iMovie

[Tess Pfeifle]

How good is iMovie? Is it okay to use as a main editing system?

My camera is a Sony HD handycam HDR-CX210 if that helps!

 

[kkushalbeatzz]

If you know what you're doing you should be fine. Plenty of people use iMovie.

 

[KGATV]

I use iMovie it's a great program if you don't need anything fancy. It works perfect for everything I need it for

 

[iTwe4kz]

iMovie will get the job done, if it's pretty basic stuff. I would only recommend it if you have nothing else. I personally hate it with a passion, it always seemed to automatically cut portions out when I tried to use a feature and would do weird things when trying to use picture in picture or blur...sometimes. I quit using it and my blood pressure has lowered as a result.

 

[Wilad]

There isn't a whole lot of special fx you can do with iMovie but it's great for just editing pieces of video together with simple transitions and text overlay options.

 

[UrAveragePerson]

Personally I use Final Cut Pro X but if you are doing fairly basic stuff, it should really be fine. If you want to do some FX just buy Final Cut Pro X, not Final Cut 7 because Final Cut Pro X has a fairly similar interface to iMovie

 

[SwordBrothersUnited]

it is good for the basics, however if you want the pro look you should go with adobe prem pro or final cut pro X

 

[IftiBashir]

iMovie is fine for the majority of videos. Although I use Final Cut Pro X now, when you get the hang of iMovie, Final Cut Pro X is a batural progression andmuch easier to get along with - MUCH easier.

iMovie will make great videos with basic special effects. You can also do things like picture in picture, title pages, transitions, and so on. Also you can get pretty creative with the built in trailers

I highly recommend it for any beginner.

 

[Patrick3331]

I started uploading out of camera, then used the youtube editor and since November last year I am on iMovie. But I will be switching to FCPX soon as I reached limitations with what I want to get out of my videos and iMovie can't give me those.

So, for beginners it's great with some options that are nice, but for more you need to go with FCPX.
cheers

 

[IftiBashir]

I dont think iMovie is just for beginners. Its a great start, dont get me wrong. But there are still a number of very large YouTubers that use only iMovie, because its basic and does the job! If you only want to throw clips together, with some nice transition effects, the odd PIP, and some titles etc, its great. Nothing else is needed! Vloggers, for example, have their raw footage which they just want to edit together andget uploaded, and for those its great. You can even do green screening etc on iMovie - its more advanced then people make it out to be TBH.

Although I use FCPX, I did use iMovie for years, and go along with it perfectly fine. The only reason I moved to FCPX was because I didnt like working with the AIC codec, since it produces graining and banding on shadows or darker areas, whereas ProRes is a more professional level format, and produced higher quality exports.
If using iMove for well lit video, or video recorded in daylight etc, iMovie's quality is great.