iMovie ’08 lacks the chapter-marker feature found in iMovie ’06, but you can still add chapters to an iMovie ’08 project by using GarageBand.

Purchase a movie from the iTunes Store, or extract a film from a DVD with HandBrake, and you’ll end up with a file containing chapter markers that you can use to skip to specific parts of your video in iTunes, on the Apple TV, or on an iPod. Wouldn’t it be great if you could add such markers to your own home movies too?

Unfortunately, although you could add chapters to an iMovie ’06 project, that option is no longer available with iMovie ’08. However, it’s still possible to add them using another member of the iLife suite: GarageBand. We’ll show you how to export your film from iMovie, perform the necessary alterations in GarageBand, save your work without any noticeable loss in image quality, and upload it to an iPod.

What you need: iMovie ’08 7.1.1 ($79 with iLife ’08, www.apple.com), GarageBand ’08 4.1.2 ($79 with iLife ’08, www.apple.com),QuickTime 7.5 (free, www.apple.com), a completed iMovie project ready for export.

1 Export Your Finished iMovie

Since our final destination is iTunes, we’ll export the iMovie project so it’ll look good on an iPod and Apple TV.

Launch iMovie ’08 and select one of your completed films from the Project Library section. With the file highlighted, go to Share > Media Browser to bring up the Export window. Since we’re looking to create a single file that can be played on your Mac, iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, select the Medium option (even though the iPhone isn’t shown as a compatible option, rest assured that it is—if it works on an iPod or iPod touch, it’ll work on an iPhone). Name your file and click Publish.

2 Head to the Garage

Since podcasts can have audio and video (just like iMovie projects!), you’ll click Create New Podcast Episode.

Launch GarageBand. By default, this application also opens the last project you were working on. Since we need to create a new one, close the current project to get back to the welcome screen. From there, click the Create New Podcast Episode button. Give it a name and save it on the Desktop for convenience.

3 Just Add Movie

Click Replace, and then the Podcast Track at the top of the Tracks list will change to Movie Track.

To the right of your project is the Media Browser. Click the Movies section and select the iMovie folder. Any project that has been published using the method described in step 1 will appear here. One of them should be the film we prepared earlier. Click it and drag it to the main part of the window. You will be asked if you would like to change the podcast track for a movie track. Click Replace to do so.

4 Add the First Marker

Once you select Movie Track in the Tracks list, the chapter marker area shows up at the bottom of the window.

Your movie’s soundtrack (Movie Sound in the screenshot) is selected by default. Click Movie Track instead and notice that the bottom section of the interface changes to a chapter creation and editing area. Without moving the playhead, click the Add Marker button at the lower-left. If you hadn’t done this, GarageBand still would have created a marker at the beginning of your film, but you wouldn’t have been able to change its default name, “Start.”

Check out the Movie Preview area as you add your chapter markers.

Press the spacebar to start your film (the same keyboard shortcut also stops playback). You could work through your project in real time, clicking the Add Marker button or pressing the P key as you reach moments of interest. However, this often leads to very imprecise markers. It’s often much easier to scrub through your footage by dragging the playhead manually—it’s represented by a red line with an upside-down triangle on top. Click and drag that triangle to move through your project; the slower you go, the more precise you’ll be. You can also use the arrow keys, but they move you in half-second increments by default, which may not be good enough for your needs.

6 Play the Name Game

You can think of better chapter names than “Chapter 1” and so on.

Once you’ve created all the chapters you need, you can give them more useful names than the generic ones that GarageBand automatically assigns. The list of chapters is displayed in the lower part of the interface. To rename one, simply click it. To rename them all, hit the Tab key to cycle through them. Ignore the URL title and URL fields, as they’re of no use in this case. Notice that you can also alter the chapter’s timecode manually if you wish.

7 Protect the Quality

Export to Disk (aka your hard drive) at Full Quality to avoid recompressing the same movie twice.

Once all chapters have been named, it is time to export your project. You have two options to achieve this, and both reside in the Share menu. Send Movie To iTunes appears to be the best, since it’ll automatically add your project to an iTunes playlist and hence save a few steps when uploading to an iPod or Apple TV. However, it will also lead to a loss of image quality. This is because GarageBand will re-encode your footage, creating an H.264 copy of an H.264 original, resulting in a grainy video with washed-out colors. Therefore, you should choose Export Movie To Disk instead. Make sure you select Full Quality from the Video Settings pull-down menu to prevent GarageBand from re-encoding your footage, and save your file to the Desktop.

8 Preview in QuickTime

QuickTime lets you jump directly to your chapters.

Find your saved file and double-click it to see it in QuickTime. You can select and navigate through its chapters using a small menu to the right of the timeline. If you notice a mistake and hadn’t saved your GarageBand project, you won’t need to go back to your original iMovie project and start again: You can create a new podcast project instead and drag the file you just exported back into the project window. Then you’ll be able to edit your chapter location or names again. The quickest way to alter the location of a chapter is to delete the current one by selecting it in the Chapter column (at the bottom of the interface), pressing the Delete key, and creating a new one at another point in time.

9 Add to iTunes

Click the gray TV icon (or select Chapters in the menubar) to see all the chapters in your video.

To add your movie to iTunes, drag it from the Finder onto iTunes’ Dock icon. When playing the file from iTunes, you can navigate through its chapters via the menubar (click Chapters) or by pressing Command-Shift-right arrow (or the left arrow to go back). When browsing through a playlist in iTunes, each movie has a light gray TV icon to denote that it’s a video. Clicking that icon will also give you access to your chapters and let you start watching your film from whichever one you select. Those chapters are also accessible on your iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV, and in Front Row.