Apple updates iMovie to 9.0.8, improves QuickTime stability
updated 05:39 pm EDT, Wed September 5, 2012
Continuing improvement with AVCHD, MPEG-2 imports
Apple issued a minor update to iMovie for OS X on Wednesday that addressed an issue related to third-party QuickTime components (such as Perian, the now-in-beta Flip4Mac WMV Player 3.0 or other non-Apple add-ons designed to expand QuickTime's compatibility with other file formats) that was preventing iMovie from opening. The update is large in size -- 1.08GB -- as it replaces the application entirely rather than just patching it. Specific changes were not detailed.
The previous update to iMovie also listed "issues with third-party QuickTime components" as being fixed, likely representative of Apple's continuing difficulty at updating iMovie to keep pace with the flood of cheaper consumer HD video cameras that record in variations on the AVCHD and MPEG-2 formats. Different manufacturers are known to make their implementations slightly different from one another for a variety of reasons, creating difficulties in smoothly importing the wide variety of supported codec combinations and brand variants.
The new update requires OS X Lion 10.7.4 or higher, and includes the fixes of the previous few updates -- including MPEG-2 previews during camera import, and resolving an issue with missing audio from some AVCHD and MPEG-2 imports. The update is handled through the Mac App Store for Mountain Lion users, Software Update for Lion users, or can be downloaded directly from Apple's support website.
