Buy iLife '08 and get iMovie '06 for free

I agree. imovie 08 seems to be a program made for ease of use marketed to kids. All of the cool features were eliminated from 06. I do like the new pro encoding in idvd though.

good to hear !! i just tried to use it yesterday and just couldn't figure it out. i love the youtube upload feature but that is about it. downloading '06 now :) thanks for the heads up

My big issue with iMovie '08 is that it's design suppresses creativity. Truthfully said, I don't care that some big so-and-so video designer says that we shouldn't use transitions and effects other than those on the pre-approved short list. I don't care what they think or what a "professional" would do.

We make movies of our family events in ways that please us, not anyone else. We're not here to compete for an Academy Award. We're here to have FUN. (Remember fun, Mr Jobs?)

This new paradigm can be compared to kids making art in elementary school. Should the instructor limit the kids in their creative efforts? Should teachers only hand out crayons of this year's "best" color palette? In short, should somebody reduce the set of possible outcomes to ensure that my kids' art fits someone's notion of "good"?

Would parents proudly display these cookie-cutter drawings on the 'fridge?

Not likely. And they certainly wouldn't pack them away in scrapbooks and hope chests, ready to pull them out whenever a fiancée asks what her intended was like as a child, or a grandson asks about his mother's own childhood. Not unless the piece is unique and shows the personality of its creator.

Apple has missed the boat on this one. They've reduced the perspiration from the process but also killed artistic inspiration by doing so.

I feel like Jobs mislead me. You can not find a bigger Steve Jobs fan than me, but I feel like he blew it with this "amazing" new imovie 8. Compared to the features of imovie HD it STINKS ! The interface is cool. And I was
excited to get the same features from imovie HD in this groovy new
interface. I even bought iLife just to install it next to my versions
of Avid and Final Cut Pro. I was thinking that for quick cutting of
simple projects this would get me there even faster than my pro apps because it has this steamlined interface.
But nooooooo. It is a weakling compared to the old imovie. No decent
audio control, loss of rubber banding and weak video fx. The title
tool has some promise. But I'm angry. I feel like it should have been
named iTube or iVideo or something other than imovie 8 ! Ripped off
and disappointed. I thought I was going to get something pretty
revolutionary, something I could cut with on my mac book pro and my
quad pro at work and was going to lead the charge on a new day
dawning. But no ! I got got this toy. Instead of a brand new and cleaner interface than either Final Cut Pro or Avid boasts - that had some real tools under the hood - we got hood winked.

Okay, Greg. It appears that I am about to teach you something that has been around in iMovie for a long time, including iMovie HD '06!

iMovie HD supports MORE THAN TWO audio tracks. If you import several audio clips and move them around, you will find that they can overlap each other. This means that you do not have to import your project into GarageBand to simply add more than two tracks.

In fact, this is one feature that I have always criticized "Windows Movie Maker" for! :)

-The One

It "lacks...no plugin support". Hunh?

I was excited to get iMovie 08 as we use iMovie 06 in our dental practice and I assumed there would be some nice enhancements. We capture exams and procedures with the operating microscope and staff members edit on-the-fly while patients are in the chair (http://www.apple.com/business/profiles/friedman/). Still frames are exported as JPEG files for adjusting in iPhoto. It worked great, but the new iMovie seems to have no means of exporting frames as JPEGs. Did I miss this feature or is it part of the "cutting room floor" stuff that has been deleted from this anticipated update? Feedback appreciated. Thanks.

I am curious if anyone could comment on the audio capabilities of iMovie 08. If you had two lavalier microphones on two people being fed through a simple audio mixer, can you feed the sound directly into iMovie 08 independent of the video?

I haven't got my hands on a copy yet, but what I really need for my video work in schools is to be able to put the soundtrack in first and then fit the clips to it using markers, as you can do easily in iMovie 06. Is this possible in the new version?

I counted a total of only NINE video transitions in iMove 08 and ZERO video effects. I coudn't even find a basic FADE IN/OUT! I only spent about an hour fiddling so maybe I missed something, but good grief - even crappy Windows Movie Maker has more transitions and effects. Yikes! Guess I'll keep using the old iMovie until this become a real upgrade. Sigh.

Ah well. The previous version worked great for me. I just really prefer upgrades to add, not subtract from the functionality.