iMovie 4.0.1 Improves Performance

matti.haveri (apparently) - 06:14am May 5, 2004 PST
via email

iMovie 4 is better than v3.0.3 but v2.1.2 still remains the most
robust iMovie version.

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07653>

Below is a list of my main complaints in iMovie 4. Many of these
issues are discussed over and over again in Apple's iMovie and iDVD
discussion forums but it seems like Apple doesn't very actively (or
at all) react to long and repeating threads of similar complaints
from many users. Some forum "helpers" (i.e. frequent posters that
aren't Apple staff) have also expressed their frustration because
they can't escalate known problems to upper levels at Apple. I hope
someone who has influence on iMovie development reads the reports
posted to the iMovie feedback page or sees this post in TidBITS Talk
;)

<http://discussions.info.apple.com/>

<http://www.apple.com/feedback/imovie.html>

- Audio may be out of sync when exporting from iMovie 4 to iDVD 4
even if 48 kHz audio is used in all steps. A workaround is to extract
audio in iMovie before exporting to iDVD (i.e. select all the clips
in the iMovie timeline, select Extract Audio (can take several
minutes on a long project) and send the project to iDVD.

- Audio is converted to 32 kHz when importing DV-encoded .mov files,
even if they originally have 48 kHz audio. AFAIK it is best to use 48
kHz audio in DV to avoid audio glitches.

- iMovie 4's "QT Full Quality DV" preset exports PAL-DV as PAL-DVCPRO
which seems to be a bug:

iMovie 4 can re-import such PAL-DVCPRO .dv file but at least the Sony
TRV320E refuses to play it in passthrough to camcorder mode: the
camcorder screen remains blank and only audio is played if the clip
is PAL-DVCPRO.

I'm no expert in these things but PAL-DVCPRO uses 4:1:1 instead of
PAL-DV's 4:2:0 for color sampling and AFAIK unnecessarily converting
DV to DVCPRO degrades quality. NTSC uses 4:1:1 for DV and DVCPRO so
this isn't an issue with NTSC. Maybe nobody at Apple remembered that
DV/DVCPRO differ for PAL?

As a workaround I can export PAL-DV using the expert settings but I
bet some users are going to get bitten with this.

- The volume slider affects the volume of rendered clips, such as
overlaying titles, by setting the rendered audio to the level
selected with the volume slider.

- iMovie 4 (as well as 3) have sluggish updating of the passthrough
to camcorder info when editing.

With iMovie 2 the updating is very quick: you click another clip and
it is instantly displayed on the camcorder's LCD (or on the attached
TV).

In iMovie 4 the updating is sluggish: after clicking another clip it
usually takes about a second or even more to update the camcorder or
TV screen info which makes editing in passthrough mode irritating.
And sometimes the updating does not occur until you actually play the
clip.

I would prefer to edit in passthough to camcorder (and to TV) mode
because, unlike using a computer monitor, it allows me to see the
correct interlacing, overscan and gamma on a TV screen.

--
Matti Haveri <matti.haverisjoki.uta.fi> <http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/>