Glenn,

This helps. My wife isn't a video person, she just wants to do dvd's of the kids, and I can make a lot of the clips look better in FCP. Simplicity vs toolset.

I believe you are encountering the main issue with capturing via iMovie... it captures DV streams vs. FCP capturing DV video. Or at least, that's what I encountered waaaaay back when with iMovie 3.x. I ended up converting the DV streams to just plain DV. Does iMovie still do this?

This thread talks a little bit about it too:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=53281

Yes, you will need to render the DV stream files from iMovie (at least for final output) since they aren't FCP's native format.

However there are a variety of things that can make playback stutter with FCP. For one thing, make sure journaling is turned off on your media drives.

#20 Using iMovie to Capture for FCP edit

Shane's Stock Answer #20:

iMovie handles the media differently from FCP, specifically where audio is concerned. So it is not a recommended workflow. Here's why...

iMovie captures using DV Stream (.dv) standard which does not use timecode. That is a big disadvantage over the way that FCP captures in that you can't go back and recapture the material at a later date if you need to revisit a project.

The DV/NTSC specification (the one FCP uses) also calls for seperate tracks for audio and video, even if you capture it as one clip. iMovie' DV stream format is muxed audio and video, which means that they are tied together (I can't get into specifics because I ain't no engineer or programmer). FCP is a bit more demanding and captures the seperate audio/video tracks, either in a single media file or as seperate video and audio files. With FCP you could capture video only or audio only because each is defined by the DV specs. while with iMovie you can't.

Also, if you drop the iMovie footage into the timeline, your will get the RED render bar forcing you to render the footage in order to see it...

For all the stock answers, click on this link:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@941.OTrRaOS9SEl.0@.68a3b883

You are going to be doing a lot of rendering. Once .dv files from iMovie are in the timeline, they need to be rendered.

Thanks for the input everyone. Someone on lafcpug board suggested I export from iMovie as a Quicktime .Mov file. That let me view without rendering, but there's a discernable flicker in it now as tho its dropping frames, plus the .mov file loses all the dv start/stop markers. I may just go back to the .dv clips and deal with rendering as it's only for a couple minute long behind the scenes piece. Still haven't given up hope that I'll figure out how to capture the XL-1 tapes directly into FCP with my DVX. Until then, i-movie and .dv files into FCP will just have to do.

I was playing around a shot some footage in 16:9 on my XL2. I have never played with iMovie (I use Premier Pro on PC) so I uploaded it on there for fun. The video is all smashed into 4:3 and lookes like a circus sideshow funhouse mirror video.. What's the story? You can't make a 16:9 video with iMovie?

What version of iMovie are you running? I haven't used it in years, but the old versions didn't support 16:9. The current version supports 16:9 and even HDV 720p and 1080i: http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/import.html

iMovie HD (5.0) supports 16:9 DV footage. Don't forget however, that all DV footage, 16:9 or not, is still 720x480 regardless of the NLE used. It's just a matter of how it's played back.

iLife '05 with the new iMovie HD has nice integration with iDVD---true 16:9 widescreen projects become great anamorphic DVD's.

No flags to set etc.

You can edit anamorphic 16:9 footage in older versions of iMovie and when you export the project in Quicktime Pro--just set it as 16:9 anamorphic for MPEG-2 for use in DVD Studio Pro.

iMovie HD is the BEST version of iMovie since 2.0

3.0 and 4.0 were lousy[slow and sluggish].

I edit on Final Cut, but every once in awhile I'll do a rough quickie in iMovie to show a client while he waits... etc etc...

Well I did this quick cut of standard def stuff shot on an XL2, cut it and was rendering a quick transition when suddenly I got the spinning rainbow of death... I quit iMovie, and dis-mounted the ext. harddrive that the project was in, re-started the computer and I haven't been able to open that project since. Now it's not a huge deal since I have all the raw footage and was planning on doing the real job on FC anyway... but I want to retrieve this because... well I need to know in case this happens again.

So what I'm getting is I click on it and it says "project _____ is missing a file, it will be skipped" then it gives me the options: "ignore all" or "ok" then it crashes iMovie and says that it unexpectedly quit. So what's the problem folks?

Thanks in advance for your replies,

Daniel Riser

There aren't usually very many iMovie users around here... so if you don't see a response you might want to visit Apple's iMovie support forum:

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=141

Yeah... me either. Pixar uses iMovie for rough storyboarding and that's basically what I do. If this were an FC issue I'd have it licked... funny the "simple" program is giving me problems beyond my scope of knowledge... I'll check out apple.

Thanks,

Daniel Riser

have you tried looking for individual clips in the capture file? (i think iMovie 5 calls this a "media file"--at least you'll know the captured footage is still there, even if your editing is lost. you can re-import those files into a new project file without having to re-capture. and if you discover that footage is *not* there, that means the entire project file is a bust. i'd start there....

have you tried looking for individual clips in the capture file? (i think iMovie 5 calls this a "media file"--at least you'll know the captured footage is still there, even if your editing is lost. you can re-import those files into a new project file without having to re-capture. and if you discover that footage is *not* there, that means the entire project file is a bust. i'd start there....

Hi Daniel,
In case you are unaware...what Meryem is suggesting is achieved by control-clicking your iMovie project and selecting 'show package contents'

Inside the opened folder there should be a folder entitled 'media'

Your captured clips should hopefully still be in there. Sometimes, iMovie will experience a glitch where it becomes unable to recognize the contents of its own media files. Those files should be the original captured clips you were working with. If you create a new iMovie file and drag these media files into it, you can basically start fresh with the original clips.......the problem here is that you are losing any editing you have done thus far.


Also, while in the package contents folder, you will also see a folder called 'cache'. Inside this folder, there should be a Quicktime .mov file. This is usually a relativley small file as it mostly serves as an alias of sorts to the edited timeline data. Try to open this file to see if it works (try this before moving your media files out of the project folder) If you can open up this quicktime cache file, theoretically you should be able to export it to a full quality dv file - thereby saving a full resolution of your edited project. (I don't know if that works as I haven't needed to try it, but it makes sense to me)

Dealing with clip referencing and file corruptions are one of the limitations of this software...but hey, its a free app with new Macs and part of a whole suite of apps for low cost.....For that, I think iMovie is a pretty amazing application with lots of handy uses. It effectively got me through my first year of a video editing business with flying colors while I saved up my pennies to buy and learn FCP. For that, I give kudos to iMovie....but beware the limitations.

Good luck.
-Jon

Imovie is very impressive. I spoke to a Pixar guy that told me they use iMovie just as often as the FC... of course not for any theatrical work but mainly for rough storyboarding etc... I think iMovie is a powerful tool for the learning filmmaker/videographer...

and I really appreciate the posts. I'll test that right now.

High Regards,

Daniel Riser

So, I got iLife '05 - with iMovie HD - Now I want to produce DVD. Except, I don't have a HD camera. Frankly, I'm not interested in the HD tecnology, not yet at least.

QUESTION: can I still use iMovie HD to make non-HD movies? or should I get iMovie (without HD)?

Thanks,
Jesse Luke
Lone Wolf Productions

You don't need another product; they just call it iMovie HD to indicate that it can handle HD. You don't have to use an HD camera with iMovie, and there is no "iMovie SD" version. In fact, I don't think you can currently make an HD DVD using iMovie/iDVD; I believe it will downconvert your HD footage to SD when burning the DVD.

Okay... try not to laugh.

I have done about 3-4 or projects in iMovie and when I'm done, I go back and delete the video and get my disk space back.

But when I go to open a new project, I still see my lists of previous projects.

How do I get rid of an old project?

They should just show up as iMovie icons in the finder just find them and drag them to the trash. They are probably in your movies folder located in your home folder.

Thanks Nate... much appreciated.

Hey, Colby. No shame in using iMovie if all you need are basic transitions in editing your project. I bet no one could tell the difference between a cross dissolve done in iMovie and one done in FCP, know what I mean?

iMovie is a fabulous program, I use it extensively for pulling in footage, logging footage and for whipping together animatics/moving storyboards. Great way to sort through your footage. Pull in a full tape of footage, cut out the cruft and re-export as full quality DV stream. I add placards for scene/shot size/actor in there too.

Since we're on the subject of iMovie I've got a question for you Cole. When you export your full quality DV streams do you use them in FCP? I'd like to do that but always have to render the clips that I bring in, would you mind sharing your workflow?? Thanks

sure, Having shot the best thing ever commited to photons ;) I pull the full tape into iMovie (saving wear and tear on the transport of my camera - view, rewind, capture pertinent bit, repeat). I then rename the clip to match the label of the tape. This becomes my logging station. Since I have been the only technician on set many times, logging takes is not necessarily something that would have been prudent at the time. After option-dragging my clip to the timeline (always work on a copy), I watch through it with a hand on the command-T (cut at play hear) and the other shared between the spacebar (start/stop) and the arrow keys (step forward/reverse). I play through the whole tape cutting out the bits between the takes (unless there's a brilliant piece of BTS stuff in there, which I will cut out and drag back to the clips palette to rename appropriately and save for later).

After that's done, I put titles in with project name, scene number and shot description/actor name for singles. I string all the takes out in one chunk for ease of reference when editing. I export each camera position as its own entity named <scene#>-<shot size>-<character if singles>.dv as a dv stream. These get imported into Final Cut Express (pro it if ya got it!) into scene bins.

I have a master sequence that has all of the scene sequences nested in it. The scene sequences are located in their respective bins so I can open the bin and have the whole thing right at my fingertips. With the dv stream, I also need to render the file, but only if I'm using the audio. Having the takes in one clip allows me to scrub through the clip to find just what I'm looking for when I'm looking and will often uncover new stuff that would fit better as I scrub through (I learned this from "In the Blink of an Eye" by Walter Murch). I initially populate the scene sequences with titles that give the scene number and a brief description of the scene as placeholders, 10 seconds each. This allows me, while editing, to keep the story in mind.

I am new to iMovie and wanted to know if I can place pictures for a documentary and move in slowly and out or to the left or right. What method can I use for this?

Don't bother with iMovie's Ken Burns effect..it doesn't give you enough control.

I recommend LQ Graphic's Photo-To-Movie.

http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php

It's really easy to use.

Thanks! That' what I needed!

So I spend numerous days editing footage, (I'm sure you can relate) Apple G4 & iMovie & iTunes for music, etc. (all new iLife '06 versions) - then I want to view the edited footage, from iMovie THRU my DV camera (Pan PVGS400), to my TV, & the #!*& thing has choppy video playback. Audio is fine.

The video/audio was smooth, in real time just before I patched it thru my camera. I just don't get it. Why would a signal leaving the computer mess up the software it came from.

Now, when I play back on the computer screen, without the patch thru, it's still choppy. I unplugged the fire wire, turned off the camera, ... I just can not get my mind around this cause & effect. It seems backwards. Am I in a time warp???

Thanks for any feedback here, I'm loosing it. (Again, I'm sure you can relate.)

So I spend numerous days editing footage

I don't use iMovie, so there may be something simple that I'm missing. But I just wonder, if you captured a lot of footage, what disk is it on? Is it on the internal drive of an iMac, iBook or Powerbook? If so then you may have issues with disk performance and fragmentation. I know that older versions of iMovie forced you to put everything on the internal drive; is that still the case? If so, then this may not be well suited to large projects. The startup drive on a mac has literally thousands (probably tens of thousands) of little files. The result may be a fragmented disk such that a lot of seeking is required when reading and writing data. The startup drive is also constantly being read and written by various applications and the operating system itself. Combine all this with slow drives on some models and it isn't a good situation for video.

But I'm just brainstorming here. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of iMovie users here. If you don't get any help you might visit Apple's iMovie support forum here: http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=141

How is the camera connected, through a HD or direct to computer? Most cameras are S100 in speed, even though FW is capable of S400 (400 Mb per second).

Here is what I would check: Not necessarily in this order.

First, what type of system are you running this on? Desktop, iMac, Powerbook, iBook, MacBook Pro?.....Processor speed, and very important...amount of RAM? If you have just the stock RAM, that might be your problem.

What OS are you running...Jaguar, Panther, Tiger....Tiger added Core Image that can stress out the video handling of older systems or lower end video cards - sometimes causing the problem you are experiencing.

The size of the project or length of clips you are experiencing this problem with? Does this just happen with the video in the timeline or does it also affect shorter clips residing on the shelf? If you are running the bare minimum of system specs, larger video segments can be a strain on the system...again with the RAM. I think 512 MB is the minimum just for efficient performance with the OS....using apps like iMovie above and beyond that can really benefit from even higher capacities of RAM.

Keep at least 10 - 15 percent of your drive empty...OS X needs this additional space for effective and efficient swap file management....as it gets lower and lower you will experience sluggishness in your apps, such as stuttering in iMovie.

Repair permissions....regularly. You will find Disk Utility in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. Select your drive and click repair permissions. Sometimes this will solve a multitude of performance issues.

You can store your iMovie project folder to an external drive connected via firewire. If you are using Panther or Tiger, you can also capture your footage directly to the project folder created on an external drive. If you are using a laptop then an external firewire hard drive is almost required for decent performance since the internal drive is likely too slow for effective performance. A good external firewire drive with ample space and 7200 RPM should fit the bill.

If I can think of anything more I will post....but I hope this helps a litte. Good luck.
-Jon

In addition to what the other have mentioned:

You say use iTunes for music. It is a big no-no to use straight compressed MP3 music files in iMovie from iTunes.[Even though Apple advertises it as tight integration]--sometimes you need to convert the music files to AIFF first before putting it on the timeline or import directly from the CD.

If your project is really complicated, with a million cuts, and transitions and effects and music, you might consider exporting a full quality Quicktime file and reimport the file into a new project. It should play fine from there.

Tell us about your system configuration. What kind of Apple G4? I generally run iMovie as the ONLY application, so as much system resources is dedicated to it.

Thanks, I have a desk top G4, lots of memory & replaced both HD's - I store video on an external 250GB Lacie HD, I store music on a seperate identical HD - all wired up with Fire wire thru a Fire Wire hub I installed on the machine. I just ran DiskWarrior & rebooted with OSX Tiger cd & ran disk utilities - I am using the most up to date software for all of this - Before starting this project, I got a lot of advice & others are using this machine to do the same thing, so I beefed up this machine instead of going for a G5. I think I covered all your concerns before starting these projects.

I also have Final Cut express, but the iMovie is so easy to use. Especially with the iLife 06 intergration.

How is the camera connected, through a HD or direct to computer? Most cameras are S100 in speed, even though FW is capable of S400 (400 Mb per second).

great question - here's the deal - I store video on an external Lacie 250GB HD. the software is on the machine. I have a little Fire Wire port on installed on the machine.

I send a fire wire out to the camera, & then to the TV. So I'm only using the camera as an I/O, as a thru box. so I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that the camera speed setting has nothing to do with this particular issue.

Also, the video on the computer screen becomes choppy as well. even after I've unplugged it from the camera / tv. & even after I restart the computer. Everything was fine, & running smoothly until I patched it out to the tv.

great question - here's the deal - I store video on an external Lacie 250GB HD. the software is on the machine. I have a little Fire Wire port on installed on the machine.


Here's a wild guess:

The firewire bus is pretty fast, [and you have installed another firewire card? and firewire hub?]---but it can be *tricky*, especially if you have a Mac with slower system bus speed and the extra peripherals.

You are essentially reading from the external firewire HD, through the firewire port, and then outputing it via firewire to your camera.

Try having the project, if it can fit, on your internal drive and try it again, playing it to your TV.

First, what type of system are you running this on? Processor speed, and very important...amount of RAM?

What OS are you running...Jaguar, Panther, Tiger....Tiger added Core Image

The size of the project or length of clips you are experiencing this problem with? Does this just happen with the video in the timeline or does it also affect shorter clips residing on the shelf?

Repair permissions....regularly. You will find Disk Utility in the Utilities

You can store your iMovie project folder to an external drive connected via firewire.

If I can think of anything more I will post....but I hope this helps a litte. Good luck.
-Jon

Thanks Jon, I feel like I'm getting redundant answering the same questions, but hey, whatever it takes to help each other out.

- G4 Quicksilver 733 MHz PPC
- 1.12 GB SDRAM
- 2 external 250GB Lacie HD
- iLife '06 & Tiger for the most up to date software available.
- size of clips, varies, I was having trouble at 15 mins & again at 38 mins worth of edited footage. These aren't big movies. one video & 2 audio tracks.
- HERE IS THE STRANGE THING, it works great & smooth untill I wanted to view it on a bigger tv screen. hence the patch through my camera. Then it is choppy both on the tv screen & on the computer screen. Even after I unplug the camera, restart the computer, etc, the footage is now choppy on the computer screen, with out the patch .... that's what's blowing my mind. If I hadn't patched it through, it would be fine. but now it won't go back to being smooth.
- plenty of memory & space, I store video & music on separate external hard drives.
-Yes, it now affects short clips & even when I turn off the audio tracks, it is still choppy. I just checked the shelf questioned. READY ... the shelved clips are not effected. In fact I just moved a clip from the time line, back to the shelf, & it was good while on the shelf, but when I replaced it to the timeline, it was choppy again.
- I just ran Disk Warrior & disk utility from the cd, so that's not it.

I think I covered all your concerns, but I think the only one that popped out was the clips on the shelf thing. Does that help?

Thanks

In addition to what the other have mentioned:

You say use iTunes for music. It is a big no-no to use straight compressed MP3 music files in iMovie from iTunes.[Even though Apple advertises it as tight integration]--sometimes you need to convert the music files to AIFF first before putting it on the timeline or import directly from the CD.

If your project is really complicated, with a million cuts, and transitions and effects and music, you might consider exporting a full quality Quicktime file and reimport the file into a new project. It should play fine from there.


Thanks John,

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that my iTunes are NOT mp3 files, only because I import with AAC encoder on. And for the most part, they were imported from my stacks of cd's.

But maybe you are on to something. Normally I compose music for my videos & import from iTunes or Garage Band. but in this case, I'm doing a private project that's won't be for sale, so I am using other music.

Also, although I have one video track, & 2 audio tracks, there are a lot of cuts & edits & volume changes.

I too run the iMovie alone. & I've noted lots of my specs in this thread. If you need another piece of info, let me know.

I like that quicktime idea, but do I need to purchase quicktime pro for that?

Thanks again

Here's a workflow I used to do in iMovie, once my project got really complicated--with hundreds of cuts, transitions, dissolves etc.

I would output "sequences" -- that is, once I finished a ten minute segment, I will export a full quality,rendered Quicktime/DV Stream file of that sequence only.

I then delete that sequence from my iMovie project and then reimport the exported clip. Now that multiple clip sequence appears in iMovie as just one clip. It makes a WORLD of difference.

As fast as a 733mhz G4 is, iMovie 5 on 800mhz eMac runs okay[and heck of a lot better than that P.O.S. iMovie 3]

I'm not sure if you need Quicktime pro to "share" movies/export movies from iMovie.

But "playing thru to camera" might just be where you problem is--your firewire bus is just bogged down reading from the external HD and then outputting to your camera.

Here's a wild guess:
Try having the project, if it can fit, on your internal drive and try it again, playing it to your TV.

John, Thanks for sharing your experience. I am a pro-musician for 20+ years, & I can run anybodies audio recording studio. I'm the guy people call to hook up there new home entertainment / stereo system. But this video is something else.

SO ... I put a copy of the video file onto the desk top. 22.37 GB - Opened it directly from there ... & the iMovie software is internal as well. But the same thing happens. AAAUUUGGGHHHH!!! I'm so frustrated.

The entire video is wacked. The 2 audio tracks are just fine.

Here's another bit of detail. So I downloaded all the clips from the camera into one iMovie file. I started editing & finished about 15 minuets & it looked great on the machine. It wasn't until AFTER I hooked up the camera, again ONLY as an adapter between the computer & the tv, that the video got choppy. THEN, on day 2 I did about about another 15 mins of time line & AGAIN, it looked great on the computer screen, but only AFTER I hooked up the camera again, this 2nd 1/2 of the footage became gittery.

This is so backwards in my mind. It's like water that has already come through the dam is creating havoc back in the dam.

I just noticed you replyied, I'll check it out ... THANKS!!!

Here's a workflow I used to do in iMovie, once my project got really complicated--with hundreds of cuts, transitions, dissolves etc.

I would output "sequences" -- that is, once I finished a ten minute segment, I will export a full quality,rendered Quicktime/DV Stream file of that sequence only.

I then delete that sequence from my iMovie project and then reimport the exported clip. Now that multiple clip sequence appears in iMovie as just one clip. It makes a WORLD of difference.

As fast as a 733mhz G4 is, iMovie 5 on 800mhz eMac runs okay[and heck of a lot better than that P.O.S. iMovie 3]

I'm not sure if you need Quicktime pro to "share" movies/export movies from iMovie.

But "playing thru to camera" might just be where you problem is--your firewire bus is just bogged down reading from the external HD and then outputting to your camera.

Your Awesome. I was trying to find a way to "save" what was done already, I was actually going to split it up over 15 min segments. but I wanted the whole time line. That's exactly what I was looking for.

BUT, I still don't understand how all this is affecting my file AFTER I try to patch it out to an external monitor; ie, TV. If the file works smoothly before the line out feed, why does it change as soon as I hook up the fire wire. Is there a feed back happening? Is this the bogged down fire wire bus you are referring to? If it's a slow bus, why is it permanently affecting the file? Isn't that like the speakers of a stereo affecting the cd that's playing?

Again, it's most likely my inexperience so I appreciate your experience sharing.

Try also this:

After you copied the file to your internal drive. Disconnect the hub and every other firewire device such as your external hard drives except for the camera.

See how that works.

Okay, it appears that you are running an adequate system with plenty of RAM, and I am bummed that nothing has worked thus far - Since it is compounded by adding output to tv via cam - I am suspecting that your video card is a key culprit - being additionally strained by the requisite muscle needed for Tiger's Core Image processing.

The first thing I would do is to export your entire timeline as a Full Quality DV file....and then re-import that file into a NEW iMovie project - NOT THE OLD ONE.....With iMovie 5 and above they introduced non-destructive editing common in FCE and FCP. With iMovie, now when you toss stuff into the trash and empty it...it is really still there and your project size can bloat quickly. This is especially problematic if it continues to retain clips that have proven problematic, buggy or overly complicated. If your timeline contains numerous cuts, effects, and transitions, all of that is further straining the video RAM - so don't reimport into the same project that is still trying to hold onto all that extra data.

Now onto other stuff - since it is very likely none of the above paragraph is going to help (???)

The fact that you are using a firewire hub - and the fact that it is only affecting the timeline and not the shelf are potentially illuminating....

Here are a few more suggestions:

First the hub....I tried a firewire hub once and didn't have good results - I think the firewire port from my Powerbook was just strained - so I ended up daisychaining my firewire devices...no problem.

Now the timeline:

First; make sure you are running the most recent update for iMovie '06

After you reboot, make sure you have NOT activated DASHBOARD - once it is activated, it continues to suck up resources - if there is a screwy widget it could be eating up all your cycles. Try the project again - any difference.

While running your project, open Activity Monitor and check out the stats - anything out of whack? rectify.

Regarding your mp3 audio.....One thing to double check it to make sure that your audio clips are matching - in bit rate and Khz. Don't use 12-bit - It doesn't work so well with the newer iMovies. Be sure your audio is all 16 bit - 44.1 Khz - although 48 Khz is preferable for dv.

Are you running any third party plug-ins for iMovie, such as those from GeeThree? Some of these are likely not yet upgraded for iMovie '06 and would only be affecting the timeline.

Finally, I must note the following: I have not yet used iMovie '06, but in Jobs keynote, he demonstrated it's use of Themes....as well as a mention that it features better live rendering for effects and such....this may be the source of bugginess - or certainly an indication of great strain on the video card.

If none of this stuff helps at all, Try the following.

Quit iMovie
Go to your project folder and control click to get the option to "show package contents".

You will find a folder in there called Cache. Open it and play back the 'timeline.mov' file in Quicktime. Does it playback properly? If so, then the problem appears to be that the system is overworked when playing the video through the iMovie interface (although I cannot promise this) . Maybe the full quality export and reimport is the key.....just make sure you reimport it into a fresh project file.

Again, good luck.
-Jon

An added note based on a discussion on a local forum I just checked out....And it is the last thing I would have suspected as it goes against some of my advice from earlier posts, but someone else locally was having the same problem with iLife '06 on a 400 Mhz Mac. The project was on an external drive. The advice from another member stated that she had heard that iLife '06 has a bug that causes it to play poorly with external drives. The user in question moved the project over to his internal drive and performance was flawless.....go figure.
-Jon

OK ... I've been on tour for a few days, My day job as a concert pianist, in order to afford a all this gear) so I haven't been back to the boards here for awhile.

I finished the project!!!! The movie was 65 minuets.

With all your insight & advice, I tried a variety of techniques that helped get the project done on time:

1) I saved the program in iMovie after a few edits. this helped tremendously in the editing phase.

2) After a number of edits, the program just couldn't keep up. the video portion to be exact, & since this was a musically intense edit, I needed to view the video in real time, without the stalling & jitters, so ...

I saved to a high quality Quicktime file & re-imported. After this maneuver it looked great.

BUT ... you really need insight as to where you are going with the project. For instance, if you edited music, you couldn't go back & re-edit the audio tracks, because after the quicktime transfer, it was part of the audio track, which, for me, in this project, involved a musical soundtrack, a number of audio effects, & the actually audio from the filming.

So ... in summing up, save often & download edited portions to high quality quick time video and re-load back into iMovie.

Thanks again for sharing your experience. Time to go on to my 2nd movie. yeah !!!!!!

Jesse

Glad to hear that you found some workarounds and got the job done. However it sounds like you're bumping into the limits of iMovie on the type of projects you're doing. You might consider upgrading to Final Cut Express or Final Cut Studio so that you have room to grow and are using software that fits your style a little better.

Has anyone noticed that when you share a quicktime using DV NTSC Photo montage in iMovie it is considerably better quality DV NTSC in FCP? I am using both scanned images at 400dpi and 3MP camera jpegs. I created a quicktime movies in iMovie and using the same pictures I did one in FCP and made a side by side comparison, iMovie had better sharper photos. Am I doing something obviously wrong or is this normal?

Thanks in advance
Dave Askey

I actually purchased Final Cut Express a few years ago when I wanted to start getting into this video world, BUT ... I was unsuccessful because I had/have an older Quick Silver G4 without the super drive, not enough memory, VERY expensive DV cameras etc. etc. etc.

So the whole idea got shelved for about 4 years & I continued with an audio recording studio. believe it or not, I've used Garage Band for a number of professional sound track projects which are still being used on commercial cd's & dvd's and the like.

But now with lots of extra memory, 2 external drives, the invention of fire wire, a compatible external DVD burner, a $1,000 DV camera & other technology that has come along since then, including iMovie & iDVD, I've been using the iLife programs with great ease.

I do understand what you are saying, & appreciate the advice because it gives me hope that with a different program, like Final Cut, I'll get to do what I am imagining without all the aggrivation.

I agree that these issues are simply from pushing the boundaries of iMovie.

I just asummed that iMovie would be as usefull as Garage Band has been to my business, but I'm learning quickly that video is VERY different from Audio.

I'm looking forward to my new business venture.

Thanks for the help.

Has anyone noticed that when you share a quicktime using DV NTSC Photo montage in iMovie it is considerably better quality DV NTSC in FCP? I am using both scanned images at 400dpi and 3MP camera jpegs. I created a quicktime movies in iMovie and using the same pictures I did one in FCP and made a side by side comparison, iMovie had better sharper photos. Am I doing something obviously wrong or is this normal?

Thanks in advance
Dave Askey


can anyone address this?

quick question...
I was using iMovie HD (2006) and wanted to use the iLink downconvert feature on the HC1 to make an SD video from my HD footage. I set up the downconvert in the camera's menu, then plugged it in to the firewire port. The problem I am having is that iMovie continues to detect the camera as HD and sets the video up for 1080i-30. And if I manually change the setting to DV widescreen, it says the camera is incompatible with my project. Any suggestions?