It's here! iMovie '09 was just announced today at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. I have been planning a new blog for when the time came. So, without further ado, I now present:

Unlocking iMovie '09

There will be a lot of new features to cover. I have transfered some of the articles that I guessed would be relevant. (We'll see how accurate I was in my guessing.)

Please feel free to update any links to the new site. I plan to leave this one up, but this post officially marks the EOL of Unlocking iMovie '08.

Thanks to everyone who visits, helps, and makes the Mac-user experience a better place.

That's right, it's version 7.1.4. Don't ask me what happened to 7.1.3. I guess it never reported for duty.

According to Apple, "This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."

It looks like this update at least changes all the references for ".Mac" to "MobileMe," logos and all. 

Anyway, you can get yourself this new update via your Software Update, or use the following link:

iMovie 7.1.4 Standalone Updater

Apple is tweaking iMovie '08 again. This time version 7.1.2 has been pushed out to the masses via Software Update. (If you don't see it, you probably need to run the Quicktime 7.5 update first.) You can also download the standalone installer if you prefer, just be sure to run the standalone Quicktime 7.5 installer first (for Leopard, for Tiger, and for Panther).
Apple says:

This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

• Support for Panasonic's HDC-SD-9 and HDC-HS-9
• Support for the Flip Mino
• Direct import of MPEG-1 videos from Sony's Digital Still Cameras (Pretty slick, it allows you to pick and choose what you import from the SDHC card directly into iMovie.)
  
• Improved AVCHD import on multi-core systems (Most Macs of recent date have multi-core processors, so if you import AVCHD, you will probably see improvements.)
• Fixes a number of critical bugs

Apple released a maintenance update to iMovie 08 today. Check your software update or download the standalone updater here:

iMovie 7.1.1 Update

According to Apple:

This update addresses issues when publishing movies to a .Mac Web Gallery, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

No doubt about it, the Event Library makes iMovie better in the same way that drawers and cupboards make kitchens better. Having your footage conveniently organized and accessible makes a huge difference in your productivity. The problem with kitchen drawers, though, is the infernal junk drawer. It's never fun to clean out, but who really needs the dead batteries and gum wrappers that fill it up?

The Event Library can get filled up with all kinds of junk: blurry shots, shaking shots, long and boring shots. The problem is that this kind of stuff takes up a lot of space, especially if you are shooting HD. You can get rid of it by rejecting and deleting each individual clip, but this can be time consuming. iMovie, in its wisdom, gives us a faster way: Space Saver.

WARNING: Space Saver risks getting rid of footage you want to keep. Using the junk drawer analogy, it works by picking out the things you want to save then just shoving everything else into the trash. There might be a ten dollar bill or important phone number that you'll never get back. That said, here is how to use the Space Saver.

You'll find the Space Saver in the File menu.

Before you select it, it's important to understand that Space Saver only works on events that you have selected in the Event Library. You can go an event at a time, not unlike going a drawer at a time in your kitchen. Or, you can select multiple events at once and run Space Saver on all of them together.

I realize that my warning may scare you from doing anything with Space Saver, but iMovie actually takes you through a few steps before anything really gets deleted. If you select "Space Saver" from the File menu, you will see this dialog box show up:

What it basically tells you is that Space Saver can delete any footage that:
1) Isn't used in a project,
2) Isn't marked as a favorite, and/or
3) Isn't marked with a keyword.
This essentially means that it will delete any footage that you haven't touched using any of the tools described in this post:

How to use the advanced editing tools

So if you want your footage to be saved from the Space Saver, go read that post and learn how you can make sure the right stuff gets passed over for deletion.

Depending on the criteria you select in the dialog box, iMovie will delete more or less of your footage. After you have click the "Reject and Review" button, it marks all the deletable footage as rejected and changes your view of the Event so that you only see the rejected footage. Click "Move Rejected to Trash" and iMovie cuts out the rejected footage from the event and moves it into the trash in the Finder. This last part of the process works just like the process covered in the post:

How to delete a clip

If you want to undo the Reject marking that Space Saver applied, don't bother unmarking all the footage. Just hit Command-Z, and iMovie undoes what Space Saver did.

Have fun with all that free space!

This is a really nice tip for those needing slowmo effects in iMovie '08, but don't want to send their project to iMovie HD. (If you haven't noticed, I don't really ever post tips that say, "Do it in iMovie HD." Where is the fun in that?)

Anyway, Karsten Schluter, one of the most helpful and insightful regulars on Apple's iMovie '08 Discussion boards has posted a great walkthrough for creating a slowmo effect with a free application called JES Deinterlacer.

The link:
SlowMo with iMovie '08

All I would add to Karsten's instructions is that you can just save the slowmo clip in the correct Event folder and iMovie will automatically find it and create thumbnails for it the next time you launch iMovie.

And by the way, Karsten, if you read this: That demo clip is A W E S O M E. What a kick!

Well, it's been awhile since I posted any more information about using GarageBand for DVD chapter markers. Since that time I have come across two very common problems that people have encountered in the process:

1. Large movies sent from GarageBand to iDVD lose their audio track.
2. DVD quality can be poor.

Here are two very useful pieces of information for those have been experiencing these problems.

1. Apparently, the audio dropping during the move from GarageBand to iDVD is a known issue. Sid shared in the comments on the original post that deselecting "Auto Normalize" in the Advanced pane of the Preferences.

I haven't experienced the problem, so I can't confirm that it works, but this is certainly worth a try.

2. There has been a lot of discussion about the best way to squeeze the highest quality DVDs from your audio. The problem is that iMovie requires you to render your movie before you can send it to iDVD, where it just gets rendered again into MPEG 2 format for DVD players.

I have it on good authority from a very knowledgeable expert at Apple that the best quality will come by exporting from iMovie using the Apple Intermediate Codec. You can access this as an export option by choosing "Export Using QuickTime" in the Share menu.

Once there, select "Movie to QuickTime Movie" in the Export dropdown menu. Then click "Options." You will see this window.

Click the "Settings" button to access and choose the Apple Intermediate Codec.

You will also want to export the right size of file. You can do this by clicking "Size" in the Options window. For people in the US, NTSC at 720 x 480 is a good size for widescreen content. If is is 4:3 content, choose NTSC 640 x 480.

Once you are done, export it to your Movies folder in your home folder. You can then add chapter markers in GarageBand, which you read about here:

How to add chapter markers

Or you can send the file straight to iDVD. Just open an iDVD project and drop in your movie file.