Mac users - video editing?

[sarabella]

What's the story with video editing on a Mac? Can the software work with all the various file types that are out there (wmv, avi, m4a, etc)?

[Ringo]

i've used iMovie and had great success with it. it's the standard program that comes with new Macs. If you're looking for something more robust, FinalCutPro is the deluxe video editing program. It's what a lot of the pros do -- many movies/videos/tv shows are edited on that. Of course, you'll pay a nice piece of change for it.
is this just for home movies? I use iMovie for mine from iLife 06. I heard the new iMovie on iLife 08 isn't as good, though I'm not sure if they've fixed any of the problems through updates.

[sarabella]

Yeah, basically, I want to be able to clip certain sections out of video files to make shorter once. The problem is that the orginal format isn't one set standard. Sometimes its an avi, sometimes it's mkv, sometimes its mov, or m4a. Right now, I spend a lot of time first converting them to something that I own the software to edit (usually avi), and then clipping them. I want that same fuctionality when I finally buy a Mac.

[Dante]

Usually iMovie will convert the format into the .mov format for you to work with.

[sarabella]

Usually iMovie will convert the format into the .mov format for you to work with.
That's ok. I don't care about the output file. I was just worried about the input file.

[Daniel from Montréal]

If you're just clipping videos (and not cutting them together), you can do that with Quicktime, or Flip4Mac, for which there is a free and a pay version.

[Ringo]

but if she's buying a mac, iMovie will come pre-installed and has more functions.

[Dante]

That's ok. I don't care about the output file. I was just worried about the input file.

The input file can be a number of different file types, but it can convert it to a .mov file before you start editing it.