cut, waiting for Final Cut to render, cause I have a G3, and the sound was recorded in 32 kHz and the other time in 44 kHz.

After I get my copy of iLife next week, I'll give it a shot.

arrlin · Feb 1, 2004, 06:46 AM

All preferences are in the users library folder.
~/username/library

Search the entire library folder for imovie. When I did this after installing imovie4, the search showed a pref labelled imovie3. Delete this. For good measure I would delete all the old prefs. Deleting prefs doesn't stop the app from functioning.

Cadaver · Feb 1, 2004, 09:45 AM

Send feedback to Apple when a reproducible bug is found. Then sit back and wait for iMovie 4.01...

parsec_kadets · Feb 2, 2004, 11:46 AM

Originally posted by arrlin:
All preferences are in the users library folder.
~/username/library

Search the entire library folder for imovie. When I did this after installing imovie4, the search showed a pref labelled imovie3. Delete this. For good measure I would delete all the old prefs. Deleting prefs doesn't stop the app from functioning.

I'm not positive these are actually old preferences hanging around from iMovie 3. When I delete the file you mentioned, then open iMovie 4, the file labeled iMovie 3 reappears. Looks like someone at Apple forgot to change the file name. This would explain why old preference settings are hanging around after the upgrade since iMovie 4 will see the old preferences and think that preferences for version 4 have already been created.

arrlin · Feb 2, 2004, 12:53 PM

I never checked after deleting the pref files to see if they reappeared. After deleting them, my problem with the spinning beach ball in imovie4 whenever I tried to render a title disappeared. I deleted a few of the pref files, probably including the apple.com.plist.imovie one. I cannot say for sure which one was the offending file.