I need a video editor like the old iMovie.

So, the old PPC eMac I'd been using to edit videos with iMovie 3 finally died a few months ago. I bought a used iMac to replace it (iMac5,1, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.16 GHz, OS 10.6.8). Imagine my horror when I first opened its version of iMovie 11 (9.0.4) and saw what a joke it is compared to the classic version of iMovie I had been using! A childish little clip assembler bearing the name of what was once a useful video editor! I use movie editing mostly to make videos of music performances with synched soundtracks, so this iMovie 11 is useless to me. I MUST have a timeline viewer and audio channel viewer like I used to have in iMovie 3.


My questions are, then—is there a free or cheap video editor available that will work on my computer, that has timeline and audio track viewing similar to the old iMovie? Or, is there a way I can still get an older version of iMovie with those features, that will run on my current computer?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 8, 2013 4:21 PM

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3 replies

Jul 8, 2013 10:02 PM in response to oldbrownshoe

oldbrownshoe wrote:

… A childish little clip assembler bearing the name of what was once a useful video editor!

... LOL, sorry - you completely miss the many features of 'new' (6y) iMovie-b ....

really no clip-assembler, e.g. offering one of the best color-keys (aka green screen) of the industry.-


It looks like, you prefer the old 'tracks' metaphore:

best bang for the buck for that is APs tiny brother, AdobePremiere/elements, there are quite often promotion offers for 30-50€ ....


I wouldn't rely my precious work on 'homebrewn software' ....... 😉

Jul 9, 2013 11:41 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

As I said, I make mostly music videos that require precisely synching audio tracks to the video. That's easy to do in iMovie 3, but impossible in iMovie 11. If a so-called video editor can't be used for such a basic task, it's useless to me. I couldn't care less how nifty the green screen feature is if the app lacks basic functions.


Thanks for the tip about AdobePremiere/elements, though. I'll take a look at it.

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I need a video editor like the old iMovie.

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