FCE / Imovie

[Eddie Pelfrey]

Why doesnt apple combine the 2 of these?
seems like the do they same thing other than the view wich could be made to change? or at least make the same options availible in fce such as 1 step youtube authoring idvd ect.

[Alec Moreno]

Final Cut Express is worlds beyond iMovie, and actually much closer in ability to Final Cut Pro. Combining the two would make the resulting program too complicated for casual users, while dumbing it down for serious users.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com

[Nigel Barker]

iMovie is also free with every Mac bought whereas FCW costs an extra $200. Are you proposing that Apple give away this combined iMovie/FCE product or charge for it? I don't see either scenario working as Apple lose money in the former case & piss off those users who expect a video editing product to ship with the OS.

Each product has its own advantages/disadvantages & target audience.

[Eddie Pelfrey]

I would pay for a program that made it so I would not have to spend hours moving a movie back and forth between the 2. Just wish fce would capture as I movie, work with iDVD, and have the option to go streight to YouTube. If you have a 1 hour long project these tasks take forever.
FCE is suppsed to be better yet you have to still use I movie

[Alec Moreno]

FCE does capture video and it exports files that are directly compatible with iDVD. As for Youtube, it's just a matter of selecting the right settings upon export.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com

[Eddie Pelfrey]

i have a project now in fce i would like to get it to idvd how do i do this without going through imovie????????????

[Jonathan Jones]

Originally Posted by Eddie Pelfrey

i have a project now in fce i would like to get it to idvd how do i do this without going through imovie????????????

The earlier posters are correct. iMovie and FCE are not anywhere even close to being in the same league - but in context of getting footage ported over to iDVD, hopefully the following info will help you eliminate a needless step you've been using with iMovie as an intermediary:

iMovie and iDVD are two entirely separate applications that don't require one another to accomplish their tasks. However, all versions of iMovie up through iMovie HD (version 6), and then again in version 8 (from iLife '09) conveniently included a simple sharing option that easily ported your project content into the iDVD interface. For iMovie '09, this is found as an option in the Share menu. For iMovie HD and earlier, iDVD was a dedicated button in the interface that opened up a new pane into which you could insert your chapter points and titles before sending the contents to iDVD.

Note: This porting option was not included with iMovie version 7 (from iLife '08) but was resurrected for the new version due to user demand.

But iMovie is not a requirement for porting your video contents into iDVD. You can do it quite easily with FCE as well just about any other Quicktime based video management system.

With your selected timeline active in FCE, choose "File" from your menu bar, and select "Export". From the options listed, choose "Quicktime Movie". (For our purposes here, don't bother with the other options, including Compressor, or Quicktime Conversion - it is too easy to come up with a result that the limitations of iDVD cannot cope with.)

When the export prompt comes up, select a title for your exported movie file (or leave the default title as is). Select a destination to send it to. For your settings, you might choose to leave it at the default "Current Settings", or select whatever is appropriate for your specific format. (Note that iDVD's range for format compatibility is quite limited, so for most situations, you might find that "Current Settings" will do fine.)

Next to the "Markers" tab, select "Chapter Markers" if you have designated markers in your project timeline that iDVD can use for Chapters. (This is very easy to do. You should be able to find appropriate info under the FCE Help menu).

If you leave "Make Movie Self-Contained", your exported file will be a 'reference file' that will take up a small amount of space. iDVD will easily be able to work with this file, but technically it is only referencing the data in your FCE project timeline, so you will need to make sure that the source timeline data is accessible while iDVD is rendering your disc.

I prefer to check the "Self-Contained" option for porting to iDVD. The resulting files will end up being quite large, but they are self-contained, and may technically result in a more stable rendering process for iDVD.

When you movie is exported, you can open iDVD. Select whatever template or menu options you wish (or customize your own) and then all you need to do is simply drag your exported Quicktime Movie file right into the main menu template window of your iDVD project. At this point, you can still apply menu options, title changes, etc as necessary. If you include Chapter Markers in your exported file, they will also show up as Chapter Options in the associated menu.

That's about it. The rest works the same as you are used to with iDVD, with the added benefit that you didn't need to include the extra step of using iMovie as the intermediary.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

-Jon