Many were in mourning when iMovie '08 replaced iMovie HD. Frankly, I was one of them. I am an experienced Final Cut Pro user, but I frequently created quick video podcasts in iMovie HD. It is a powerful and intuitive video editing application!

But now that I've learned to work with the completely and radically different iMovie '08 interface, iMovie '09 has been released, and iMovie HD is no longer available from the Apple site as a free download. In fact, it's not available as any kind of download. And, I suspect that some future upgrade of QuickTime or the OS will quietly kill it.

So how does iMovie '09 compare to iMoive '08? I really don't know yet. I'm about to install it and find out. I've read some reviews and have decided to retain iMovie '08 on my machine in my "Vintage iMovie" folder along with iMoive HD. (I've decided to see if the HD, '08, and '09 versions can peacefully coexist on the same machine before installing '09 on my laptop. I do a lot of iMovie training and want to have as many versions available to me as possible. I never know which version a training facility will have on their machines.)

I'll let you know if the 3 versions seem to play well with each other on the same machine.

Here's an interesting review of iMovie '09 by Jeff Carlson of Macworld.com.