Dad Revisited

I’m not brand new to the Mac. As a matter of fact, my first Mac was a Classic that I bought just before I left college. I even owned a Newton. I always knew Mac was a great platform, but I ultimately balked at the price.

Well, price be damned. After years of owning Windows-based computers, I returned to the Mac when CompUSA went out of business, and I replaced my home-built Windows box with a Mac Mini I spied on a decrepit display at the Mall. For under $600, I was back in the game.

Now the Mac is helping me solve a few family problems. My wife loves to take pictures. We have drawers full of them. I have a hard drive full of them. However, they rarely get further than that. Once you have kids, the luxury of sitting down with an album and a big pile of photos is gone. The same thing used to happen with my videos. I’d take a video, Watch it once in the camera, and never see it again. This is why iMovie 2006 was the most exciting piece of software on my new Mac. iMovie allowed me to edit digital video, combine it with still photos, add a little music, and create an extravaganza suitable for grandparents at Christmas.

Now I have a new Macbook. It came with iMovie 2008. That would appear to be an upgrade, right? In some ways, it is. The interface for the new program is cleaner and slicker. The ability to select pieces of a video, rather than requiring you to cut the video into little pieces is awesome. The way it catalogs your iPhoto Library of videos and photos is very cool. Of course, the ability to do HD video is a game changer. However, there are a couple of crippling changes that make it less of a utility than iMovie 2006. I discovered them while editing a video the other day.

I shot a lengthy video of an Alpine Slide ride I took over the summer in Peru, Vermont. It’s a cool video that I’ve been waiting 13 years to get it. I took a similar ride with Skippy when he was nearly 2, but accidentally recorded over the tape. That’s not the point, however.  It’s about three minutes long. Too long for a family video, but too dear to cut. I figured out how to keep it all, though. If I sped up the middle section, it would shorten the video to about a minute. So I headed for the Video Effects menu. First I had to find the Video Effetcs menu.

They removed the Video Effects menu. As a matter of fact, they removed all the Video Effects. Fast Motion, Slow Motion… gone.  I imagine it was to simplify things, but I need Fast and Slow Motion.  A great basketball shot or a lengthy walk on vacation. Each of these videos can be enhanced by changing the speed.

Wait! I have iMovie 2006 on my other Mac. Unfortunately, I bought that Mac at a Clearance sale. No disks, no manual, no box. CPU and Power Adapter. That’s it. How could I get iMovie 2006 on my Macbook without the discs. Then I remembered an old blog post I read that Apple was allowing new iMovie owners to download the old version for free.

I plugged “download iMovie 06″ in my Goggle Search bar, and voila! The first hit was an Apple Support page allowing new owners to download iMovie 2006! Now I have both versions on my Macbook. It’s not the most graceful way to do it, but when I have a clip that needs effects, I edit in iMovie 06 and then import to iMovie 08. To decide if it’s worth the trouble, check out the video below. The video effect starts at 6:00.

Don’t get me wrong. I love iMovie, whatever version. Together with iPhoto and iDVD, they make the Mac the best family computing platform right out of the box.

(NB- The Powerbook is NOT the recommended platform if you want to do hardcore video editing. Get a Powerbook Pro for that!)