Viewing with the Viewers
Located at the bottom of the iMovie window are the viewers. There are two of them, although you can see only one at a time. The viewer you see is determined by the tab that you click.
When you click the tab with the eye icon, you see the Clip Viewer (see Figure 3.3). You use the Clip Viewer to assemble clips and transitions into a movie. In the viewer, you see a visual indication of how the clips are laid out, from the beginning of the movie to the end. You also see transitions that are inserted between clips. All sorts of information is presented in the Clip Viewer, as well. For example, you see the name of the movie, its duration, and format in the upper-left corner. In the middle, you see the name and duration of the clip that is currently selected. In the upper right of the viewer, you see the date on which the selected clip was recorded (if iMovie is able to retrieve that information from your camcorder). Within each clip shown on the view, you see its name and duration.
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Figure 3.3 You use the Clip Viewer to assemble a movie from individual clips.
Of Formats
You will see two major formats in the broadcast video world. NTSC (which stands for National Television System Committee) is the standard broadcast format in the U.S. PAL (Phase Alternate by Line) is the European standard. Depending on where you live, you will use one format or the other (although most video equipment can work with either one).
When you click the clock icon, you see the Timeline Viewer (see Figure 3.4). You use the Timeline Viewer to see and edit all the tracks for your movie. There are three tracks to every movie that you create. The upper bar shows the audio that is part of any clip that you bring into iMovie, whether that clip comes from a camcorder or from another source. The middle bar is used for sound effects and narration. The bottom bar is for music tracks that you import (for example, from audio CDs). These bars work much like the scrubber bar in the Monitor, in that you see the playhead, timecodes, crop markers, and so on.
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Figure 3.4 Use the Timeline Viewer to add sound effects, narration, and music to your movie.
You also see check boxes at the end of each bar. These are Mute boxes. Checking one mutes the sound track that it's next to.
At the bottom of the Timeline Viewer on the left side, you see the Timeline Zoom pop-up menu, which controls the relative length of what you see on the viewer. This control enables you to make the "magnification" of the timeline greater or smaller during editing.
Next to that, you see the Clip Speed slider control, which you can use to change the relative speed at which a clip plays.
At the bottom right of the Timeline Viewer, you see controls you can use to control the fade in and fade out of sounds and their relative volumes.