iMovie can’t edit external video files
Remember back before the iPad 2 was even announced, when I did that article on editing HD videos from a camera on the iPad 1? Fast forward one month, and here I am with my shiny new iPad 2 with 9x the GPU performance, 2x the CPU performance, triple the usable RAM and Apple’s own iMovie software. You can imagine my surprise when I go to open a video file from my Canon 300 HS in iMovie and it won’t even show the file. Turns out you can only edit videos taken with the device (or possiby another iOS device), which is about as useless as you can get considering the lacking quality of the built in cameras. As you can see from the side-by-side comparison in the image above, iMovie on the left doesn’t show any files in the “last import” album, while ReelDirector has no problem seeing (and opening, editing) the file. Weak, Apple, weak. I guess this is their way of making people use that shitty camera. Back to ReelDirector for me!
