iMovie HD trumps Windows XP Movie Maker 2

No shit...

Here is the the other article from that website that argued that Windows Movie Maker was better. The author was a total moron.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=377090

I'm shocked! Shocked! Apple's movie application is better than MS's knock-off? Who'd have guessed. Next thing you know, they'll be saying MS Media Player sucks for cataloguing, searching, and browsing music compared to iTunes.

Of course, it would be nice if you had a 3GB movie, and you decide to cut all but the first 30 seconds, you didn't still have a 3GB movie file (and, yes, I emptied the trash, didn't help). There's some trick to fix this, I just haven't found it yet (something like 'export it out and import into new project, or something stupid like that).

If you ever tried Movie Maker2, that might be the last time you ever load it. It can edit video of course and if you're familiar with the video capturing and editing process already, it's not hard to use. iMovie isnt perfect, but it's eons better than Movie Maker or any of those cheapo software you get with your DVD burner. I've tried all kinds of video editing software on the PC. No consumer video editing software compares to iMovie.

Downsides? You have to get a Mac. So, this "free" software will end up costing you at least $500 (for an underpowered Mac Mini). Despite Apple's claims of a sytem that doesnt crash, I managed to crash iMovie, iDVD, and the entire OSX Tiger system... and it wasnt very hard to do (on my PowerMac dual 2Ghz).

Jesus, I just read the "opposing view" noted by Phrogman and he was being very kind calling the author a "moron". The article is one of the most ludicrous pieces of Microsoft ass-shining I have read from a sycophantic Redmond lick-spittle. I think I can feel my lunch coming back up!

Hey, the guy with the opposing view makes a lot of valid points and I have to say that MM 2 is much better then iMovie and that........bwahahahahahahaha....oh man, I thought I could get through that with a straight face!

Let's see the pluses: Finally, Movie Maker is tied into Microsoft's DirectX technology, which is a boon because a lot of third party plugins have been developed that use DirectX. What this gives you, as a movie maker is a massive spectrum of tools.

Wow! Who would've thunk it that MS based its movie software on its video software? That'd be as crazy as apple using QT for iMovie.

Oh, did I also mention Movie Maker 2 is free? Yeah, that's a big plus when you compare it to iMovie, which first requires a Mac (and you better get a good Mac if you want to run high definition content) and then requires you to spend $79 on iLife '05, which you have to buy to get iMovie.

Well, you get a new mac (which you'd have to do, since you apparently own a PC), you get iLife for free. And, hey, he doesn't mention that to use MM2, you have to buy a PC and/or Windows XP. Its not exactly 'free'.

Movie Maker is the only tool that Microsoft supports for video editing. This says a lot, ... In contrast, whenever I work with iMovie I feel very aware that Apple has other, higher-end video editing products and that they may really be better than iMovie.

What MM being the only tool from MS means to me is that they don't think they could sell any tool on the market. And I've never used iMovie and got the feeling that I should be using FCP. Its not like every 10 minutes I see a "You should upgrade to FCP to do this" kind of thing.

Another area that will drive you nuts with iMovie is hard drive space. It's a given that when you work with digital video you'll use a lot of hard drive space. You can expect to use at least 5 MB of space for each minute of DVD quality-video produced with Movie Maker 2.

I question whether that's DVD quality video. Sounds like he's saving it in MPEG2 format. iMovie's DV (digital video, uncompressed) format costs about 200 MB per minute. This guarantees the best quality when you're working.

This may seem like a lot. But, check out iMovie. Apple notes on their web site that two minutes of HD movie will cost you 400 MB of hard drive space. Holy cow! That means you get less than five minutes of video for each gigabyte. At that rate, even DVD-ROM's don't look large enough to store or back-up your movies.

Yeah, again, its because its in uncompressed format (hey, like AIFF audio-holy cow, you can only store about one album of AIFF audio on a CD! WTF is wrong with Apple!). Did he even try changing the format to something other than DV?

The very first thing Apple should do is create a Windows version of iMovie. ... Of course, providing iMovie as part of iLife is a marketing tool designed to keep users on the Apple OS X platform.

But, of course, Windows MM2 software is delivered just because MS is a sweet company, not to try to give people a reason to use their OS.

In addition, Apple needs to remove some of the complexity in iMovie. I want to shout "Keep it simple, stupid!" Apple adds some complexity with everything that they do, but you would not expect Movie Maker to trounce iMovie for ease of use. The reality is that Microsoft does a sound trouncing.

Wow, I've got to go and use MM2, because if this guy thinks iMovie is complex, then MM2 must be so easy a child of 2 can use it. (Of course, he's a windows user, so he believes, apparently, that 'wizards' are what makes software easier to use, as opposed to just annoying).

Finally, Movie Maker 2 has all the power of Microsoft behind it. Well, for that reason alone, you shouldn't be using it. Esp. if it succeeds, because we know once MS software succeeds, they just give up and let it die (IE, for example). Of course, if its got MS behind it, then you must believe its chock full of security holes! :-)