[MacDV] STAY AWAY FROM iMovie 3!!!

[Michael Winter]

On Monday, March 3, 2003, at 03:42  PM, Karl Hayden wrote:

> I would be so happy if someone can report anything positive about 
> it........... but I won't hold my breath until then. I am going back 
> to iMovie2 until they fix iMovie3.

I've got a list of good things, and a list of bad things.

The Bad:

There's a big delay between when I click on a clip and I can start 
"scrubbing" through it. This is on a dual 1 GHz system with 1.5 GB RAM, 
and it was instantaneous in iMovie 2.

I don't like the fact that moving clips around doesn't actually select 
them. I have to move them, then click on them (or vice-versa). The 
result is some confusion about which clip is currently selected, 
especially since there are times when you can have two clips 
highlighted (one in the Clips pane, one in the Timeline).

The Save File dialog box when I try to export a movie is broke. When 
try to navigate to a different drive by dragging the scroll bar at the 
bottom, the display columns don't change and I get a "ghost" image of 
the columns above and to the left of the main dialog window. Then when 
I try to edit the name, I can only select either the whole name or just 
the extension with the mouse. I have to resort to keyboard navigation 
with the arrows and delete key to edit the name.

Though it supposedly fixes a major audio sync problem, I now have sync 
problems where none existed before, specifically when exporting to full 
quality quicktime.

The Good:

Exports don't come to a grinding halt when iMovie is in the background! 
That's a biggie for me since I like to do other things with the 
computer while an export is occurring, especially since iMovie is still 
limited to one processor at a time.

I like the fact that when I split a clip, it moves other clips to the 
side instead of placing the clipped section in the next "open" spot 
-sometimes way down at the bottom.

Other than switching between clips, everything else seems to be faster.

Importing video seems to work better in that iMovie doesn't seem to 
"lose" the video stream as easily and I don't get the occasional 
"iMovie unexpectedly quit" type stuff any more.

That's all I'm coming up with for now. For me its about an even trade.

-Mik