Final Cut Pro vs iMovie

[bayanne]

Is anyone able to point me in the direction of where I may find out the differences between these 2 Apple programs, in the way of a comparison chart.

I'm just deciding whether to get FCP for school, and I want to be able to justfiy why, by comparing it with what comes with iMovie

Thanks

[griffman]

Apple's site is a good place to start:

iMovie (http://www.apple.com/imovie)

Final Cut Pro (http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro)

In a nutshell, there's basically no comparison between the two programs. It depends on what you're planning on doing "at school". Are you going to film school? Then I'd probably say Final Cut Pro, as it's used by many people working in Hollywood and has a very active community developed around it - the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro user group is probably one of the best user groups in the country. What you gain with Final Cut Pro is flexibility and power; what you lose is ease of use. You can spend months mastering Final Cut Pro; a friend of mine spent a week in class on it as a starting point! But it can do amazing things with video - multiple video and audio tracks, effects, etc.

iMovie, on the other hand, is all consumer. Very easy to use, no manual required, one video track and two audio tracks, basic transitions, titles, and special effects. Drag and drop, easy to create QuickTime or DV output, etc. Perfect for the digital video handicams that are running about, but if you want full control over your project, you'll probably tire of iMovie's simplistic approach to video editing.

I use iMovie because it's easy to learn, easy to use, and handles everything I can think that I'll ever need to do in film. Then again, I've got no future plans as a video editor, either!

The answer to your question really depends on what type of video work you intend on doing...

-rob.

[bayanne]

Thanks, you've told me everything I need to know :)

[Vanish]

I just wanted to add that while no manual is "needed' for using iMovie, David Pogue's "iMovie 2: The Missing Manual" is a MUST have for using iMovie. Its explanations about DV and image quality alone ar worth buying and readin this book. Very enlightening.

And it's stuffed with time saver tips and step-by-step instrcutions to completeing the not so obvious and easy tasks.

And no, I don't work for O'Reilly and I'm not, unfortunately, a close personal friend of Mr. Pogue's. I just LOVE his books and the incredible information they provide.

[RyanRoss]

In regards to your question about the difference between I. movie and finalcutPro it's like comparing Microsoft word to Microsoft Works. Basically I. movie is like a shareware program that doesn't really have much in the ways of the capabilities as finalcutPro has. If I were you I would use finalcutPro from the start because you're going to start realizing that the program just isn't as flexible as you want to be. These days final cut is really not all that expensive anyways and you can actually run it quite well on some of the Macs that they are now selling without having to add any additional memory or etc. however I would recommend on getting some extra hard drives whether using I. movie or finalcutPro.

http://www.crewedup.com