For this assignment, I downloaded Windows Live Movie Maker to our family PC for comparison.
Because of my dubious credentials, I decided to focus on each program's value from the perspective of a teacher. I first made a list of things I felt a teacher would be most concerned with: cost, flexibility for imports and exports, functionality, and ease of use.
CostWhile both are considered “free,” it is only true for Windows Live Movie Maker. iMovie came with my Mac as part of iLife, but this software suite costs $79 ($71 for NBISD employees at Apple’s Web site). The least expensive Mac computer costs $949 with the educator discount (MacBook - Intel Core 2 Duo/13” Display/2GB Memory/250GB Hard Drive/Mac OS X Snow Leopard + iLife). A comparable PC from BestBuy (no educator discount) costs $719.99 (Toshiba - Satellite Laptop/Intel i5 Processor/14” Display/4GB Memory/500GB Hard Drive/Windows 7). That $200 difference adds up when making purchases for a whole school. Based on price, Windows Live Movie Maker beats iMovie.
FlexibilityBoth iMovie and Live Movie Maker can import video from cameras and movie files already on the computer. A movie filmed with my iPhone 3G easily worked in both. This is important, because many teachers who want students to use video editing software will not have time to troubleshoot file extensions. iMovie would not import the WMV sample video I took from the PC library, but Live Movie Maker was able to import QuickTime files from the Mac.
Exporting to multiple formats, including YouTube, DVD, and HD movie files (WMV on PC, QuickTime for Mac) was equally easy on both programs.
FunctionalityiMovie has a steeper learning curve, but neither program is too difficult to start using almost immediately. It is possible that I am judging iMovie more harshly because I had no video editing experience prior to using it. The Live Movie Maker interface is simple and easy to understand, but it does not allow for as much advanced editing as iMovie.
One feature that I particularly like about iMovie is the ability to preview individual frames in sequence while editing. At first, it appears that Live Movie Maker has the same capability, but it does not. You see the same frame repeated, not a preview.
Both programs have the ability to automatically turn imported audio and video into a movie, including adding transitions, a beginning and an ending. It is called “AutoMovie” in Live Movie Maker and “Themes” in iMovie. iMovie’s themes offer more variety.
Ease of UseAs a recent Mac convert, I have noticed a trend throughout the Mac platform: Mac stuff works great together. Pictures can be taken in PhotoBooth, edited in iPhoto, and uploaded into iMovie with ease. Problems sometimes arise when using files formatted on a PC (like a WMV). If you intend for all work to be done on the same computer (which is logical for movie-making), Mac cannot be beat.
*The MacBook Pro I purchased in June was my first non-PC, so I am still “PC-oriented” for the most part.
Ease of UseAs a recent Mac convert, I have noticed a trend throughout the Mac platform: Mac stuff works great together. Pictures can be taken in PhotoBooth, edited in iPhoto, and uploaded into iMovie with ease. Problems sometimes arise when using files formatted on a PC (like a WMV). If you intend for all work to be done on the same computer (which is logical for movie-making), Mac cannot be beat.
*The MacBook Pro I purchased in June was my first non-PC, so I am still “PC-oriented” for the most part.
References
Apple education store. (2010, September). Retrieved from http://store.apple.com/us-k12BestBuy. (2010, September). Retrieved from http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=-1848909986048795109&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=1006408&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960
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