iMovie '08: Lacks support for plug-ins

I'm very sad to see effects and plugins removed from iMovie 08, it's clear that Apple want us to upgrade to their pro products. They may keep iMovie 06 HD on the hard disk and are offering it as a download, if they are doing this then I they can't think iMovie 08 is any good if they have to keep the old version. I just wonder how long they will allow us to keep using iMovie 06 HD.

I've always loved iMovie since the OS 9 version. This piece of crap
shouldn't even be called iMovie. I don't think you can even extract
audio from a clip on this thing.

It looks like Apple decided to replace the real iMovie with this poor excuse for a clip manager in order to get more people to shell out for FCE and FCP. Don't fool yourselves iMOVIE AS WE'VE KNOWN IT IS GONE,NEVER TO RETURN!!!!

THIS IS A BLATANT MARKETING PLOY DESIGNED TO PUMP UP SALES FOR THEIR OTHER EDITING SUITES.

I fil sory apple stewe jobs first time go back so many steps with I life 08. Re member gico stone age .I want my money back . How. ??????

I want my money back

i really hope that they bring back timeline editing + video effects to '08.
the core video filters + effects should not have required a rewrite since they are a built in part of osx.
i installed the new imovie before i realized that those two features were left out.
total let down.

back to imovie HD

I think that fotoram is right about Apple trying to target a wider consumer audience (one that to easily be able to make quick movies - not edit 4 hours of raw video down to a 20 minute clip). In order to target this broader audience, Apple decided to include support for more than just DV and HDV video formats. Many consumers have or are buying HDD camcorders, flash camcorders and DVD camcorders. These typically use MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 encoding.

MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 are much more difficult to edit than DV as they are highly compressed formats. Thus rather than having the DV user experience iMovie '08 with video effects and the MPEG-2 user experience it without video effects because the processing overhead is too high, Apple chose to create a consistent user experience for all users. The unfortunate consequence of this is that DV users now lose out on the ability to edit their footage.

It might be possible that Apple is trying to develop algorithms to allow for more advanced editing of MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 clips, and that when they do, they will bring back some of the effects. But, chances are, that they chose to give up on effects driven editing when they chose to support MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats

"Wow, this is the first time I think I have ever gone backward having paid money for an upgrade." Hey SC, I can understand your disappointment with a totally new product. I think that iMovie '08 was developed to get more consumers into video editing. While I think that iMovie '06 reached an awesome pinnacle as far as video editing for consumers, it became a little too difficult for the average person who just wanted to download their home video and send it out to aunt Lucy. There are a lot of really neat features in iMovie '08 and it will allow many individuals that are new to video editing get into the game. But, for the serious video hobbyist, the change was too drastic. I think that is why when you upgrade, iMovie '06 is still left on your drive. BTW, as a professional video editor for over 15 years, never upgrade to a new version in the middle of a project. It's just asking for trouble. This is coming from unfortunate experience. Anyway, keep working on iMovie '06 for your projects and get to know iMovie '08 and it's new way of doing things, you might be surprised! Take care.

Wow, this is the first time I think I have ever gone backward having paid money for an upgrade. I am trying to pull in a movie I have been working on for about two weeks in iMovie HD, and iMovie 08 keeps bombing out. The movie is about 20 minutes long, lots of photos, old transitions, a bunch of music set at differing levels, etc. iMovie 08 can't handle it. I am absolutely blown away - it doesn't work. I am actually thinking about uninstalling it. What happened to the old Steve Jobs who was fanatical about quality ! The total re-write, well that is pretty nifty - who really cares ! I want to be able to do more in iMovie 08 than iMovie HD not less - upgrade - get it. WTF ? I must be missing something. Where can I edit my audio tracks? A lady at the Apple store told me I had to take my movie into Garage band and edit the audio there. I can't exactly do it the way she told me. If this is any indication of the Leopard upgrade, then we are in trouble.

Yes you can use iMovie HD and the new iMovie '08. It creates a backup of the old version in your application folder.

So from what I'm reading above I can have iMovie HD retained and I am still able to work on current (and future projects) with iMovie HD if I choose to despite loading up iMovie '08... in other words I would have TWO iMovie programs to work with, correct?

I would hate to have to move to this suite of apps, and lose what I like about iMovie HD, despite the fact that iMovie appeals to me to try for some future projects...


Any comments?