iMovie: The people's video editor
August 02, 2018

iMovie: The people's video editor

Kenneth Hess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with iMovie

I use iMovie to edit my videos for all purposes: corporate, personal, and for social media. The biggest business problems that it addresses are the cost and learning curve. iMovie comes free with all Mac operating systems. It is also easy to use, therefore a short learning curve. It is fairly intuitive--more so than most editing suites and it has some very advanced features such as green screen, picture-in-picture, audio separation, titling, transitions, and much more. iMovie has an interface that is very similar to Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, and other costly video editing programs. If you need to transition to one of those at some point, you should have a much shorter learning curve. iMovie can import most video formats but exports files as .MOV, which is a high-quality format, but the files can become very large. I use iMovie because of its cost, its versatility, its advanced features, and the many tutorials available at apple.com and on YouTube. If I need a particular solution, chances are good that someone has posted an article, a video, or both on the topic. I've never been disappointed with iMovie yet.

Pros

  • iMovie provides a simple interface that allows me to have full control over all aspects of an edit line including transitions, titles, audio, and video. I can adjust all the above with simple mouse movements.
  • iMovie produces high-quality video in multiple resolutions.
  • It can ingest multiple video, audio, and graphics types.

Cons

  • I would like to see more and better titling pages. The current titles, while nice for a lot of applications, leave me a little cold when producing more professional videos.
  • I wish iMovie had better credits pages. It seems to only have one and its not great. It works in some cases but I'd prefer multiple choices for credits.
  • iMovie needs an audio and video sync capability. I know this is a very advanced feature but it is a really needed one.
  • The impact on ROI is positive because iMovie is free and is very user-friendly.
  • The learning curve is short, so no expensive training is required. Users can easily find video explainers and articles online.
iMovie compares very well with Premiere's and Final Cut's basic video and audio editing and for simple transitions. For the heavier lifting, you'll need a better application. iMovie isn't meant to be a Hollywood-level application but it can hold its own for most things. It's free, which makes it a good choice for most of us.
I recommend iMovie for those who are getting started in video editing and even for seasoned videographers. It can handle a lot. For very advanced things, you'll probably have to move to a more sophisticated package but iMovie can do a lot of different things--some of which are advanced. It is well-suited for corporate videos, home movies, art films, and just about any scenario. It is probably not appropriate for feature-length films or where you need a lot of fancy special effects.

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