Video cataloging and editing on a Mac

June 2, 2004 6:42 PM

I am looking for a way, on Mac OS X, to create libraries of digital video clips, and arrange them in various ways into movies which can be burned to DVD. I'm thinking iMovie+iDVD does everything I want, but I'm looking for something that can handle many (hundreds?) large, full resolution files. Anyone have experience with this kind of video cataloging and editing? Is iMovie enough, or do I need a high-end product? It will be used by a relative non-techie (not me).
posted by icetaco to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

"It will be used by a relative non-techie."

Then it's iDVD.

Willing to have that person learn? DVD SP would do it much more elegantly. But it ain't super simple.
posted by filmgeek at 5:14 AM on June 3, 2004

Also depends how much horsepower you have. Imovie gets pretty sluggish on my 12" ibook with 384 mb ram, whenever I start dragging in the big clips.
posted by mecran01 at 6:34 AM on June 3, 2004

Thanks to both. filmgeek, my non-techie comment was probably made without much thought: I think the user will be able to learn a better system (or hire someone who can). So thank you for the suggestion.

mecran01, a new Mac will be purchased to accommodate the project, so whatever is needed, they can get. I know that iPhoto slows a lot (especially upon opening and displaying the library) on my relatively fast system when there are too many photos in the library; does iMovie have the same problem?
posted by icetaco at 7:40 AM on June 3, 2004

I've had good luck with iView, it works great for sorting huge amounts of files.
posted by milovoo at 7:48 AM on June 3, 2004

mecran01, I don't know how large the files are you're dealing with, but may I suggest more RAM as a potential solution? I've actually noticed that iMovie on my 12" iBook with 640MBs of RAM is surprisingly responsive, even when dealing with larger media... (Hmm, is your iBook a G3 or G4? That would contribute in a major way to the differences in our iMovie experiences as well...)
posted by JollyWanker at 8:12 AM on June 3, 2004

If your goal is to catalog and archive the clips, then neither iDVD nor DVDSP will be what you want -- they create video DVDs for use in DVD players. Your video and audio would be reformatted into MPEG-2 and AC3 streams and stored in VOBs (video objects) on the DVD. You would not be able to retrieve your clips for editing without ripping them and doing format conversions.

Your best bet would be to store the clips in their native formats using DVDs as data disks. This would preclude the ability to view them on a set-top DVD player, but they could be viewed on a computer and would be readily available for future editing.

If you still want to go the iDVD route, note that iDVD only allows 1.5 hours of video per disk. DVDSP is more flexible, and the latest version provides an iDVD-like UI.
posted by joaquim at 10:40 AM on June 3, 2004