iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

The Export Pop-up Menu

After you've finished editing your iMovie production, the first step in exporting it as a QuickTime movie is to choose Share → "Export using QuickTime".

The "Save exported file as" dialog box appears (Figure 14-3). Here, you'll eventually type a name and choose a folder location for the file you're about to save. But for now, resist the temptation.

Figure 14-3. This is the first dialog box of many that you'll encounter as you crawl down Alice's rabbit hole of QuickTime compression options.

The real power lies in the buttons and pop-up menus elsewhere in this little box. For starters, the Export pop-up menu (visible in Figure 14-3) gives you a wealth of conversion options. This is your opportunity to save your film as:

• An AVI file to give to your Windows PC-using friends. Choose Movie to AVI.

• A huge folder full of still images, one per frame of your movie. Choose "Movie to Image Sequence". Click Options to specify the file format—like JPEG or Photoshop—and how many stills per second you want.

• A soundtrack. Here's a great opportunity to convert the audio tracks of your movie into standalone sound files. Choose "Sound to AIFF", "Sound to Wave", or whatever format you want.

  You'll find this feature very handy every now and then. For example, certain troubleshooting situations, usually involving an out-of-place noise, call for exporting and reimporting your finished soundtrack—in ...