iMovie '11: Share your movie

Share your movie

There are a number of ways to share your video projects with others. The most popular ways include burning the project to a DVD, publishing it to your MobileMe Gallery, and publishing it to a sharing website such as YouTube or Facebook.

Create a DVD

In iMovie, open a project or select it in the Project Library (by clicking its name once), and then choose Share > iDVD.

The Share menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.

iMovie generates a finished version of your project and sends it to iDVD (another application in the iLife suite).

iDVD opens with your movie in a new iDVD project, which you can burn to a DVD immediately.

For instructions about how to burn a DVD, choose Help > iDVD Help when the iDVD application is open. The Help menu appears in a gray bar at the top of your computer screen.

Publish to your MobileMe Gallery

MobileMe is an Apple service that allows you to keep email, contacts, and your calendar synchronized across all your devices—including your computer, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. MobileMe Gallery is a part of this service. It lets you publish photos and movies online so that you can share them with friends.

To publish to MobileMe Gallery, you must have an active MobileMe subscription and be connected to the Internet. You can sign up for a MobileMe subscription at the MobileMe website.

  1. In iMovie, open a project or select it in the Project Library (by clicking its name), and then choose Share > MobileMe Gallery.

    The Share menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.

    If you aren’t already logged into MobileMe, you’re prompted to do so.

  2. In the “Publish to your MobileMe” window that opens, type a title and description for your movie in the Title and Description text fields.

  3. Select one or more of the sizes that are compatible with MobileMe, as indicated in the “Sizes to publish” table.

  4. Choose an option from the “Viewable by” pop-up menu to set password protection for your movie, depending on whether you want it to be publicly viewable or accessible only by specific people.

  5. Select “Hide movie on my Gallery home page” if you don’t want the movie to appear on the homepage of your Gallery.

  6. Select “Allow movie to be downloaded” if you want viewers to be able to download copies of your movie.

  7. Click Publish.

    iMovie prepares your movie for publishing and uploads it to your MobileMe Gallery.

  8. To watch your movie online, click View, or to notify your friends and family of the new movie you’ve published, click “Tell a Friend.”

    Click OK to do neither and simply close the window.

Publish to YouTube or Facebook

To publish a movie to YouTube or Facebook, you need to be connected to the Internet, and you need an account on those websites. Accounts are free and easy to set up. If you don’t have an account, first go to www.youtube.com or www.facebook.com and create one.

  1. In iMovie, open a project or select it in the Project Library (by clicking its name), and then choose Share > YouTube, or Share > Facebook.

    The Share menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.

  2. Choose your account from the Account pop-up menu.

    If you don’t see your account in the pop-up menu, click Add to add it.

  3. Fill in the fields and make selections from pop-up menus.

    For YouTube, “Category” refers to the category under which the video will be categorized on the YouTube website. “Tags” are keywords that viewers can use to search for your movie on the YouTube website.

  4. Select a size of movie to publish that’s compatible with YouTube or Facebook, as indicated in the “Sizes to publish” table.

    Larger sizes typically offer higher quality but may take longer to upload.

  5. For YouTube, to allow your video to be viewable by anyone, deselect “Make this movie personal.”

  6. Click Next.

  7. Click Publish.

    iMovie uploads your movie to YouTube or Facebook; depending on website traffic, the movie may not be available on YouTube or Facebook right away.

  8. To see your movie online, click View in the window that appears.

  9. To notify your friends via email of the new movie you’ve published, click “Tell a Friend.”

For more ways to share your iMovie projects, click the Browse Help button above and see the topics in “Share your video project.”