I'm not using FCE HD (just FCE 2.0) but I think what you are looking for is under "Mark" then "DV Start/Stop Detect" You would capture the whole section of tape or the whole tape, then select it in the browser and then click "Mark" on the top pull down menu, then "DV Start/Stop Detect." This will place makers at each time you started recording on the tape. If you want to after that, you can make each an Independent Clip or Subclip from the "Modify" Menu.

Hope this helps...

Kevin

This is the way it works for "SD" footage (FCE 3.0) for "HD" then it works like iMovie -- creates a new clip file for each "scene"

thanks for the responses...

ok so i've captured the whole tape (SD 16:9 DVCAM from a DSR500) and after ive captured it ive selected "detect start stop" which places the small markers on the bottom at each scene break... but now how do i get FCE to make a split at each marker point, or turn them into individual clips?

you have to check your preferences in iMovie, not the camera. Go into preferences > import > uncheck the box that says "automatic pillarboxing and letterboxing"I had exactly the same problem as Dean. Now i figured the above out for myself, and reimported it all with the "Auto Letterboxing" switched off and the project set-up as "DV Widescreen" (DV cam, not HDV cam).

My question is : I have captured 16:9 footage from my DV camcorder to imovie, but it is displaying it in iMovie as squished 4:3. Will it OUTPUT it as 16:9 successfully? Or do i have to kick off the Letterboxing thing manually?

very grateful to an answer to this - it will save my hours of delay an frustration. It takes 2.2 times the original footage time to Letterbox it, and i dont see why it is letterboxing it at all as its 16:9 native footage and the project is "DV Widescreen".

Is it possible to open footage imported through final cut in Imovie?

Thanks in advance.

Can't see why you'd drive a pinto when you've got the keys to the cadillac, but to each his own. 3 words can solve your problem: Drag and Drop.

My thoughts exactly. I'm basically fighting the clock, don't have time to put Final cut on a laptop that I'm traveling with and need to finish a project on the road. Thanks for the reply!

Is it safe to uninstall iMovie if I am planning to use Final Cut Studio 2? Is there any reason to keep both?

What about iDVD? FC includes a DVD tool. Should I keep both?

I also use photoshop CS2 / Lightroom and I have tried to figure if I can uninstall iPhoto as I NEVER use it.

Hi Chris, and welcome to DVinfo. It's probably safe to do this, but personally I wouldn't bother. Given the size of hard drives today I don't think it's worth the trouble, and you never know when these programs might come in handy in the future.

I am working off of a MBP with a 120gig drive. With CS2 and some other stuff it fills up fast. I have all of my photos off on externals.

I am looking to conserve as much space as possible for when I am working in the field. If I no longer use the apps I like to remove them. I am new to the mac so I was unsure if other aps or the OS was dependent on the iMovie, Iphoto, IDVD or the like.

I took Iphoto off once and then found that Imovie used it to import photos. I reinstalled it. Later I found out that all you had to do was drag a photo from the picture folder to the timeline to import. So now I no longer use it.

Thanks for the info and the welcome.

I use iMovie now as an on set monitor for focusing and checking the overscan area on my XL1s. Nothing else though.

Hey, Stu

I saw just saw this post today so I'm assuming you have this solved by now? Before IMovie fires up it will display a window asking what type of footage you will be importing.
Are you possibly by-passing this without having the "widescreen DV" box checked?

Hi,

I started making a time-lapse of a sunrise in Imovie today. I just planed on piecing all the footage together and putting transitions on them to make them blend nicer, then highlight all the clips and use the speed-up tool in the effects.

Well, I did that, and it got me nowhere. All that happened was it made it go about 4 minutes faster (there is about 35 minutes of footage in real time)...

Could someone help with this please? I have to have this done by monday for the UWOL challenge here in DVinfo.

Thanks in advance! Any advice is appreciated!
~Gabriel

hi gabriel
I don't understand when you say it got me nowhere.
are you recording with the isight, you just have to select isight then choose capture a frame every... i usually use 1 every 30 sec press record.
after when you edit you can slow it or fast the sequence.
P.s the sequence is only visible after its been captured

Hi Martin.

There is one thing that I forgot to mention thats kind of important. It was recorded at 29.97 frames per a second on a miniDV tape using my Canon Elura 100.

Umm, I am not sure I understand? I imported the full 35 or so minutes of the footage and I am just editing it raw on Imovie. I used a firewire cable to import it straight in. Does this answer your question?

Thanks for the help!
~Gabriel

I always record time lapse with my macbook pro and I am not sure if you can do what you want but there is probably a way.
you should check the site istopmotion.com or this may help you http://www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/tips_tricks/6016.shtml

Gabriel,

For future timelapse shots, may I suggest DVTimelapse software. I take my camera and macbook out into the field and run a firewire between them and capture direct to Macbook in timelapse and onto DV tape (in the camera in real time - as a backup).

Bob

For your challenge footage, try using less number of shots and longer dissolves between the cuts. When one disolve finishes the next dissolve should start so that in the end the sequence will look like one continual dissolve

There are a couple of software solutions to capture your 35 minutes of tape as timelapse.

I like BTVPro, but it hasn't been updated since 2002. http://www.bensoftware.com/

iStopMotion is another, newer app from Boinx. http://www.istopmotion.com
It also has unattended timelapse.

In either case you can just hit play on your tape and start capture timelapse frames with the software. I like that BTV Pro has the option for "long-exposures." It simulates long exposures by combining frames. This way you can get those long "neon lights" when doing nighttime street shots.

you'll have to speed up the clip (i think it'll only allow 150%), export, reimport and repeat a couple of times until you have the desired clip length. iMovie is a consumer product for making home movies. You could get the free version of avid from their site and use that however.

Thanks everyone! I'll be sure to remember that next time...

you'll have to speed up the clip (i think it'll only allow 150%), export, reimport and repeat a couple of times until you have the desired clip length. iMovie is a consumer product for making home movies. You could get the free version of avid from their site and use that however.

Thanks Cole, that is what I was looking for. I was expecting thats what I would have to do... What would you recommend for export? Just hit the full quality?

Thanks again everyone!
~Gabriel

have to keep it full quality or you'll start to notice loss from it. I would recommend something other than iMovie for it...there are other free options.

Ok, great. Thanks for all the information! I very much appreciate it!

I'll get started on that right away.
~Gabriel

Although I do not have a Canon XH-A1 yet ( I am saving up the $6000 for the Australian price), I have been experimenting with a Sony single-chip HD camera. I have been switching between DV-cam on 16:9 and the High Definition format also on 16:9. When attempting to import into iMovie I have had to open up a new file a couple of times and then save the first couple of shots to it, and then iMovie seems to sort itself out and can then import in the correct format. I also found I had to turn off the letterboxing selection when shooting in DV-cam.

Once iMovie sorts out that it wants to import as a certain format, it sometimes took a few goes before I could get it to recognise the other format. If you shoot in one format only, I imagine there's not a problem.

After editing in iMovie you then click on "Share" and select "Quicktime", then "Expert Settings". Select "Export" to "Quicktime Movie". Click on the "Options" Button and under Video click on "Settings". Now you will get a whole list of options on what you wish your final video to be. You will need further advice on this depending upon where you wish to use your video. In Australia (PAL) I might select DV-Pro (Pal). At the selector box bottom select "16:9" and whatever quality setting you want, and off you go by clicking "OK". I hope this helps. Keith

I have a USB Mic, a Canon ZR700, and an iBook G3 (USB 1). In iMovie it records the video via FireWire...and the audio ONLY when I click the audio tab...but never both at the same time (BUT!...the last time I did this and it worked fine was when I had an iBook G4 which I just found out has USB 2).

Is this the reason or am I missing something? (It also doesn't presently work on my G4 Dual which is also USB 1....if I had a USB 2 Mac here to try it with I wouldn't be posting...)

When I try to convert a 2 minute movie to mediaplayer in imovie it limits the clip to 30 seconds. How can I stop this?

By purchasing the full version of Flip-4-Mac. You apparently have the trial version installed which has this limitation imposed.

-gb-

Kind of a funny question, but I just captured 3 hours of clips into an imovie project. The last clip is 427.dv.
I am searching my HD's and I can not find the raw dv clips anywhere. So my question is do the imovie project files contain all the dv clips? Why can I not find them on the hd??? The project file is 35gb's.
v

Yes, they are contained in the iMovie file as AIC clips. You can right-click the iMovie file to see the package contents. You will see a folder there which contains the individual clips.

P.

I must be a rookie because I can't right clik with my mac mouse.
I can drag the clips from the timeline onto the desktop or folder..but they import and copy to your choice of location.

Control-click with a one-button mouse will do the same thing as a right-click of a mighty mouse. So, just control-click the iMovie file.

Traditional Apple mice don't have right-click capability. But if you Control-click, you get the same result. (That means pressing your Control Key while clicking your mosue.)

If you have an Apple Mighty Mouse, then you do have a right-click option, but it may not be actviated by default. If you do have the Mighty Mouse, you can go into System Preferences and select the mouse preference options. You can then activate the the right click options for the Mighty Mouse.

There are alot of options for the Mighty Mouse. Basically, the whole mouse is one large surface, but if you activate the underlying button control options, clicking on the left side of the mouse gives you the standard left click, and likewise, clicking on the right gives you the right click option. You can also set control parameters for the little tiny scross ball to include scrolling options for up and down as well as side to side and even diagonal ramping in applications that support that. Finally, there are options for squeezing the side grips as well. It really is quite a capable mouse, but it takes a while to get used to it.

Hope this helps.

-Jon

Newbie question. I'm using some still photos in a video. Edited them in Photoshop CS3, saved as JPEG and then imported into iMovie. One of the shots is a human silhouette against a bright sky. I attached a fade-in to the image. On playback, as the image fades in there are little hair lines that briefly sweep across the image in the bright sky portion of the image (sort of following the outlines of the silhouette) as it is fading in. It is not just light gradually opening up on the image, there are these hairline artifacts that appear for a few seconds just as the image appears. Can someone let me know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks. Bob

Newbie question. I'm using some still photos in a video. Edited them in Photoshop CS3, saved as JPEG and then imported into iMovie. One of the shots is a human silhouette against a bright sky. I attached a fade-in to the image. On playback, as the image fades in there are little hair lines that briefly sweep across the image in the bright sky portion of the image (sort of following the outlines of the silhouette) as it is fading in. It is not just light gradually opening up on the image, there are these hairline artifacts that appear for a few seconds just as the image appears. Can someone let me know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks. Bob

Sounds like JPEG artifacts hidden in the highlights. As the image fades in, the image is dark enough for the first few seconds to see the artifacts. Try a less compressed image format.

The new iLife '08 suite of apps was released today including iMovie. Does anyone know if the new version supports 24P? [Edit: I just loaded it up and no, it doesn't support 24P -- as in: editing in a 24fps timeline. I actually feel foolish that I ever thought it might. I was dazzled by Mr. Jobs' mojo in his presentation earlier today and thought perhaps anything was possible!] :)

Other than the following info on format support, I don't see any mention of 24P on Apple's site, but a boy can dream...

"iMovie supports standard and high definition video, as well as the most popular formats, including DV, HDV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and even AVCHD."

http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

I use imove HD and capture with dvx100A. I have just recently started having a problem when I download clips for edditing. If I download a batch of of clips (no specific ammount or time frame) I get digital square blurs that show up and carry through to the final output. I can make them disapear sometimes if I rewind the tape and to a recapture of those clips but it meens I have to sit with my Mac and do the capture and fix in real time (I cannot walk away while the downlod happens so this can take hours) I thought this may be that I needed to defrag my HD so I purchased idefrag (didn't help) Anyway has anyone else had this problem and what have you done to fix it? Thanks for any and all help.

It sounds to me like you probably need to clean the heads on your cam. Try running a cleaning tape through it for 5 seconds or so.

-Jon

I thought that the dvx100a had self cleaning heads, so I was told

Just started to use IMovie 8 and wanted to edit a clip of my parrot flapping his wings. Am I missing something or is this feature not there?

Tnx.

We were putting together a 10 minutes clip of some racing and when I went to save the project file it saves then near the end of the save it says "building background movie" and it flashes an image in the lower left corner from the video clip the head or pointer is over. I tried moving the pointer to a different clip and it does the same thing. I reopened the project and still there??

I need to get rid of this, new background movie, any idea how it started???
thanks

I think this will apply here, since the questions really does focus around the editing/workflow process of a Mac applications.

My sister-in-law is a principle at an elementary school, and her students do a news-cast for what's happening at the school.

They're looking for an easy camera for her students to use, and they will probably be using iMovie. They currently use Windows Movie Maker, but I think the switch to iMovie makes more since.

Any advice for a consumer camera with an easy workflow in iMovie would be great! Thanks!

Any SD MiniDV camcorder will work with iMovie. Most HD tape camcorders will too. Look here (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306171) for a compatibility list.

I know most will *work*, but which one would be the easiest to use. Keep in mind these are elementary school kids! They're bright, but they're probably pretty new to all this stuff.

So the real question is: What camcorder (that works with iMovie) is the easiest to use? Unfortunatley I can't answer that. I've been out of the consumer point-and-shoot camcorders for a while.

Considering that all miniDV cameras sold today far surpass what was being made just 5 years ago, pick any model that fits your budget and enjoy. There won't be any clear winner among the bunch; they all shoot the same tape, same format and you'll have to capture the footage in the same manner no matter which brand or model it is.

The iMovie part of the question is irrelevant.

I think you're looking for a simple, point-and-shoot MiniDV camcorder that can withstand the abuses that elementary school kids will subject it to(!)

Can you go to a Best Buy or the like with a handful of the children and see how they hold the different models? It might help rule out certain styles.

I shoot with a Sanyo HD1, a flash card based camcorder, and with a Canon HV20, a tape based camcorder. I edit the footage from both camcorders in iMovie. I found working with a flash card camcorder a lot easier than working with a tape based camcorder. To import the clips from Canon HV20 into iMovie you need to run the tape and import the footage in real time (time consuming). Importing the footage from Sanyo HD1 to my computer is very simple and easy, all I need to do is connect via USB which shows the camcorder on the desktop as a USB drive and then drag and drop the clips into iMovie (the older version). The new version of iLife automatically imports the clips from Sanyo HD1 (mpeg4 clips) into iPhoto as mpeg4 movies which can then be transported to iMovie 08 (the new version). I think flash card based camcorders will be easier for elementary school children as the mpeg4 format clips are easy to work with.

John, good idea! Unfortunately, I'm in Arizona, and my sis-in-law is in Texas. So that might not work.

Pedanes, thank you. That has kind of been the thing I've been wondering. I'll look into that Sanyo HD1 camera.

Thank you all for your help, and if anybody still has input, I'll take it!

Just added a Sanyo Xacti HD700 to my kit as I wanted a pocket carry camera that did decent stills and HD video, liked the feature set of the HD1000 but it is a bit too big for my pocket.

Mine arrived Friday and I ran some tests on it yesterday. I love the looks and feel of the thing in my hand, plus it slips in my pocket and I'll always be ready for stills and HD video, very cool.

After playing with it a bit I slipped it in the dock and pressed the button (people seem to miss the button and post how it's not Mac compatible) and it showed up on my desktop as a drive. Opened it and saw the individual clips and stills I took. Dragged the clips to iMovie HD (6.0.3) and they opened just fine. Editing, etc., works as usual, and the tests clips looked darn nice, that made me happy and may spoil me for tape.

I am SO happy I can use this camera in iMovie HD as I'm not a fan of iMovie '08. I have FCP 5, too, but I use iMovie HD for some things as it's quick and easy. Will play with it in FCP later though.

Added a bendable tabletop (and post or tree limb or...) tripod to it. OfficeMax, of all places, has the Case Logic version of these things cheap, $25 for the bigger one and $10 for the little one (perfect for the HD700). That's half what the others (gorillapod) sell for.

Now to figure out how to use this camera and my yet unused .mac account for posting web galleries for personal videos and stills.

coincidence ... i just this minute was looking at the Exacti pages on the Sanyo website. was thinking it looked perfect for the wife (mostly because i just like the old school look of it myself!) i did note that there was no mention of mac support on the website so thanks for the compatibility report

coincidence ... i just this minute was looking at the Exacti pages on the Sanyo website. was thinking it looked perfect for the wife (mostly because i just like the old school look of it myself!) i did note that there was no mention of mac support on the website so thanks for the compatibility report

What's interesting is that Sanyo has several sites for their Xacti cameras, some sites are better than others. The following one on the HD700 (with links for the others) does state:

"Mac OS Compatible

Got a Mac? The new HD700 was designed to work with Apple’s full complement of video editing applications including the new iMovie 08. Easily edit your movies and add them to your website or YouTube for sharing or create versions for iPod, iPhone or the Apple TV. It’s Easy!"

http://www.sanyodigital.com/product.aspx?v=18

They also have tips page, that is on a totally different address, that shows how to do some things I didn't think this camera was capable of:

http://www.sanyo-dsc.com/english/products/vpc_hd700/tips/index.html

Here's the complete Sanyo Xacti line: http://www.sanyo-dsc.com/english/products/

After viewing a product clicking on "Let's shoot more movies" brings up the tip page for that camera.

The E1 and CA65 (not the CG65) are waterproof versions, but not HD.

Also, there's some user reviews and sample images and footage on Steve's Digicams forum:

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/forums/view_forum.php?id=27

Done most of my work previously on an Xacti/iMovie HD and it is the reason behind my +11 000 viewers on my You Tube cannel.

I always tell people that the best shots are done with the camera at hands and the small Sanyo devices are sure handy. By being able to slip it into the pocket and in an instant beginning shooting either film or pictures makes the best choice for the newbie in my book....

A quick tip; by a small Manfrotto table size tripod and you'll have more control of the camera due to its stabilizing effect when handheld and an excellent tripod for most indoor shots (table, chairs etc).

Quick tip II; get the clip-on wide angel lens adaptor for more dramatic shots.