Rumor: Apple's iMovie to receive significant (Cloud) update at Macworl

[PyX]

I've heard from reliable sources that Apple will offer a significant update to iMovie at next week's Macworld. It will largely focus on Internet video in the Cloud for the YouTube generation.

I've heard that iMovie will largely (if not entirely) be a Web Application and Apple would offer its users to "upload your movies to us and edit them there."

There are currently a few online applications that let you do video editing currently. Google's Youtube is also adding rudimentary editing features.

I am not certain if this means that iMovie is now entirely a Web Application or if Apple is offering a "Cloud" component to its iMovie application.

Read more...

Source : http://blogs.computerworld.com/rumor_apple...ate_at_macworld

What do you guys think of that?

Should an application like iMovie be used with browsers like Safari and Firefox (which would be available for Windows users then, most likely) or should it stay an application on the computer?

I really liked the way you could skim through a video with just the mouse in the latest iMovie, but totally hated that there's no effects and poor sound editing. I wish they had come up with something that was really better than the previous iMovie you know, but no. I can be an Apple fanboy at times, but I can still judge what's right and wrong, and thought that iMovie 08 was just not the app it was supposed to be.

Now, let's believe Apple created Mobile Me just to learn about how to do these web services accordingly. Do you think it is possible to come up with something good, knowing that webpages have a lot of limitations? Would you feel safe by uploading your videos to a remote server? Would you be able to upload, say, 40GB files and then edit them, or if it's possible to use these web services to edit things locally and save them locally (as I have no idea)?

Personally, the only good point I see is that your computer would probably not be used for rendering stuff like effects and transitions, it would be the server I think. But other than that, I really don't see how this could become useful.

I know Adobe wants a Photoshop on the web, Microsoft are looking towards a version of Office on the web, ... I just don't feel it.

Any thoughts?

[giga Veteran]

I'm calling bull****. Maybe they developed some sort of separate product, but saying that they're killing the local application for a server side one is total nuts, unless they really don't care about the life of iLife.

[the evn show]

Should an application like iMovie be used with browsers like Safari and Firefox (which would be available for Windows users then, most likely) or should it stay an application on the computer?

The proposal is that I take raw HD video from my camera - ship that across the web and then edit in a browser window? questions:

• 1) How do I get the data off the camera
  2) How do I get it to the website (choose files and upload?)
  3) What is the benefit to having a web-based application for editing video?
  

Given the limits of network connections a web-based iMovie is very unlikely.

Now, let's believe Apple created Mobile Me just to learn about how to do these web services accordingly.

If that was the goal then they should have learned that the web is not a suitable platform for this sort of application.

Do you think it is possible to come up with something good, knowing that webpages have a lot of limitations?

Something good? Sure, depending on how you define "good". Something as good as a desktop application: no.

Would you feel safe by uploading your videos to a remote server?

I would die before the upload finished.

Would you be able to upload, say, 40GB files and then edit them,

Assuming it got there, you could edit it. But the whole thing would be horribly cumbersome and slow.

Average US broadband upload speed is 120 kbytes/second.

a 10-minute clip of HD video from my Panasonic SD-1 is about 1GB.

That's almost 3 hours of upload time before I can even start to edit.

If you record something like a school play (40 minutes) you're going to have to go have to leave your computer over night to do the upload.

or if it's possible to use these web services to edit things locally and save them locally (as I have no idea)?

You can send the data to a site, but the site cannot read local files. it would require a browser plugin that bypasses standard browser security. But even if you could, that data is still going to have to be uploaded to the server for actual processing, otherwise you'd just be using a local app. You wouldn't really gain anything at all.

Personally, the only good point I see is that your computer would probably not be used for rendering stuff like effects and transitions, it would be the server I think. But other than that, I really don't see how this could become useful.

rendering of special effects isn't terribly taxing. the conversion a final format (ie: converting your video to mpeg 2 to burn to DVD) is the biggest time sink.

Keep in mind that after you've uploaded your several gigabytes of video, after all the editing and processing is done you'd have to be sent back the final compressed files (ie: mpeg4 for the web, or mpeg 2 for putting on DVD) so you could look forward to another significant wait.

[Japlabot]

iMovie is not leaving the desktop, it sounds like there is going to be web integration

[PyX]

If that was the goal then they should have learned that the web is not a suitable platform for this sort of application.

In fact, I think MobileMe is just fine as it is, but what I meant between the lines is, let's say Apple doesn't do as much mistakes as they did with MobileMe because they learned from developing this.

You can send the data to a site, but the site cannot read local files.

That's what I thought. Just this pretty much infirms the rumour IMO.

My new HD camera for instance, which is worth 600 CAD (what I mean by this is, it's a regular cam, nothing special), has a 40GB hard drive inside of it. The data through iMovie becomes twice as big from what I've seen in my last import, so let's say 80GB. I have a really fast connection, but it would take days for me to upload even @ 1 mbits / s.

I guess I'd die too before it's uploaded ;)