iMovie '09 and iDVD: The Missing Manual

Chapter 12. Exporting to iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, or Front Row

Apple, as you may have noticed, is really into the electronic presentation of video. The company thinks that the traditional destinations for your home movies—like sending your movie to a DVD or recording it back to tape—are ancient history. What Apple really wants you to do with your finished masterpiece is to post it on the Web (see Chapter 13) or transfer it to another Apple machine, like an iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, or Front Row (to play on your Mac from across the room).

That’s what this chapter is all about: sending your finished masterpiece to another fine piece of Apple merchandise.

Exporting the Movie to iTunes

As it turns out, the steps for exporting a movie to Apple’s four video-playing machines (iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, and Front Row) are nearly identical. All of them involve exporting the movie to iTunes, which is the loading dock for iPods, iPhones, Apple TVs, and even Front Row. The only difference is the size of the movie you’re creating.

So, for the sake of saving the Brazilian rainforest, the instructions appear here only once, with the necessary variations written out along the way:

1. When your project is ready for prime time, choose Share → iTunes.

   The “Publish your project to iTunes” dialog box appears (Figure 12-1). You’ve probably never seen a dialog box quite like this one.

   

   Figure 12-1. This unusual-looking dialog ...