Comments about oreilly iMovie '08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual:

I believe I won this book back in November 2008. I've been a Mac user since 2004. I learned to do a lot with photo's and movies creating CD's and DVD's. I purchased a new computer in February 2009. The changes from my old computer to the new one in iMovie and iDVD, are phenomenal. My husband and I went to New Orleans on a "Katrina Relief Mission Trip" in 2007. I have a lot of video and photo's of the work we did in gutting three houses so that the people, who owned them, could some day rebuild. My dream was to be able to make a DVD to give the 14 people who went on the trip. Last week I was able to make a 32 minute DVD. I added "credits", which included the title of the trip and the names of the fourteen people who went. I created it in iMovie with the scrolling credits, saved that segment as a quicktime movie and dragged it to the DVD to play as it is inserted. It works great on our DVD player plus other friends computers and DVD players. It's never too late to put those photos and movies together of past trips. We will have a reunion with the group and I plan on having this DVD and maybe two more to give them. My husband and I had taken a trip to New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina. I'll do a segment of the "before" with Jazz music. What a treasure to have. And it's all because of what can be done on iMovie and iDVD today. I am just beginning to explore iMovie and iDVD. It would be fun to put a video on YouTube or iWeb. These are things I've never been able to do. This book is a wonderful tool that I will be using a lot. Thank you for donating it to the raffle.

Comments about oreilly iMovie '08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual:

iMovie '08 & iDVD - The Missing Manual, David Pogue

by Paul Pazdera (paulus)

Having graduated to a faster CPU. i.e. from a G4/400 via a Sonnet 1.8 card, it seemed timely to meet these iLife '08 components.

For me it was natural to stick with David Pogue/O'Reilly and target a relevant The Missing Manual.

A technical tome of 450 pages at first it seemed rather intimidating, until I remembered from earlier TMMs of his that this would be not just an overview and road-map towards application-competence, but a quasi hands-on step-by-step show-me!

From reviewing camcorders, camera-handling, shooting raw dv-footage serendipitously or to a story-board. Pogue guides you along, with clarity and encouragement.

The fullness of videography is presented in real-time workflow-order.

Importing raw footage, editing, cut/copy and paste, transitions, titling, addition of speech/sound/music, photos/graphics - all presented so even newbies to video understand the concepts.

But wait! - there is more! You want an audience for your finished indie - on iPod, Apple TV, etc. - all via iTunes. Or via iMovie to YouTube and the Web.

So you are going to burn to disc and Pogue again leads us in the techniques and options of turning out a memorable video on DVD disc.

Tripping is part of trying and learning and so the book closes with Troubleshooting for recovery.

Read this tutorial fluently, or read the section of immediate interest to you (H-E-L-P !) - it's a good read and an excellent investment!