iMovie '11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (English and English Edition) [Paperback]

David Pogue (Author), Aaron Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2011 | Series: Missing Manual

Apple's video-editing program is better than ever, but it still doesn’t have a printed guide to help you get started. That's where this gorgeous, full-color book comes in. You get clear explanations of iMovie's impressive new features, like instant rendering, storyboarding, and one-step special effects. Experts David Pogue and Aaron Miller also give you a complete course in film editing and DVD design.

• Edit video like the pros. Import raw footage, add transitions, and use iMovie’s newly restored, intuitive timeline editor.
• Create stunning trailers. Design Hollywood-style "Coming Attractions!" previews for your movies.
• Share your film. Distribute your movie in a variety of places—on smartphones, Apple TV, your own site, and with one-click exports to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, CNN iReport, and MobileMe.
• Make DVDs. Design the menus, titles, and layout for your DVDs, and burn them to disc.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Pogue is the weekly personal-technology columnist for The New York Times and an Emmy-award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News. His funny tech videos appear weekly on CNBC. With 3 million books in print, he is also one of the world's bestselling how-to authors. In 1999, he launched his own series of amusing, practical, and user-friendly computer books called Missing Manuals, which now includes more than 100 titles.

Aaron Miller is a part-time lawyer, part-time professor, and runs a software company serving nonprofit organizations. In all of his spare time, he authors the blog "Unlocking iMovie" (www.unlockingimovie.com), his own little way of trying to make the Mac world a better place.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Pogue Press; 1 edition (April 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449393276
• ISBN-13: 978-1449393274
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Home Computing & How-to > Digital Media Management
  • #5 in Books > Computers & Technology > Digital Media Management > Audio & Video Editing
  • #8 in Books > Computers & Technology > Digital Media Management > Digital Music - General

More About the Author

David Pogue is the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times. Each week, he contributes a print column, an online column and an online video. His daily blog, "Pogue's Posts," is the Times's most popular blog. David is also an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News and a frequent guest on NPR's "Morning Edition." His trademark comic tech videos appear each Thursday morning on CNBC. With over 3 million books in print, David is one of the world's bestselling how-to authors. He launched his own series of complete, funny computer books called the Missing Manual series, which now includes 60 titles. David graduated summa cum laude from Yale in 1985, with distinction in Music, and he spent ten years conducting and arranging Broadway musicals in New York. He's been profiled on both "48 Hours" and "60 Minutes."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 93 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Photos/illustrations are few and poor quality, text confusing May 27, 2011

By Tenna Merchent

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I thought this book was okay at best. I purchased it to learn iMovie for our business. It did not meet my needs, and I am going to go in search of another.

The authors are obviously very informed on the subject, they often referred to earlier generations of iMovie, which honestly didn't interest me at all, and I felt often just confused the issues.

I didn't feel like they explained editing at all. They said you could edit in the project window, if you hadn't edited in the event window, but they hadn't explained how to edit in the event window!

I thought their explanation on page 100 of how to use the Clip trimmer was awful.
"In the trim window, the yellow border shows which piece of the clip you're using in your movie. The extra, thin yellow borders show you what bits the transitions use on either end of the clip. The darkened portions are the ones you've so far eliminated. Above the trimmer window, the arrow between two lines plays your selection. The left and right arrows refocus the clip trimmer on the project clip that comes just before or after the current clip."
There was a picture, but it wasn't clear or big enough to show all these complicated descriptions.

Then a little over half way through the book it stops talking about producing iMovie, and goes into exporting and DVDs. There was a large section in the beginning of the book on importing too. I wish they had spent more time, details, and well-done illustrations on the hard part, which is editing.

I finally found iLife '11 Portable Genius. While it is in theory a broader subject book, it is much more helpful when it comes to iMovie. I suspect it will also be helpful with the other areas of iLife when I get to reading the rest. If you look back to my observations about editing in paragraph three, in the Portable Genius they point out that "Changes you make to a clip in the Event browser apply to any project in which you use that clip. By contrast, changes you make to a clip after you place it on the Storyboard for a project apply only to that project."
That is a very important distinguishing factor when deciding where to edit! The photos/ illustrations are also much better in the Portable Genius book.

I hope you find this helpful. I really hate writing negative reviews, but I hate reading books that aren't helpful more. I don't want someone else to experience the same frustration and waste of time I went through.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "iMovie '11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual" by Aaron Miller, David Pogue; O'Reilly Media July 7, 2011

By Joe Colantonio

Format:Paperback

Overall, I liked iMovie 11 & iDVD. Being a newbie to iMovie I feel the first couple of chapters really helped me understand the basic functionality of the software.
The book is jam packed with useful info, and I can definitely see myself using it as a reference resource. The book is basically divided into three main parts:

Part One - Covers the basics, including importing footage into iMovie, editing clips, adding effects like music and titles, etc.
Part Two- Once your movie is edited, the authors show you step by step how to export your movie in all of the available formats.
Part Three - Explains how to use iDVD, and how to burn your movie to DVD.

The book also contains appendices full of reference material on subjects such as the iMovie menu commands, how to troubleshot common issues, and cheat sheets.
You can tell that the author really knows his stuff, yet the book is easy to read, and includes helpful picture demonstrations.

After reading Part One, I was able to take what I'd learned and create a successful intro to my blog videos. If you're an iMovie newbie like I am, I believe this book
is all you'll need to jump into the fray; more advanced users, however, may want to look elsewhere for the next level of instruction.

If the title of this book is any indication of what the authors were setting out to convey, I feel they were quite successful - it truly is the "missing manual" that should have come with iMovie.
Note: I received a free copy of this book as part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review program.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars VERBOSITY plain and simple September 29, 2012

By Kikuchiyo

Format:Paperback

This book is the most verbose piece of literature that I have had to deal with.

I liked earlier versions of this author's introduction to say, iMovie 6, but this one is a total loser.

This book is probably meant for programmers who want to make a better version of iMovie 11. The author tries to intersperse his text with humorous lines, but that does nothing to what users really want. Too technical stuff. No wonder the book is 516 pages. A waste of paper, and a waste of money for whoever buys this book.

I tried looking for a way to simply split a clip. Got as far as page 84. Nothing! I then simply gave up. Well, perhaps it is buried in those first 84 pages somewhere, but go figger where it is.

The author of the book should have thought of producing a book with no rigamarole, and no verbosity. But he didn't. A Manual of 516 pages? Give me a break.

No need to say I ended up buying a more user friendly manual through Amazon. The book under review went down my garbage chute.