EyeCandy
Company: sidicom
Price: See Below
http://www.ilearnfast.com
When Apple released the latest version of iMovie 6, the real big news was Themes. Similar to the themes found in iDVD, iMovie Themes were designed to work within your movie, rather than as menu items on a DVD. While the stock themes supplied by Apple with iMovie 6 are great, I knew it would only be a matter of time before an intrepid software developer would jump in with third-party themes. I was right, and Sidicom was one of the first.
EyeCandy Animated Themes for iMovie 6 are professionally done themes that work very well within iMovie 6. They are each sold separately, and prices vary. Let’s look at the EyeCandy Themes I used for this review.
World Cup
$26
Obviously the designers are soccer fans. The World Cup theme uses a very cool blue motion theme with up to six different themes as part of the overall World Cup. The Open option gives you up to three-drop zones for pictures of video, and three text titles. The overall movement is fast paced and fluid. The second option is Bumper, which is very similar to Open, but with different video motion. The same is true of Chapter as well. Lower Third-HD gives you a wide-screen aspect ratio World Cup theme, but with only on video drop zone and two text tiles. Lower Third-SD is the same as the HD version, just in standard format. And credits gives you the overall look of the entire World Cup theme, but are for text only, of which you have up to four text titles.
Overall, I really like World Cup. The six different types of sub-themes within the theme are very professionally done, and I can vouch they look great within a video project. On the downside, the sub-themes that give you the ability to input multiple video or picture drop zones leave a grey video box if you don’t use it in the project. There is no way to turn off unneeded video drop zones. The same is true of the iMovie built-in themes.
World Cup rating: 4 out of 5
Folding Cards
$35
This theme actually has eight different sub-themes, and all are pretty cool. What’s more, this is a multi-palette theme, meaning you can have up to three different colors in this theme, including Red, Blue, and shades of green/gold. To change the color scheme, the first “Title†selection is used to input a number, 0, 1, or 2, and the color for that theme will change. Don’t worry; the numbered text won’t be in the theme itself.
As the name implies, each sub-theme has card-like solid colors that slide back and forth. Some have video drop-zones, while a few are for text only.
I like all of the Folding Cards sub-themes, but they are a bit limited. While I do think the color choices the developer uses are nice and professional enough, I would rather have much more control over the color choices. A color wheel for each individual color would have been better, as would the ability to chance the size or spacing of the text. What you see if what you get, and what you see here are eight nice themes.
Folding Cards rating: 3.5 out of 5
Picture-In-Picture
$5.95
This is the free version that is given away when you purchase any of the themes, and it is a nice added bonus, albeit a limited one.
Picture-In-Picture does just that, giving you the ability to have two different videos on screen at the same time. The user interface is simplicity itself; you drop two video files onto the drop-zone, and instant picture in picture. Unfortunately, this free version has two sub-themes, Bottom Left – 10 Sec and Bottom Right – 10 Sec. So you can only have picture in picture in either the bottom left or right side of your screen, and only for ten seconds. Worse yet, there is a boarder all around the smaller of the videos, and while you can change the color of the border, you can’t get rid of it. A good idea for a theme, true, but too limited. This theme is much better implemented in GeeThree.com’s Slick Transitions and Effects Volume 4. http://www.geethree.com/slick/V_04.html
Picture-in-Picture rating: 2 out of 5
All in all, I like the fact that sidicom has stepped into the void for aftermarket iMovie themes. I like choice, and I only hope they continue to develop new and creative themes. On the downside, I experienced many more iMovie crashes when these themes were installed. iMovie would quit or hang at application launch, but the problems went away when I removed the Eye Candy themes (installed at Library / Application Support / iMovie / Themes) This is a problem, but one I expect sidicom will fix as time goes on.
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