iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

I'm a Mac "fossil." My first machine was a MacPlus. David Pogue has been there the entire time, and we old timers always appreciated his talent, but when he began "The Missing Manual" series, he rocketed into the tech writing stratosphere. I have almost every book he's written and when another Mac user asks me a question, I often say, "Look it up in Pogue's book. He explains it so brilliantly and thoroughly."

Recently, a friend of mine was invited to speak before a high profile audience in his field of expertise. He needed a presentation and support materials within three days. I said I'd do the best I could, but I was new to certain iLife applications, particularly, iMovie and iDVD. I added, "I just got a book by my favorite author, but I haven't read it." He said, "Is this the guy who does those Missing Manual books you can't live without?" and I said, "Yes." "Great," he said. "I'll be there in an hour. You should have a handle on it by then." We laughed.

He said he had a CD with about 50 photos. Immediately, I found exactly what I wanted to know in this book. It is so well organized, illustrated, and explained, I think it's Pogue's best yet. Very few books have a structure and content that serves so many user levels, from the beginner, to the seasoned pro, plus the technical details for those who want them. I don't even own a video or digi-cam and found his chapters on them highly informative, clarifying the different "standards" and formats.

My friend's presentation was successful. I imported his photos into iMovie, and then used iDVD to burn the presentation on a DVD disk. I'm not saying it was an artistic masterpiece, but it was a lot more professional looking and jazzier than a straight slide show. I couldn't have done it without Pogue's book. His writing has enriched my Mac life so much over the years, if he ever writes a book about Photoshop, I may create a shrine to him.

Are you a Macintosh filmmaker and DVD designer? If you are, then this book is for you. Author David Pogue, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that is designed to give you a grounding in professional filming and editing techniques.

Pogue, begins by covering what happens before you get to iMovie. Then, the author shows you how to transfer your footage into iMovie, editing your clips, placing them into a timeline, adding crossfades and titles, working with your soundtracks, and more. Next, he helps you take the cinematic masterpiece on your screen to the world. Finally, he provides an extensive overview of iDVD 6.

This most excellent book is designed to serve as the iMovie/iDVD manual. More importantly, it explores each iMovie feature in depth, offers illustrated catalogs of the various title and transition effects, offers shortcuts and workarounds, and unearths features that the online help doesn't even mention.

Perusing some of the other reviews listed for this book, I couldn't help but notice 1 individual complain about the lower quality paper that was used to produce 'iMovie 6 & IDVD: The Missing Manual' by David Pogue. I feel the need to comment on this because I am a HUGE fan of the Missing Manual line of books and feel the need to defend the line as it is as good as technical books come for your everyday user/reader.

Is the quality of the paper lower than it could be? The answer is YES but you have 2 choices: better paper with a $35 retail price that is 200 pages in length or the same price with slightly lower quality paper and FIVE HUNDRED pages of material.

As with all the other Missing Manual books, this is an outstanding piece of work that will enable all Mac users who want to do video editing or even make top-notch home movies in no time at all. Written exceptionally well, laid out into 17 chapters which are as follows:

01. The DV Camcorder
02. Home Video to Pro Video
03. Special Effects 101
04. Camcorder + Mac = Pure Joy
05. Move Making
06. Transactions & Special Effects
07. Titles, Captions, Credits
08. Narration, Music, Sound
09. Still Pictures & QuickTime Movies
10. Professional Editing
11. More Camcorder Fun
12. iMove to QuickTime
13. Movies on other Devices
14. QuickTime Player
15. iDVD Projects
16. iDVD Themes
17. iDVD Secrets

If you have a Mac and want to do movie editing or you currently perform movie edits and want to learn to do them on an easier to use platform that is made for the task at hand, pick up this outstanding book and get editing today!!

I want to concentrate mostly on the differences between this edition (iMovie 6) and the previous (iMove HD (5)). Physically, the book is solid. As other reviewers mentioned, the pages are no longer the glossy kind, but they are thick and smooth, and I can't see any loss in detail in the graphics or screen shots. In addition, since the pages are no longer glossy, they don't reflect light when the book is sitting on my desk. So, it is easier to read. For my money, this is an improvement. The book is about half a dozen pages lighter, but physically it is slightly thicker, so you know the pages still feel solid not thin or flimsy. One final note, the front cover did separate from the binding after reading it for a couple days. It did not detach in the back. This doesn't bother me, but I wanted to mention it.

That's probably way too much on the physical. What's inside? Pogue and Sadun (who writes the iDVD chapters) have thoroughly updated the book. I'm impressed with the small changes through out to make the entire book better. The book is slightly shorter, as I mentioned, but it is the same font type and size. Obviously, some material has been deleted. Pogue spends less time reviewing the older camcorder technologies. Also a few minor features that have disappeared from iMovie are gone too, like importing songs into your movies directly from CD. Some sections are streamlined, like how the trash (and disk space usage) works. This topic, in particular, used be in various places, but the new book represents a consolidation of that material. In the iDVD section, they've eliminated the section on how to customize iDVD and also the themes catalog. The latter was a disappointment to me. I like having a reference all in one place where I can review the various iDVD themes. I also liked the short advice associated with each theme, regarding when to use the theme and when not to (sometimes that advice was "never").

There is, of course, plenty of new material. All the new features of iMovie 6 are included: a new section on time-lapse recording and importing of footage, the graphic iMovie themes, GarageBand integration and movie scoring, audio "fx" (like reverb, etcetera), new sections on volume adjustments and locking audio clips to video (though these are not new features). Of course, creating video for the iPod is covered. This is new, since the video iPod is new within the last year. He has a small section on video sharing sites ("youtube" anyone?). And, the new "Share" menu is covered, although little on that menu is new, it's new that it is now in a menu. Finally the appendix on Troubleshooting has been reorganized and updated, although, understandably, much of the advice is the same.

Other new features are covered like full-sized previews or the ability to open mutltiple projects simultaneously, but these are covered as part of existing sections and not new sections. In addition to missing the catalog of iDVD themes, there is no catalog of iMovie themes either. Admittedly, there are only five of them, but why not have these catalogs when the book includes a catalog of the iMovie titles, effects, transitions, and even a list of the new audio effects.

I found a few typos, but they are minor. No mistakes in the actual coverage of the material and that's a big positive for this book.

Overall, a great improvement on the series. I probably should disclose that this is the fourth book in the iMovie Missing Manual series that I bought (five if you count that I bought two of the last edition), so I guess I would have liked this book regardless ... I found each new edition to be extremely helpful in getting me up to speed on Apple's latest version of iMovie and iDVD. This one is no different. It's a safe buy.

iMovie has tools that help your movie look professional, but the iMovie help files are very tedious to go through. There is a great deal of referencing, cross-referencing, and nothing is smoothly laid out. This book is another story, as it is very well laid out with clear instructions and illustrations. It is very long, but since these applications are powerful, it would be expected that any clear explanation of them is going to require some space.
What is particularly good about this book is that the author doesn't assume you are a professional video author, and he spends part one of the book helping you learn how to shoot videos and shares tricks that will make you good at it. Part 2 is dedicated to iMovie, and shares not just how to use the application, but the little extras that will make your video special - transitions, effects, titles, captions, and even how to work with sound in your movie. Part 3, on finding your audience, was another unexpected treat. There the author shows you how to move between iMovie and Quicktime, and how to post your movie to your phone, to the web, and even to the iPod. Part 4 of the book is on iDVD. I particularly liked the chapter on iDVD secrets, where the author shows how you can use AppleScript to customize iDVD itself.
I also own Pogue's other book on iMovie 5, and even though the chapters in this book have almost exactly the same titles as the book on the previous version, it is still a worthwhile upgrade for several reasons. Chances are, if you upgraded from iMovie 5 to iMovie 6, you did so to take advantage of the several upgrades to the new product such as the five new Apple-designed iMovie "Themes". Designed for ease of use, the user can easily drop movie clips or photos into these preset themes to give the project a professional look with each theme including full motion-graphic bumpers and transitions. There is also cinematic real-time titling and real-time video effects newly included in iMovie 6. Also, the audio in iMovie 6 has been greatly improved via greatly enhanced effects such as equalization and reverb. All of these new features are covered in the book. Finally this book covers the connection between iMovie and the iPod. There are also a host of subtle changes in the way that iMovie 6 works versus iMovie 5, and for that reason alone it is worth the price of the book to save yourself time and head scratching over problems. The only bad thing I can say is that the print quality of the book is not nearly as good as the previous edition. It is not good to scrimp on such things, especially if you are writing about multimedia and you need clear and aesthetically pleasing illustrations. I notice Amazon does not show the table of contents, so I do that here:
Part 1: CAPTURING DV FOOTAGE
1. The DV Camcorder
2. Turning Home Video into Pro Video
3. Special Event Filming
Part 2: EDITING IN IMOVIE
4. Camcorder Meets Mac
5. Building the Movie
6. Transitions and Effects
7. Titles, Captions, and Credits
8. Narration, Music, and Sound
9. Still Pictures and QuickTime Movies
10. Professional Editing Techniques
Part 3: FINDING YOUR AUDIENCE
11. Back to the Camcorder
12. From iMovie to QuickTime
13. Movies on the Web, iPod, and the Phone
14. QuickTime Player
Part 4: iDVD6
15. From iMovie to iDVD
16. iDVD Projects by Hand
17. Designing iDVD Themes
18. iDVD Secrets
Part 5: Appendixes
A. iMovie 6: Menu by Menu
B. Troubleshooting
C. Master Keyboard Shortcut List