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Old                03-25-2004, 7:57 AM Reply   
I recently bought a Apple iMac, and I am just learing how to use iMovie, is there anyone out there that is pretty proficient with iMovie?
Old                03-25-2004, 4:01 PM Reply   
if you have a mac, the only program to use is Final Cut Pro 4. better than premiere
Old                03-25-2004, 5:24 PM Reply   
i would have to agree with jerome about FCP4 but it is also 1000 more than this person probably has to spend. I am pretty decent with it. What do you want to knwo how to do.
Old     (thelakeisglass)      Join Date: Jul 2003       03-25-2004, 7:06 PM Reply   
i use both - what help do you want?? It's pretty easy to learn - after all it is a Mac product
Old     (ridn9high)      Join Date: Feb 2004       03-26-2004, 8:30 AM Reply   
steve- how much did you pay for your comp?
I am looking to buy a mac, just got a dell last year and don't really like it.
Old                03-26-2004, 8:40 AM Reply   
I am having a couple of problems, first of all, does iMovie have the capability to slowdown and then speed up a clip...it seems like you can only choose 1 speed per clip. For instance if I want the show a rider a normal speed doing a coupl of wake passes and then I want to slow it down right as he approaches the wake for a huge hit and then speed it up again as he lands, is this possible?
Thanks for you help.
P.S. I like your name...wake geezer...pretty funny
Old                03-26-2004, 8:44 AM Reply   
I paid $1,795...AFTER rebates...I bought it off of CDW Direct...Mac Wharehouse. That price includes: iMac 17", 250MB extra Memory, and an Epson Color Printer. Seemed Like a great deal to me, so far I love the gaphics and music capabilities, but I am definelty experiencing a little bit of a learing curve between my windows based PC and my new MAC.
Old                03-26-2004, 9:57 AM Reply   
Steve, if you have a newer imac i would HIGHLY suggest buying final cut express 2.0 - it cost 700 bucks less than final cut pro 4, and has almost all the same featers. all of your edits cleaner and easier.
I apologize for the length of these instructions.

these are instructions on changing the speed for just a portion of a clip (like that monsterous hit)

as far as your imovie problem, yes it is very easy to change speeds. if you want to change the speed of a sertain section of a clip you need to turn the clip into three clips. start at the begining of the clip and stop the playhead at the part you want it to start slow-mowing. when you have placed the playhead where you want it go to edit, split clip at playhed. this will turn the clip into two different clips. then place the playhead at the end of the trick (when the rider lands or wherever you want it to go back to regular speed). once you have the playhead positioned there you need to split the clip at playhead once again. now you will have turned you clip into three seperate clips. select that middle clip, the one of the huge air/trick/whatever, then you need go down to where your timeline is. make sure you clicked the little pic/button of the clock on the left side. now there is a little bar at the very bottom of the sceen with a rabit and a turtle, those are your speed adjusters, adjust the middle clip and let it render. voila- you now have a perfectly edited speed chang.

sorry about the extreme lengt of the directions
just post if you have any more questions, i am pretty proficient with imovie and final cut express
Old                03-26-2004, 12:01 PM Reply   
I should have bought FinalCut Express when I originally bought the computer, but I thought I should learn everything in iMovie first and then move up...is this good or bad thinking?
I also had another problem, I was shooting my friends wedding at the beach and then first clip is him and his fiance with the preacher doing all the vows..well the problem is there is lots of wind noise and you can hardly hear the preacher. I extracted the audio from the video in hopes that I could edit the audio by itself (i.e. lower the wind noise and increase the preachers voice but I don't think this is possible) is it?
Old                03-26-2004, 6:50 PM Reply   
Steve

that isn't bad thinking at al,i actualy did the same thing. before final cut express ever came out i had done numerous projects on imovie(i actualy started at like age 11), and my skills in that program made the transition from one program to the other very easy. but now that i have final cut i can't imagine using imovie any more ( you will reach a point where it just doesn't contain the tools you need for more advanced editing) if you are proficient at imovie then final cut should be a sinch. as to the wind noise, there is nothing you can do about it on any of your base apple programs. the only thing i can think of would be to get the preacher to reread the vows for a audio recorder ( if this is at all possible, probably not depending on when the wedding was). if you had that done you could turn the volume down all the way on the clip and place the recorded audio in a different audio track. i wouldn't even suggest this because it would sound set up and corny.

definately get fcxpress, don't bother looking at fcpro (the only major advantage to having pro is it can work in any format of film, but for most home users, they only have one camera, and finalcut xpress supports almost all of them)

feel free to post any more questions
Old                03-27-2004, 7:36 AM Reply   
I am looking at buying a mac this summer to do editing and such on. You would suggest fc express over fcp. I am only asking cause if i can save 300 i wouldnt mind it. Would u suggest getting a dual G4 or a single G5. I am a student so i will get academic pricing on my purchases. Which means FCP4 is 500 and FC express is 150

(Message edited by franks21 on March 27, 2004)
Old                03-27-2004, 8:19 AM Reply   
nick
both of those computers are great machines
what you need to ask yourself is what will you be using the computers for. if you are doing lots of high end graphics programs such as intense gaming or scientific modeling whith mathmatica, you should get as much prossesor and ram as possible. if you can foot the bill you could upgrade the G5s with as much as 8 gigs of ram. this would cost you an arm and a leg though. if you are just going to be using your computer for word prossesing, media, photos, etc. you don't need as fast of a machine. i have the 20in imac with 512 of ram and it runs all of my programs well. i would suggest getting fcxpress as well. unless you are actualy in a media school where you would be using an editor for your portfolio, you will not need more than xpress can offer. also, if you plan on doing a lot of video editing, i would highly suggest getting the largest hard drive you can. we used up 60 gigs after a week while working on a large project. the big picture is to look at what you need and getting the appropriate system. and no matter which way you go you cant go wrong with a mac.

feel free to post any more questions.
Old                03-27-2004, 5:14 PM Reply   
what other programs are included with fcexpress. I was looking at getting Adobe Video Suite which include like video editing special fx sound and dvds. How good is DVD Studio Pro.
Old                03-27-2004, 9:03 PM Reply   
nick
fcx doesn't come with any other programs
i do not have dvd studio pro, but i know it includes a.pak which encodes your audio dolby 5.1. it also includes compressor which is a video compressor. i would probably suggest buyin the program if you can foot the bill
thanx for the question
Old     (richd)      Join Date: Oct 2003       03-28-2004, 6:32 AM Reply   
DVD Studio Pro 2 is very easy to use yet has all the high-end authoring features. In basic mode it's a lot like iDVD and pretty much does everything for you. I would get a G5 over a dual G4, when OS X is optimized for 64 bit later this year any G5 will probably be faster than any dual G4. As it is now only the top dual G4's (dual 1 & 1.25 ghz models) are faster than the G5 with FCP. If you're editing DV only I'm not sure FCP has any features that FCexpress doesn't, Livetype and soundtrack are nice though.
Old                03-29-2004, 10:36 AM Reply   
Thanks for all the info Curtis and Rich, I appreciate your help.

One bit of bad news, I learned a simple but important message last Friday night. I was back on the computer editing my wedding footage...I had the music dialed in just right, I made about 8-9 transitions that were begining to look really smooth and I added a few title frames between segments...it was all coming along very nicely when....iMovie shut down without notice, the only thing I had running in the background was the iTunes radio. I couldn't believe it, 2 hours of work down the drain!

I thought iMovie automatically saved information periodically, but I guess I was wrong.

Oh well, lesson well learned, I will definetly be saving my work as I go now.

P.S. Thanks Nick for the heads up on student discounts, my wife is in college, so I think I will go through her and buy the Final Cut Express.
Old                03-29-2004, 11:22 AM Reply   
By the way, I have another question:

I took a couple 45 second videos on my Nikon CoolPix camera (4 megapixel model).....not camcorder....is there anyway to get this imported into iMovie so that I can edit the video? It looks like I can only import still pictures thru the usb cable into iPictures.
The CoolPix camera doesn't have a fire wire port like a camcorder.
Old                03-29-2004, 1:59 PM Reply   
steve
honestly i am not entirely sure about your coolpix footage, i think if you found a way to convert it into quicktime you could just drag the file into your timeline. also, try finding a way to manualy select files on your cameras memory card before importing the photos, you might then be able to get your movie file into quicktime. and my condolences on the work lost, i have done similar things resulting in hours of work lost, but never feer, once you get fcxpress your worries should be over, it saves automaticaly
by the way, how did my editing trick on slowing down a clip segment work for you, i want to know if my instructions were detailed enough.
thnx
Old                03-29-2004, 5:22 PM Reply   
i beleive that you are not truely a video editor until you lost your project after working numerous hours. Ask any one here most have had it happen to them once..... they usually learn by then. PS Anyone know if apple has anything else up their sleives for making a new imac or putting a G5 in an imac or something like that... jsut wondering thanks
Old                03-29-2004, 5:26 PM Reply   
nick, i totaly agree with you about losing a project, it happens to everybody. as to apple's plans, i haven't a clue
Old     (thelakeisglass)      Join Date: Jul 2003       03-29-2004, 8:01 PM Reply   
Re coolpix camera - - you should not need the firewire to get the file on yor computer. Firewire speed is needed for capture . . . but you already have a video file captured. Here's something to try. Use the USB connection to transfer the file to your hard drive then try to import the clip into iMovie. My little Sony Camera saves the files as MPEG movies which is a standard format so it just might work
Old     (thelakeisglass)      Join Date: Jul 2003       03-29-2004, 8:02 PM Reply   
re losing files - one advantage of Final cut is being able to set the autosave function. Mine saves every 2 minutes - - because of many BAD experiences with lost work!
Old     (thelakeisglass)      Join Date: Jul 2003       03-29-2004, 8:05 PM Reply   
For Steve back on friday . . if you could only see the grey hair on this old guy you'd know where the "geezer" come from love to wakeboard and snowboard even at my age!
Old                03-30-2004, 4:00 AM Reply   
Thanks for all the input. RE: lost files...I look forward to getting final cut express and setting the autosave...I would save that it will save me a few gray hairs (i.e. Wake Geezer) but my hairs falling out too fast to ever turn gray...I'm only 31 and half my hair is already gone...wht's up with that!?
Anyway, I'll try saving my coolpix videos to my hard drive and se how that works.
Curtis, the advice on cutting the clip, then slowing it down then cutting it and starting again worked great!...except that was part of the editing that I lost...I will try it again later this week.

Thanks guys,
Stevo
Old     (richd)      Join Date: Oct 2003       03-30-2004, 5:23 AM Reply   
As soon as Apple ramps the speed up on the G5 towers you should see the G5 starting to show up in the iMac. The Powerbook is another story as the G5 evidently generates a lot of heat.

Steve: Are you running 10.3 Panther? I haven't had a single crash with FCP or DVDSP since upgrading to that.
Old                03-30-2004, 2:00 PM Reply   
I'm not sure, I think I have the OS X Operating system, but I'm not sure if it's 10.?
I have a question (and I know it's going to sound stupid, but) do I have to sign up for a .mac account in order to use microsoft excel and microsoft word on my iMac. Do I need to buy a software package that includes ms excel and ms word?
Old                03-30-2004, 2:41 PM Reply   
Steve, if you need a word prossesing or spreadsheet program you should just get apple's appleworks. it solves all of your problems.
Old     (richd)      Join Date: Oct 2003       03-30-2004, 6:00 PM Reply   
Steve you just need to get Microsoft Office if you need those programs. Appleworks will work too for a spreadsheet/word processor.

.Mac account is for web hosting and email.
Old                03-30-2004, 7:22 PM Reply   
once again its great to be a student as the student package of those is only 150 as you said your wife is in college just another tid bit.
Old                03-31-2004, 4:40 AM Reply   
Nick,
Do you have any idea what kind of discount my wife can get on a 15" Powerbook (laptop)? Do you guys buy all of your Apple hardware and software off of CDW.MacWarehouse?
Old     (richd)      Join Date: Oct 2003       03-31-2004, 5:05 AM Reply   
ck the Apple Store, it's hard to find but they've got all the educational discounts posted there somewhere. You can get a decent deal on a refurb. titanium PB out there too.

www.powerbookcentral.com

for the best online prices.
Old                03-31-2004, 10:54 AM Reply   
Rich,
Thanks so much bro. I went to apple.com and then went under the education link and then found the college that my wife attends and....BAMM awesome discounts all over the place. I can't wait to get final cut express 2.

Thanks again!

Stevo
Old                03-31-2004, 5:51 PM Reply   
i do it straight from apple. Got to apple and the store and there should be a link on the left hand side that says education and then you have to choose a school. You mostly save like 100 off of computer builds/laptops and most software si half off. Which is the really nice thing
Old                03-31-2004, 5:53 PM Reply   
ooo and 1800 for the base config so thats like 200 off.
Old     (pittsy)      Join Date: Apr 2004       04-23-2004, 7:28 PM Reply   
hey, how do you transfer the movie from the camera to the computer. I plugged in my USB but it didn't work, maybe i should try using FireWire instead.
Old     (thelakeisglass)      Join Date: Jul 2003       04-23-2004, 8:25 PM Reply   
yup, firewire is the key. USBB lacks the speed needed
Old     (pittsy)      Join Date: Apr 2004       04-25-2004, 5:30 PM Reply   
so i should buy the firewire cable, but then what do i do. Do i go into iMovie and record it in there or what,
thanks for the help
Old                04-26-2004, 6:50 PM Reply   
u go into imovie and once u plug in the camera and turn it on i beleive it should recognize it but if not the will be a little switch by the play stop controls and you slide that over and a blue screen comes up the says camera not connected ro connected and u go from there
Old                04-29-2004, 11:22 AM Reply   
matt
make sure that you have your camera turned to vtr, it sounds simple but it obviously makes a difference

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