The New iMovie Rocks and Stinks

BRK » 02 June 2008 » In Troubleshooting »

$^%&@*!

OK, so our new iMac is da bomb-diggity. We did SSC with it last night, all settings maxed, and it was a beautiful thing. We has new boss-movie, and it’s gorgeous.

But beating our head against the desk as we learn the new iMovie isn’t fun, especially when we run into a rendering problem that made us want to chuck the whole enchilada into the pool.

When we were exporting our new movie (no hints!) our super-sweet intros were coming out as black-screen. Sha-wha?

We’re not the first to see this; here’s the solution.

So we had to grab our original intro videos, which were apparently encoded “the wrong way” - bullsh!t - pump them into our old iMovie program, and re-export them with a new codec so the new iMovie would process them properly. Done, and done.

Apple, this is not acceptable. /glare@steve

So we’ve fixed the problem and are busily uploading and building and typing. Please, stand by.

Yes, we have the day off due to our participation of the Shuttle launch on Saturday! /win

Troubleshooting | June 2, 2008

Comments

13 Responses to “The New iMovie Rocks and Stinks”

  1. For the Pie on June 2nd, 2008 12:13 pm

    Is this the Roto-Rooter service call launch or did I miss one?

  2. BRK on June 2nd, 2008 12:39 pm

    Kibo, the Japanese science module, and the plumber, yes.

  3. Brian on June 2nd, 2008 12:51 pm

    Since you do a lot of video work — and you’ve hit this problem (which I completely forgot about) with iMovie ‘08, you should consider picking up VisualHub.

    http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/

    They have a free version of sorts (iSquint) that does iPod video formatting, but VisualHub is an amazingly useful piece of software that has a fun and affordable price point of $23.32, and it’s like a Swiss knife of video reformatting.

    I pump all of my WoW video capture (not that there’s much anyhow) through it before working with it in iMovie, just to be safe. It also eats up my cell phone’s .3gp files and gives me lovely files in any other format I want, and it’s just ridiculously easy to do, with a sense of humor to it.

    I probably sound like a promotion, but I’m not getting paid, and I’m not a developer. I’m just a big BRK fan who also likes good Mac software, and VisualHub is an exemplary piece of indie Mac goodness.

  4. huntard4ever on June 2nd, 2008 12:53 pm

    wats the movie on

  5. Bobo & SgtPork on June 2nd, 2008 3:30 pm

    Grats on Bird Up! I watched the launch on NASA TV. Any chance of you ever showing up on the feed?

  6. WB on June 2nd, 2008 4:40 pm

    Enjoy the day off, you’ve earned it.

    Guild buddy has a couple of photos posted on Guild website of the launch from his front porch. Beautiful day on the Space Coast in FL to watch a successful launch. And, another guildie is part of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph project, set to be installed in the next trip up to Hubble, this Fall. Internet can make the world seem pretty small sometimes.

    Keep taking care o’ my buddies. Grats on the launch.

  7. Capn John on June 2nd, 2008 5:17 pm

    I want to see a BRK-narrated video of a shuttle launch. That would be awesome…maybe :D

  8. Christopher on June 2nd, 2008 6:46 pm

    Remember, BRK: as a Mac user, sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying. Maniacal laughter is about all that kept me sane for about four years of Appleosity. (Not that sanity’s worth keeping.)

    Presented for your sadistic enjoyment — Crash Different: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvXZVJXIyqM

  9. Ontherocks on June 2nd, 2008 9:08 pm

    BRK, I had heard the horror stories about the new iMovie before I upgraded iLife and managed to avoid updating it. If you want to spend a little more money, I highly recommend picking up Final Cut Express for $200. It’s all that and a bag of chips.

  10. bluerain on June 3rd, 2008 8:58 am

    BRK, what’s the scoop on the Shuttle Launch pad? I read there’s damage to the tiles (hmm… heard that one before) that line the exhaust trench (ok, that’s a new part)

  11. yunk on June 3rd, 2008 11:41 am

    Sadly it was too cloudy to see the shuttle launch from my parent’s house near Fort Myers. So I just watched it on NASA’s site. I just happened to be there this weekend. Did you know there are engagement parties now? One guest gave her a cookbook as a present :)

  12. WB on June 3rd, 2008 1:10 pm

    @bluerain -

    Here’s a link to the pad story.
    http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts124/080601pad/

  13. Manxome on June 3rd, 2008 5:31 pm

    The new iMovie also loses some features (I forget the specifics - sorry!) and Apple has posted a version 6.0.4 “for those who have purchased and installed iLife ‘08″

    Its at: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html

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