In all the hot sweaty blogging about Mac Mini and IPOD Shuffle - there's a interesting new set of features in Imovie that matters to folks in the documentary community.

First - has anyone talked about the fact that Steve Job's waved a Sony HDV camcorder around and embraced both HDV and Blue-Ray? I think that might mean that Final Cut will add HDV support to pro sooner rather than later.

HDV is now supported in Imovie, but final cut folks just shrugged because it isn't yet out for FCP.

but little mentioned is Magic

thanks to AppleMatters for catching this big clue.

MAGIC is a cool feature that digitizes your entire HDV tape, breaks it up into scenes, puts in automatic scene-breaks, titles, credits, and music.

Ok - the pro's are sniffing in disgust. But hold on. Why have we spent the last 10 years keeping folks from digitizing everything on a tape? Because storage cost a ton of money. But the apple folks know that it's much easier to let the software do the in and out points (based on camera start/stop i assume) and then sit down and trim, remove, and polish. And as we know - storage prices are falling every day - making it cheaper to store more and prune than to nit pick what goes in up front.

From the apple website:

"Unassisted, iMovie HD automatically rewinds the tape in your camcorder and imports all your video. After placing each clip on the Timeline, it assembles your movie from start to finish."

the site goes on:

"Imagine. For your next movie project, iMovie HD can step in and perform all of the preliminary work for you. Like a trusted assistant, it preps the stage. Then it’s your turn to step in and take your project to the next level. Use your iMovie expertise to trim or reposition clips, introduce effects, modify transitions, add or delete chapter markers, include sounds or additional musical elements."

Is this feature going to be included in FCP along with HDV support? I sure hope so. Not because a piece of software replaces an editor. Far from it. But the job of keying in 'in' and 'out' points is horrible, and anything that means i can sit down and start touching material without having to grind through the 'digitizing' process is a great thing.

Hope Apple is listening.