iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (Repost)

Apple's iMovie '09 is more accessible and comprehensive than iMovie '08–and impressive right out of the box. The one thing not in the box is a user's guide, and that's where this book comes in. You'll make the most out of the applications if you get help from the experts. iMovie '09 and iDVD: The Missing Manual explains everything you need to know to turn raw digital footage into high quality film.
Stabilizing Shaky Footage
By David Pogue and Aaron Miller Not every piece of video needs fancy effects. In fact, most video is probably better without a Dream filter and Picture-in-Picture. The unadulterated stuff straight from your camera usually looks best.
In fact, if your footage needs any help at all, it’s probably in the cameraman department. Don’t take this personally. Handheld shots, the most common kind of home video, are notoriously unstable, and that’s an instant giveaway that you’re an amateur. You can have the hands of a surgeon and still end up with shaky footage. This is true even with all the newfangled image stabilization technology that comes in the latest cameras.
Don’t give up (and don’t resort to carrying a tripod everywhere). iMovie ’09 can stabilize your video after the fact, using one of its most amazing new features.
Video Stabilization
iMovie has powers that leave other “beginner” video-editing programs panting with envy. It’s filled with tools that have historically been found only in professional editing programs. iMovie’s stabilization feature, for example, is inherited from Apple’s $1,000 Final Cut Pro software.
It works by analyzing every single frame in a clip, recognizing the changes in both camera position (movement up, down, left, or right) and camera rotation. Once it figures that bit out, it knows how to slide and rotate your clips to iron out the shakes.
Unfortunately, this sort of analysis takes a very long time—roughly ten minutes for every minute of video (more or less depending on your Mac’s speed).
The results, however, are worth it. The stabilization feature works absolute magic on most jerky, bumpy handheld footage. It works so well, in fact, that it can look positively creepy, as though you were floating along on a magic carpet. Fortunately, there’s a slider that lets you control how much stabilizing goes on.