iMovie & iDVD Visual QuickStart Guide

VHS Conversion Utilities Compared

Wondering what to do with those mouldering VHS tapes? Christopher Breen at Macworld compares the Roxio Easy VHS to DVD and the Elgato Video Capture: VHS capture tools compared.

Maximize Your iMovie Editing Space

In my most recent iMovie column for Macworld, I look at several methods for stretching the boundaries of iMovie's editing interface: Maximize Your iMovie Editing Space (26 October 2009).

iMovie '09 8.0.5 Released, Supports New iFrame Format

Apple today released iMovie '09 8.0.5. In addition to improving support for importing video captured using the latest iPod nano, this version introduces support for iFrame, a video format employing H.264 video and AAC audio compression.

According to Jim Dalrymple at CNET and Peter Cohen at The Loop, iFrame is a format developed by Apple. It's currently available on two cameras introduced by Sanyo this week: the Sanyo VPC-HD2000A and the Sanyo VPC-FH1A.

What's notable about iFrame is the capability to edit the footage natively in iMovie; footage recorded to memory or to hard disks using the widely-adopted AVCHD must first be transcoded to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) before editing. iFrame promises to reduce the time it takes to start editing and also reduce the amount of disk space used by the video. iMovie '09 8.0.5 also fixes an issue with resizing the application window during playback.

Organize Your iMovie Video Library

Macworld has published an article of mine: Organize Your iMovie Video Library. Learn how to mark video as favorites, assign keywords, and get your video library under control.

Snow Leopard Pocket Guide Now in Stock

I received my first author copies of The Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Pocket Guide this week, and they look great! I also checked Amazon.com this morning and saw that the book is now in stock and available (and still costs only $10, with free shipping for Amazon Prime members!).

Peachpit has also posted an excerpt from Chapter 2, which covers installing Snow Leopard (here's a direct link to the PDF) if you want to get a sense of the book's content.

My Seattle Times Review of Snow Leopard

...is now posted: "Snow Leopard: The big improvements come under the hood". Choice paragraph:

How often in software do you get something that fundamentally makes something better instead of just making it bigger? When you're talking about operating systems, that answer is once — now.

Also, Peachpit confirmed that my book, "The Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Pocket Guide," will be available when the operating system ships tomorrow. I love this little book, and am anxious to get it out to everyone.

Windows Live Movie Maker Says Goodbye to the Timeline

iMovie '08 took a lot of flack for dispensing with the timeline, the single horizontally scrolling representation of a movie. Instead, your project is organized left to right, top to bottom like you read a paragraph of text.

Microsoft is taking the same approach with its new Windows Live Movie Maker. View the movie on this page to see an overview of the software.

Pre-Order My Snow Leopard Pocket Guide!

This has definitely been a busy book year for me, and my latest title is about to hit store shelves (online and physical) soon: The Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Pocket Guide! The book will be available when Snow Leopard arrives, and is available now as a pre-order.

The Snow Leopard Pocket Guide is 240 pages of everything you need to know to use the new version of Mac OS X. It's a tightly-written $15 guide that Amazon currently sells for just $10!

Amazon also has Snow Leopard itself available for pre-order:

• Upgrade from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: $29
• Get the Family Pack upgrade (5 licenses): $49
• If you're upgrading from Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you need to buy the Mac Box Set (Snow Leopard, iLife '09, iWork '09): $169

(If you buy the book or Snow Leopard using those links, I earn a small referral fee.)

Working through the video-editing backlog

Is the pile of MiniDV tapes piling up? Is your hard disk filling to capacity with footage you've shot but not edited? I offer five steps on making the editing process in iMovie more manageable and less daunting in a new Macworld article: Working through the video-editing backlog.

Apple Releases iMovie '09 8.0.4

iMovie '09 8.0.4 is out and deals with three issues:

• Video captured on the iPhone 3GS in portrait orientation is now rotated correctly.
• Adding multiple beat markers in some languages no longer causes instability.
• Using the fine-tuning editing controls beyond stabilized portions of a clip no longer freezes iMovie.

Kudos to Apple for providing specific release notes; unlike earlier updates to iMovie '09, there are no other undocumented changes in this release (see my TidBITS article "iMovie '09 8.0.3 Adds New Hidden Features," 2009-06-05). The update is available via Software Update or as a standalone download. (Free, 35 MB)