Readers should REALLY visit <http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/12/03/power_iapps.html> to get a grasp on what the author doesn't.

I had a couple comments on this article...

First, as a long-time iMovie & Mac user, I don't feel like I've really been told *how* WMM2 is so much better than iMovie. Sounds like there are a few more options for capturing and exporting movies, and a lot more transitions built in. The AutoMovie feature sounds interesting, but I'm skeptical until I see what it does compared to what I would do myself. These are minor features, and do not speak to a fundamentally "better" way of making a movie... any and all of them could be addressed by an update of iMovie. And MyDVD4 was not materially described as any better than iDVD.

My other comment is that this review seems to fall into Microsoft's now-typical marketing trap. <begin rant> MS's pattern is this:

1. look at a competitor's innovative product.

2. release MS xyz version 1 within a few months, which is absolutely horrible to use. Ignore bad reviews, just get it on to as many machines as possible. get users hooked & wanting more.

3. go into full-speed development, and then 1-2 years later release version 2 (or 3) which is finally "good enough" to compare with the original competitors.

4. now reviewers are absolutely wowed by the product, not because it's so much better than competitors, but because it's so much better than MS's previous offering--which was truly awful. They create the illusion of great development momentum, because they so far surpass the embarrassing previous version.

5. these irrational "OMG it's AWESOME" reviews--which ignore most negatives that might still nag the product--only accelerate the market dominance of the products, as we have seen already in the Netscape vs. MSIE battle. (By that I mean, IE3 started gaining popularity like mad, but it was at a point when it wasn't significantly better than Netscape... it was just so much better than IE2, MS had created the illusion of momentum.)

6. MS's momentum is only an illusion, because once they have established it, they invariably slack off... once their product is "good enough", the innovation stops. I don't expect WMM3 to be a huge improvement on WMM2, just like IE5 and IE6 are barely discernable (from an end-user's perspective) from IE4.

In short, I couldn't help feeling that, though the title of the article implied that "consumer video editing is now better on a PC than on a Mac", it should have simply said "consumer video editing is now realistic on a PC". <end rant>

I can't believe this is an article. Not only that, but this is supposed to be a rebuttal to criticism.

I haven't seen the criticism but can level some here.

How can you make any kind of informed decision on the above quote? Saying this thing is so much better than that other thing without an iota of substantiation! No comparisons, not even a subjective point from the author which gives me one inch to believe it is true.

I am a thinking person though and maybe this is the bet of the author -- that his intended audience is just following the herd.

The article and the rebuttal smacks of a paid for, vacuous and misleading shill.

You said, "Windows Movie Maker 2 is so much better than iMovie, and its underlying Windows Media Video (WMV) 9 technology is so infinitely superior to MPEG-4 that I'm not sure what Apple can do at this point."

You are really confusing yourself by comparing MPEG-4 with WMV9 in the context of video editing. MPEG-4 is a "delivery" file format; it's just one of many file formats that you can export to after editing your video with iMovie. Whatever file format you choose to export is quite independent of the video editing process; so, whether WMV9 is superior to MPEG-4 is irrelevant in comparing two video editing apps.

In fact, today most people choose to export edited video back to tape in DV or DVD in MPEG-2 so that they can view it on a TV. Can you do that with WMV9?

JL

you do realize that there is a very strong likelihood that you will be locked into whatever tools M$ chooses to supply once you begin down this route. WMV is proprietary to M$, and there is no doubt whatsoever that once they feel they have a sufficient user-base they will leverage that proprietary nature for whatever the market will bear.

Once the other hand, mpeg-4 is a standard that is accessible to all.

Which way would you want to go?

I know which one I would choose.

I can't argue with your conclusions because you offer no support for them. Please tell us why and for what reasons you feel Windows is ahead of Mac in video editing.

"Windows digital-video technology has pulled ahead of the Mac." How to do arrive at this conclusion?

"Windows Movie Maker 2's superiority" Why is it superior?

"Windows Media Video (WMV) 9 technology is so infinitely superior to MPEG-4" LOL, ok I'll assume your right, but again explain how you came to this conclusion.

It sounds to me that MovieMaker just pulled even with iMovie. There may be some advantages to one or the other on certain points but overall they sound comparable.

It seems that whenever Windows finally almost "gets it right" and then adds a bunch of bells and whistles on something that are only available for download on the Mac version, pudits always declare it "pulling ahead of the Mac." Totally oblivious to the fact that the Mac has been running this race alone for the past two years and still knows a thing or two from the experience that no Johnny-come-lately is going to top just by coming out with a "beta" and better "specs."

I would like to hear from you why the Windows setup is better and not just your pronoucement that as a matter fact it is better.

Nice try at a response. You imply that all your critics did was point to FCP and pro video. In fact, they pointed out numerous inaccuracies in your piece and you haven't addressed any of them.

For anyone that thinks this bozo is being straight with you, go over to cnet for the user reviews on the MyDVD 4 software he thinks is "best of breed". The reviews are bad, to put it mildly.

http://www.cnet.com/software/0-3227896-1218-20484705.html?tag=st.sw.3227896-1204-20484705.box.3227896-1218-20484705

Are you serious? Most of the features that make MYDVD4 so great are already in iDVD except its free. I don't see what makes MYDVD4 different except for price. I don't agree with windows media formats are inferior to mpeg4, and microsoft should be beat for always using there stupid prepritory formats. Shame on them for screwing standards. Apple will undoubtedly own M$ with iMove 3. Personally think iMovie 2 is already better... I prefer Final Cut though but that is a whole other ball game.

Does this guy sound like an infomercial? No wonder. Have a look a his biography (www.winnetmag.com/seminars/mobility/index.cfm?action=speakers).

Amongst revealing tidbits: "Paul Thurrott is the news editor for Windows & .NET Magazine" "Paul's Supersite for Windows" "Paul has written books, including Windows XP Home Networking, and Great Digital Media with Windows XP" (you need books indeed to make these things work)

Now this guy must really know his Mac stuff. Yep.

Are you going to actually POST any of the comments you receive this time? And no, you can't fall back on the excuse that you were only comparing the default video offerings of these systems, not when you put an inflamatory title like "Windows Video Editing Pulls Ahead of the Mac" on your article.

In the headline of your stories and the first paragraph at least of the first part you imply that Windows video editing in general -- pro and consumer -- pulls ahead of Mac video editing. Sure, you then go on to just compare consumer apps. But this is an age-old trick: you imply what you can't say explicitly (without losing credibility).

People call you on it, and then you say, "but I never said anything about pro apps." So what? I don't distinguish between an implied and explicit argument. You still made the argument. You just did it in a devious way.

By the way, what is taking so long for responses to this article to be posted? Are you guys afraid of the facing comments?

I have used both imovie and movie maker2......I got it, you are writing satire.....right????

my name is BajaHumbug and drive a modified 67 vw bug and I dabble in genetics.

"I don't believe that Apple will sit still while Microsoft usurps its lead".

That comment is sooooooo funny, I now know that this article, as well as Part 1, were clever parodies of MS fanboy articles. Very funny!

Paul, do you read these comments? Just wondering.

I respect your opinion and your right to publish it and I really can't understand why all these people feel they have to be so 'violent' in their remarks. (Speaking about the comments posted in reply to your last article as well.)

However, don't you think it would be the "responsible" thing to do to correct some of the misstatements you posted in your first evaluation? It takes a big man but I'm sure you're up to it. :) For example, after saying that "WMV 9's quality is as good or better than what you see on the Mac", I really think you should let everyone know that WMV 9 is NOT as good as DV, and in fact is GUARANTEED to be inferior and to degrade your footage. Lowering WMV 9's compression rate (by increasing its bitrate) doesn't change the fact that WMV 9 is a lossy codec and thus is guaranteed to be inferior to DV, which is a lossless codec. (DV is compressed but it is a lossless compression.)

You need to make it clear that the quality of footage imported to iMovie might appear to be of a lesser or equal quality to that of WMV 9 because iMovie does not display the footage at full quality (to save on processing power) even though the footage is stored in its full quality. Even playing the files back in QuickTime won't show them in their full quality unless you have QuickTime Pro and can set the "High quality" flag. In my opinion this is because DV takes so much space, as you mentioned, that footage kept in DV format is destined to be imported to you computer (losslessly), edited (losslessly) and printed back to tape (losslessley). Apple's consumer theory is, in my opinion, to make it hard for the consumer to create a poor quality product and easy to create a high-quality product (thus also iDVD's restriction on the amount of a compression available when making a MPEG-2 file for your DVD.) If you import footage from a MiniDV camera to Movie Maker 2, store it in WMV 9 format and then export it back to the camera you are GUARANTEED to lose quality. Keeping footage in DV format absolutely prevents any quality loss whatsoever.

Also, don't you think it's only fair to put the following 3 facts together to give a fair picture? 1. Movie Maker 2 isn't even out of beta stage yet 2. iMovie is over 2 years old 3. The rumor mills say that iMovie 3 is due out in January. In my personal opinion one couldn't pick a worse time to write an article comparing Apple's & Microsoft's offerings in consumer video.

I absolutely agree with you regarding the WMV 9 codec's superiority to MPEG-4. Anyone who is even thinking of disputing this needs to get on a PC with WinXP or 2000 and head over to codecshootout.com. Download a 256kbps MPEG-4 video and a 256 kbps WMV 9 video and you'll see that Paul is absolutely correct -- WMV 9 is vastly superior to MPEG-4. Of course, you have to have a recent version of Windows to be able to watch WMV 9 since it's Microsoft's proprietary codec. If Apple doesn't get on the ball they'll be in big trouble -- how can your Mac be a digital hub for video if it can't hold hardly any footage? Harddrives aren't going to go up enough in the next few years to make storing DV really feasible. However, you should probably mention that H.264, an extension of MPEG-4, is due to be out mid next year and that it is rumored to be even better than WMV 9, won't aid in Microsoft's monopoly (or in Apple's), and is a good candidate for Apple to use to compete with Microsoft.

You will be humble enough to post at least a few corrections & clarifications, won't you Paul? I assume you're not purposely trying to publish inflammatory articles for the sake of trying to get more publicity......right? :)

Windows Movie Maker 2 is great for people like me who has little or no experience with professional video editing. I do not know if it is better than iMovie nor do I care. I probably won't ever use a mac anyway (the mac faithful most probably won't touch a PC too) so what's the point? The article was created and titled in such a way to brew some sort of controversy in which a lot of you guys who commented here just ate (although there were a few comments I found to be nicely and intelligently written). Why defend iMovie? If it is as good as you say it can stand on its on. You're just making the situation worse by making rediculous comments which actually puts iMovie (and the Mac) in a bad light. And please stop bashing Microsoft and the PC because it is really getting old (and it just makes you look envious of their dominance which you guys are not, right?).

I seiously hope you're joking. I recently had the chance to download and test out the new Windows Movie Maker 2 on a friends PC. First off, iMovie 3 looks like a high end film studio compared to this latest attempt from Microsoft.

* There are "Wizard" like guides that walk the user through many steps. The first time or so this can be fine, however, once you know what you are doing they really get in the way and slow you down. It's a long multi-step process just to change the color of text in a title.

* There are a few nice titles and transitions in the application such as a very cool one that looks like glass shattering. However, you can't change ANY of the properties of how they act. Basically, you're stuck with the "canned" transitions and that's it. The same goes for video effects.

* Microsoft seems to have not understood what a transition is and what an effect is. They have fade-in and fade-out in the effects section. These are transitions, NOT effects. This can be confusing after a person learns more about video editing and begins to wonder why WMM has different names for things.

* Switching between the timeline and story-board view is jarring to say the least. The bottom section jumps around a bit when going between the different views and it's difficult to zoom in or out.

* You can not import QuickTime movies or MPEG 4 files. Nor can you save your finished product to any other format besides Windows Media. This means no DVD authoring from within the application. The only decent way to export your movie would be to a camera for VHS dubs.

* You can import still pictures and create a nice slide show. However, you can only zoom in or out of those photos. There is no panning and zooming "Ken Burns Effect" as in iMovie 3. Yes, there is the Plus! pack that does something similar, however you need to go into multips apps in Windows to get the same thing iMovie provides in a single window. iLife is highly integrated making it easier to do these tasks.

* There is only one track for audio. The second track is reserved for the sound from your video footage. You would not be able to do narration or sound effects on video unless you want to do it over a silent backdrop. One audio track is a severe limitation in my opinion.

* There are no DVD chapter markers in Movie Maker 2 at all. You can have up to 36 in iMovie 3.

* Want to put your finished product onto a DVD? Better find a application then because MM2 doesn't come with one even if you have a DVD burne! You'll also have to export your movie which is a long process. iMovie simply tranfers your video in seconds to iDVD for instant work on your menus and burning.

* And finally, when I exported my 28 second clip to a finished Windows Media File it took almost 90 seconds to complete the export. This was done on a brand new Compaq laptop with plenty of RAM and a speedy CPU. Not very impressive.

So there's my take on Windows Movie Maker. It's not terrible, it's just not as easy as iMovie, has far fewer features, takes longer to accomplish the same tasks, is very limiting in what you can do, and has a confusing interface during some processes (titles for example). Take a look at what the new iMovie 3 has to offer and it's very sad to see Windows Movie Maker.

As far as the Media Center PC goes, let's see how they take off before they're declared a victory. I'm a little confused as to how an WinXP and MM2 are so amazing in your eyes. It's just an OS and ONE application. Comparing that to iLife, a highly integrated suite of digital media tools, is laughable.

Perhaps you should stop in an Apple store and try the apps before you ridicule them. That's what I did with MM2 so I'd have an accurate frame of reference. As I mentioned above, I was not impressed.

Interesting, should we consider a change

Many apple zealots will be unhappy, but remember they are representing less than 3% of the market. I am very happy to see the truth in this article, I can safely tell my friend not to consider Macs for video editing, appearently Windows is better than a Mac in this area too. He was thinking to buy a mac for video editing, but I told him to wait, and now I found this article, I can safely tell him to buy a more powerful pc.

Thanks again for this article.

As a PC user, I have to be impressed with the strides that Microsoft has made in equalling and surpassing the Apple Mac platform.

It has taken 15 years, but Windows is FINALLY beginning to pull ahead of apple. Makes you wonder what would have happened if bill gates bought apple 1 years ago.

Well as a hardened Windows user of long standing I would normally agree with everything you say but I have just filmed my first digital footage and tried the PC and got pixelated crap. 5 minutes on my daghter's (groan) Mac crap and I put together 5 minutes of edited product with transitions and effects that looks great. It breaks my heart to say it - Good one apple!

Hey all. Well, i don't know about MovieMaker (when i tried it, i almost puked), but there's some stuff on the PC that I can't do with my Mac, apparently. Some effects along the lines of Canopus VideoFX are only available for Windows. Which is ticking me off because I don't like using Windows, it feels like talking to a monkey (yeah, yeah, spare me the pro-M$ bull). my question is, does MovieMaker2 include cheesy transitions with stuff flying in and out with pretty colours (again, Canopus VideoFX or Pinnacle Hollywood FX would be a perfect example)? whatever comes with iMovie and other video software on the Mac is too simple (i would dare to say "too classic", which I like, but clients come in all shapes and sizes). If MovieMaker 2 has anything like that, or supports anything like that, I might have to check it out.... any help would be appreciated.

Check out MovieGate, Sizlle and CaptyDVD for mac DVD authoring.

Hey people settle down. Look I have been a windows user for along time,plus I fix windows pc's for a living & even I know that the mac video software is & probably always will be superior because that is what a Mac does, it is a computer to straight create on & develop expecially using video. A pc is very good on making animation & stuff like that, but come on people I get so tired of people like you all that stress on which one is the best between Macs & PC's, Macs or Windows, Linux or Windows.

Ya see I'm smart I am a straight up computer geek, I use several Pc's,Linux boxes,Mac's & Beos boxes & to me they all do atleast a couple of things better then the other, but I don't care because I am a all around just plain Computer lover of all kinds. So people get a grip because we probably could learn a thing or to from each other & stop hating on each other for what type of computers we have because I personally love them all in different ways, but I use them & love them.

Oh & to my fellow Windows guy, Come on dude OSX has a way better video suite then windows. I am sorry the windows movie maker is like playing with a sesame street made video editing software & I am a windows user , but come on man, Are you drunk or something? Wow

Well, I must say Mac is a TOTALLY NON-INTUITIVE GUI (TNIGUI). It is not funny, but I can't still figure out how to delete files or clips easily in Mac - sometimes it is delete, sometimes backspace, sometimes it is edit/cut, sometimes it is God Knows What command which I can't find. All QuickTime movies info reads a few hundred Kb when I can't even find where the original file is hidden so that I can burn it on a DVD/CD - in Windows it is easy; Right click and select property or select File/Property - always works whatever the program; so it must be easy to find it in Mac? Where is the right click button, why does info not tell me where the file is, how many Gb it is taking (always says it is a few Kb, even when it burns Gbs of Movie!) Try help menu, doesn't make sense half of the time! Try and understand what Rendering is - now type that in help and see what it tells you; if this is help then what is time-waster? May be Mac was better in the days of DOS and still has few software with an edge for nerds and geeks with money to burn, but a simple person like me prefers a Window machine for my daily chores! Anytime.

Let me start out saying that I am an avid PC user. I have used both extensively and can honestly say Macs are crap, but still many people love them and will argue that the pros use them... That is not the issue. I have used Imovie and Windows movie maker recently. I cannot stand by while people claim that it is better than Imovie. It doesn't even come close. WMM is total ****, an insult to all video editors. It rivals imovie only in its simplicity. Otherwise, it produces horrible quality movies whith bad effects. You cannot play clips in reverse, you can only slow down clips to 50% and you can only save to wmv format. The article states that wmv is a superiour format to avi. It is not. Avi with divx or xvid compression can provide near dvd quality at 1/4 the file size. And lets talk compatability, what about all our friends who have macs? How are they going to watch my ski movie? They can't. Long story short, I will always use a pc, but I will never use windows movie maker. Microsoft take note, because in an attempt to keep up with apple you made a horrible product.

Isn't it funny, I live here in Seattle, WA., and I have great fun teasing my Microsoft friends with the reality that, sure Bill Gates owns a software company, but remember this, the only hardware he owns is "Apple." Also lets note that when Bill bought into Mac their stock has gone up from the teens to as much as $65 per share. Apple has cornered the market in the Music Biz with the I-Pod and I-Tunes. And now, all new Macs will be outfitted with Intel processors. Now Apple is very much a Steve Jobs project, but I have always thought that Steve and Bill were stronger together than apart, and I say that as a Mac user. History will see things differently than we see it now, and who knows, maybe Apple will be seen as the anti-christ of the 21st century as they go stomping out HP, Dell, and Netscape, you just never know?

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atsisiusiu :)

I do not think Windows Movie maker is that great and I say this because I run both Windows XP and Mac OS X on a mac. I took a look at the program and it is useless. First, WMM2 does not allow the export of your videos to the iPod by default, which means people who use this program and want to put their videos on their iPod or other video player that does not support WMV must convert their video to a format that will work. Second, it cannot import mpeg 4 video footage or Quicktime format (.mov), which means these must be converted too. How can you say that windows is has the best consumer level program for video editing, when windows could not do graphics such as photos until windows 95? Next, you really need to explain what iMovie cannot do that WMM2 can. The following are what iMovie can export to: Email, Bluetooth, hard drive, webstreaming, CD-ROM, DVD, iPod, and video camera. Also can you send files that are friendly with every computer? No, because not every Mac user has Flip4mac plugin (a plugin from microsoft to allow quicktime to read Windows Media formats). I have transferred my videos made using iMovie (in webstreaming format because I show those videos on a website) and they work fine on Windows, no matter if I use Real Player or Quicktime to view them. If you are going to argue that WMM2 is better then talk about what both can do and what advantages windows has over iMovie (even if the person got the special plug ins that allow iMovie to do more than it normally can), after all you said that you used Mac video-editing programs for more than a year and half. Your argument is still weak and has holes.

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