Overview
When it created iMovie in 1999, Apple Computer made digital video editing almost as easy as using a word processor—and even less expensive. Built into most modern Macintosh models is the circuitry needed to record pro-quality video from a digital camcorder, and then send the edited movies back to TV or tape with zero picture-quality loss.
Now Apple takes the revolution to the next level with the dramatically enhanced iMovie 2.0. The new software adds the option of inserting new video over a continuous audio track; removes limitations on the number of raw clips from which to choose scenes; and offers bonuses such as special effects and brightness and contrast adjustments, much greater typographical flexibility in its title- and credit-maker, and a far more useful and complete audio-track editor.
But one thing hasn't changed: iMovie 2, though much more sophisticated than its predecessor, still doesn't come with a single page of printed instructions.
Pogue Press/O'Reilly's iMovie: The Missing Manual, released in May 2000, became an instant bestseller, requiring two reprints in three months and earning rave five-star reviews on Amazom.com. This entertaining guide covers every step of iMovie video production, from choosing and using a digital camcorder to burning the finished work onto CDs. The book's philosophy: Giving someone iMovie without also teaching basic film technique is like giving a map to a teenager without teaching him to drive.
Now author David Pogue is back with an expanded, revised edition, now called iMovie 2: The Missing Manual, rewritten to cover iMovie 2 and nothing but.
Far deeper and more detailed than the meager set of online help screens included with iMovie, the book helps iMovie users realize the software's potential as a breakthrough in the cost, complexity, and difficulty of desktop video production.
With a technical review by Glenn Reid, architect and lead engineer of both iMovie and iMovie 2.