Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with imovie

Have I destroyed my masterpiece?

Andy Harwood — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:13:54 -0800

I just made an awesome 20 minute iMovie, then accidentally unplugged my mac while it was exporting. Now it seems to have dissapeared. It doesn't show up when i open iMovie and all i can find with my finder is a completely blank file with the name of the project. Will I have to spend another 30 minutes editing it together or can I retrieve it somehow?

Is there a free .3g2 converter out there?

biochemist — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:45:58 -0800

Is there a free .3g2 converter for the mac out there? I'm trying to edit a video from my phone with iMovie, but it's in .3g2 which iMovie doesn't recognize. I've done some searching but everything costs $.

Is there a free one out there? Google only led me to ffmpeg and VLC, both of which didn't recognize the format.

I need to transcribe some stuff, get some audio from A to B

booknerd — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:00:25 -0800

My library is doing oral histories with a Canon HD video camera, then migrating them into iMovie to eventually edit and burn to DVDs to store. I've been tasked with the tech-side of this, a job I'm woefully unqualified for. I need help converting iMovie files into some sort of audio format to transcribe them! Right now, the priority is to transcribe the audio from the iMovie files to print out and bind into books. I found this free software that looks perfect, and bought a USB transcribing foot pedal. Since I'm doing this on a new MacBook, I downloaded the OSX version of the software, although I suppose if I have to I can run the Windows version in Parallels. The audio formats I can use are wav, mp3, aiff and dct files. What's the best way to do this? I can export from iMovie to a 3gp Quicktime video, but as far as I can tell, there's no way to export the audio to any of those formats from either iMovie or Quicktime. Please help, so I can spend the next several months of my job listening to kooky zoo stories!

How can I stop iMovie from stretching out my iPhone videos?

chinese_fashion — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:59:23 -0800

How can I stop iMovie from stretching out my iPhone videos? I just got the new iPhone 3gs, specifically for the video function. And the vids look great, with this one exception: when I import into iMovie for a little editing, iMovie automatically rescales the video to fit the window, making everyone look all squat and wide and effing up the playback speed.

How can stop this from happening? I'd be fine with the requisite black bars on either side of the thing, just to keep the aspect ratio right.

I'm a pretty low-knowledge noob to video editing in general, iMovie's as far as my skills go. If anyone can suggest another (hopefully) free program or workaround, please please do.

Thanks!

Can I overlay CSV data onto a video?

tirade — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:43:05 -0800

I have a CSV file relating a measurement value with elapsed time. I'd like to overlay the changing measurement value over a video, using the time values in the CSV to sync the two. I have a MacBook, iMovie, and not much else. Is there a reasonably cheap or free way to do this?

Trying to import big file into iMovie

Idiot Mittens — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:05:45 -0800

iMovie Question: I have a two-hour .avi movie file that I imported (File>Import>Movies), but for some reason it's only importing 19 minutes of it. I have the iLife 09 version of it. What am I doing wrong?

How to reduce the filesize of iMovie exports.

Glum — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:51:57 -0800

What bit rate should I store (for general viewing) my iMovie videos at? I shoot home movies on a Flip Mino HD. I'm no Copolla (as the hardware would suggest) but I enjoy editing my movies together on iMovie, watching them back on my Mac and sharing with friends on YouTube.

The Flip Mino HD is 1280x720 so I export using the Share -> Export using QuickTime option in iMovie. I have been using H.264, with the resolution and frame set to match the source material. Importantly I left the Data Rate set to Automatic and the Compressor Quality set to best.

The results are good, but big. A less than 4 minute clip is resulting in a 681MB MOV file. Now I crunched it down in Handbrake so that I could upload it to YouTube more easily. I set it to restrict the file size to about 10% of the original size (70MB) which equates to a bit rate of something like 2380kbps. I would say there is very little difference in quality between this MP4 file and the original MOV.

I'm happy to save the massive MOVs to DVD or somewhere for archiving, but is there a rule I can use to determine what data rate to export at for general viewing?

Help me offload my movies offshore to DVDs

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:23:22 -0800

Hi everyone. I have a some of movie files that I'd like to transder to DVD. However... I have a DVD burner on my computer, however, my MacBook Pro (OS 10.5) will not give me the option of burning the file directly onto the blank DVD. When I try to do so, all it does is make a shortcut to the movie rather than to the movie itself.

The only other option it gives me when I insert the DVD is to create a movie through iMovie, which won't let me transfer the file either.

Why yes, these are downloaded BitTorrent files. Are there fundamental barriers to burning them coded into the files? Is my only option to transfer them to an external hard drive?

I've found some answers on burning DVDs on a Mac generally, but not with these specifics. Will Mac the Ripper (currently unavailable online) or Handbrake solve my problem?

Thanks for your help!

Help iMovie import my files!

wsquared — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:35:48 -0800

iMovie help! I've converted a VHS tape to digital format using EyeTV Plus on my iMac. I've followed the steps to convert the file to iMovie using the EyeTV program. This creates a iMovie project file and 22 5-minute clips in a .dv format. Problems arise when I open iMovie to start editing. When I open the iMovie project file, it says "Found 11 stray files that don't belong in the Project folder. Okay to move them to trash?" I clicked on leave them where they are. And then it loads the other 11 files to iMovie. These are just the odd-numbered files for some reason.

So, in the Media folder I still have the 22 files. The odd-numbered clips have an iMovie icon and the even-numbered clips have a Quicktime icon. They are all still .dv files. I can view all of the files in Quicktime and put them all into iDVD, but I cannot load the even-numbered clips into iMovie (they are ghosted when I try to import files into iMovie).

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to do something to the files to make them load in iMovie? Could it be a problem happening earlier in the encoding process? Is there another free or cheap movie editing program I can use? I just need to clip the some of the files, not really looking to add effects or transitions or anything, and burn to a DVD.

This is on a Mac 10.4 with iMovie 2.1.2.

Make my home movies look less like bad kung fu

escabeche — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:34:51 -0800

Why is iDVD ruining the audio of my home movies? I stitched together about 150 short movie clips from my digital camera into a 50-minute movie on iMovie HD (6.03). On iDVD (6.0.4) I dragged the movie onto the iDVD project panel. Everything looked great. I burned the iDVD project onto a DVD. In fact, I did it four times, because I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to do this that I wanted to send one to everybody in the family.

But when I played the DVD, something very strange happened. The audio lagged the video -- very slightly, enough to notice but not to be a big problem. Then, at about the ten-minute mark, the audio drops out for about thirty seconds. When it returns, it's the audio that goes with the video of minute nineteen. Obviously, at this point, the rest (with video nine minutes behind audio) is unwatchable. All four burned DVDs have the same problem, in the same place. When I watch the movie in iMovie, it's fine. When I watch it in iDVD Preview, it's _almost_ fine -- one thing I note is that the sound cuts out at the same place around the 10-minute mark. But if I pause the preview, then start it again, the sound comes back, and the de-syncing never occurs.

Searching for problems with iDVD audio/video desync yields lots of complaining about iDVD 08, which I don't have, and very slow drift of audio away from video, which isn't my problem. But what is my problem? I'm stumped -- and I'd really like to get this movie off my laptop and to my relatives.

Can I import audio from YouTube clip into iMovie?

HotToddy — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:11:05 -0800

YouTube/iMovie: Is it possible to somehow take the audio from a clip found on YouTube and import it into iMovie? I don't want the video, just the audio. I'm not concerned with legality, as I'm just making a little movie that probably only five people will ever see. There is a YouTube clip of a live concert that I want to use as my soundtrack. I can't find a live version of the song on iTunes, so I'm hoping there is a way to take it from the YouTube clip. Obviously I'm not very sophisticated in these matters, so please speak slowly. Thank you!

Vanishing iMovie Audio

rosken — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:47:43 -0800

My video project is due in 2 days, and out of nowhere, a bunch of my audio files in iMovie have become corrupt (I think). Is there any way to fix this, short of re-recording them? I've been making a video collage of clips of Obama, McCain and Palin for a group project. Just now when I opened iMovie, though, lots of the dubbed voice clips (but not all) that worked yesterday seem to have gone quiet. The clips in question no longer show the standard audio output graph image, but instead have text saying "Voice 44" etc. I can't undo any changes in the project, and my only backup isn't useful as it was made before lots of the clips in question were recorded. Should I risk a restart? Is this hopeless?

I am using one of the old white macbooks with OSX 10.5.5 and iMovie HD 6.0.3

Efficient video editing workflow starting from a DVD.

jedicus — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:46:46 -0800

How can my video editing workflow be more efficient and avoid time-consuming conversion between formats? Part of my job involves taking videos of presentations and uploading them to our project website. My current workflow (on a unibody MacBook) looks something like this:

1. Rip DVD to mpeg-4 using HandBrake. This typically takes twice realtime.
2. Import mpeg-4 into iMovie '08. This typically takes 9-10x realtime.
3. Perform minor edits, almost always just removing silence or presentations that are not ours.
4. Export to mpeg-4. This typically takes 11-12x realtime.
5. Convert to FLV using ffmpegx. This also takes a pretty long time.

The presentations are usually about an hour long, which makes this process take about a full day. Clearly the conversion times are killing me. What techniques or different programs do I need to make this workflow go faster? Note that I have no choice but to start with a DVD video and end with FLV, but the intermediate steps are open to change.

Import VOB into iMovie

jjsonp — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:44:59 -0800

Wife's new Macbook: import VOB into iMovie? My wife has a burned DVD of an hour-long talk she gave...it contains one big VOB file, a couple of smaller VOBs, and some other files.

She wants to import the VOB into iMovie and selectively cut out about 5 minutes worth of video and paste the pieces together.

In googling it doesn't seem quite as straightforward as we we'd hoped, so if anyone can point toward a clear description of how to achieve this (or explain it) I'd certainly appreciate it.

Neither of us has any experience with Macs, but we had the impression that this would be much simpler to achieve than it is on Windows (she was using Movie Maker and rather than pay $550 for Sony Vegas and try to run it on her old Dell she thought buying a new Macbook would be more fun).

How to create movies to be played like youtube

thebwit — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:26:20 -0800

How to create your own flash video player with videos? More specifically the videos I am making are longer than 10 minutes and I can't post them to youtube so now I am stuck trying to figure out how to make my own video player similar to youtube, college humor or break.

I am on a mac, and I am making the movies in iMovie.

Thanks for help

How can I copy one project into another in iMovie 08?

photomusic86 — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:23:25 -0800

How can I copy one project into another in iMovie 08? I have two separate projects in iMovie 08, and I want to add one to the end of the other. Copy and paste doesn't include audio tracks or titles, which is the primary problem, and I can't just drag one into the other, like you can with events.

Connect Canon HG10 video to Mac os X

willep — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:02:20 -0800

Mac osx/canon hg10 cannot get stills off camera. Video yes, stills no. We're supposed to have a baby any day now and this sucker ain't behaving (the camera-mac connection). I haven't had this kind of problem with a mac in 10 years. I can get iMovie to find my Canon HG10 thru USB cable but not Final Cut Pro of iPhoto or Image Capture. That would be fine except that iMovie does not download images from still mode.

I have everything Canon has for download, I have iPhoto, etc. I have another Canon still camera that works fine in all programs.

I saw this thread was closed.

I've looked: no one else seems to have this problem and Canon isn't aware of it... thank you.

Need help with an old-ish iMac and iMovie

Nick Verstayne — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:58:34 -0800

Help me with my outdated iMac and editing HD digital video - it doesn't recognize HD, so what do I need to do? I'm using an early "dome" iMac (you know, the one with the roundy bottom). It runs OS X 10.2.8 and has the 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor. The thing was probably obsolete a few months after I bought it, but that's never been a concern before now. Recently, however, I purchased a camcorder that records in HD. The iMac doesn't recognize the HD. It recognizes video shot in "normal" digital tape, just not the HD ones.

I know I probably have to upgrade the OS, and possibly iMovie too - I'm running iMovie 3.0.3

Any help greatly appreciated.

make my pixels look good!

garethspor — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:56:39 -0800

I'm burning video to be played on a standalone LCD HDTV/DVD player. The video seems to be recorded at 720x480 pixel resolution at 24fps. what resolution should I set it to to look best on my 720p HDTV? So yeah, I'm editing the movie in IMovie, possibly exporting to quicktime, doing a bit of home-brewed editing tricks to the individual frames of the movie then importing it as a quicktime movie to iDVD to burn it. I have been having all sorts of difficulty making the video look good on the TV, i.e. no too interpolated, distorted, jumpy, etc.

The Tv in question is a Polaroid 15.4" LCD HDTV, here:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=175907&WT.mc_n=92&WT.mc_t=U&cm_ven=COMPARISON%20SHOPPING&cm_cat=NEXTAG&cm_pla=DATAFEED-%3EPRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=92

previously I had some luck manually resizing the video to 640x400 resolution but that seems kinda low. Any help? Sorry if I'm not explaining this as well as I could. Fell free to ask me follow up questions.

also, I asked this before:
http://ask.metafilter.com/24130/What-resolution-and-framerate-to-use
but it was in reference to normal TVs not this new-fangled lat screen hdtv i got recently

iMovie glitch - why won't the video play?

marylynn — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:28:25 -0800

I am trying to make a short video clip using iMovie '08. When I play it, it looks great. When I export it, it acts completely differently. The intended result contains an opening still photo, with a title overlay, then a 37s movie clip which has some titles overlaid at various points and then another still photo at the end with another title overlay. There is a music track over the whole video.

I thought I had it just liked I wanted it. When I play it within iMovie (clicking the spacebar or using the play buttons - in window and full screen) it looks like I expect and want. However, when I export the movie it doesn't. And the same thing problem is evident when I position the red line at the start of the movie and use my right arrow to advance through the frames:

The photo at the beginning persists throughout the movie with all the various title overlays on top of it. It is just like the video clip wasn't there and the initial photo was set to display through the whole length of the video instead of the 2s it is set for. Or as if the photo was "on top of" the video clip. When I change the display to show it in 1/2s frames it all looks exactly as I'd expect. When I am moving the red line using my arrow when it gets over the video clip the clip moves as it should but it doesn't play in the main display window.

I have tried to delete the opening photo, but then the end photo acts in the same way. Short of deleting the whole thing and starting over I'm at a loss. I've tried Googling, but I don't really know good terms to describe it. I am reading through the Apple support forums but thought I'd post this at the same time since the first 8 pages haven't turned anything up.

This is my first iMovie and until now it has been pretty easy to figure out. If it helps to motivate you to answer the video is of my cat. And he's wearing a sweater.

All together now

rtha — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:22:49 -0800

How can I stitch some video files together? I have some video files (both .flv and mpeg4 formats) that I'd like to stitch together - that is, stitch the .flv files to other .flv files, or mpeg4 to mpeg4. If they need to be converted to something else, please advise.

The files are 25-50 MB in size, and all have sound.

I'm running a 1GHz powerPC powerbook G4, 10.4.11. I have iMovie and VLC. I'd like to be able to do this with what I've got; if I have to acquire something else, I'd like it to be free (though that's not a dealbreaker), and it would be great if it's something you've personally used. I'll probably need some hand-holding.

iMovie editing question

donovan — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:30:23 -0800

iMovie help! Crunch project and I did RTFM but am confused . . . I recorded a 4min video clip of me talking with iSight and I've extracted the audio track. I've added about 12 images to the movie project but can't for the life of me figure out how to insert the photos so there's the video of me then a photo then the video of me talking and then another photo, etc.

Think Ze Frank-style.

I'm sure I'm just missing something obvious and would be ever so grateful for some help. I have to run to a meeting but will be back in a couple hours to dig into this project again.

HD Camcorder importing problems on a Mac

burhan — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:36:59 -0800

I just bought a Canon HV-10 HD camcorder, but importing it into my new iMac is painfully slow. Is it the camcorder, or the computer, or iMovie? I've used my old Canon ZR-65 for years, and have been importing movies via firewire without problem. I just picked up a Canon HV-10 HD camcorder. When I import into iMovie, I notice that the import is not real time - that is, it begins importing at realtime speed, but within a minute is capturing at 1/8 speed. This continues on and on, until imovie crashes (about 30 min. into it).

I can relaunch iMovie, the movie is there, and there are some sections where thumbnails have not been generated.

I've tried reading up on this, but have not found anything solid other than "The HV-10 is a bad HD deck", and "I get broken timecodes with the HV-10".

Could it be iMovie 08? My iMac has 2GB or Ram, and is less than a year old, but could it be that?

When I go to "About this mac" and look at the firewire, it shows the camera connected at 100Mbs (on a 400Mbps port?) -> shouldn't it be showing 400? Canon has no support articles on this.

I have another week or so before I have to return the camera -> thoughts?

Why is iMovie running slow on my high-end iMac?

zardoz — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:16:53 -0800

I'm the proud owner of a new Intel iMac, a 2.4 Ghz with 2 gigs of RAM, and I'm having a dickens of a time trying to edit my 26 minute wedding video in iMovie '08--namely it's as slow as the molasses in January. I'm not making a feature film here...what gives? What I want to do is cut out some extraneous footage, change some of the soundtrack songs, and add some wedding photos.

I ripped the wedding DVD onto my harddrive with Handbrake, and have ripped a few different sizes: one's about 300 megabites and the other I made about 100 megabites, mp4 format. I import that into iMovie, which is a very long process, about 30 minutes or so for it to "make thumbnails" of the video, and it doesn't seem to matter what size it is. I also made a .mov file, which was very large, about 1 gig, but actually imported quickly. But with all sizes and formats, the video seems to be too long for iMovie to deal with.

Once it's in iMovie, the software is more or less unworkable; the thumbnails never actually show up, I suppose because for 26 minutes worth it's a lot of thumbnails. But ultimately I just can't do anything--any button I click or action I do brings up the color spinny thing for 10 seconds.

What's the deal? What am I doing wrong? I've got Final Cut Pro installed as well but haven't played around with it much, as it's mostly baffling. I figure iMovie is the way to go for a relative amateur at this, but...2 Gigs of RAM should be enough to tackle 26 minutes of footage, but I guess not.

USB High Definiton Webcam: How to record?

bryanjbusch — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:00:34 -0800

How do I record high definition (HD) video at at least 24 fps using a webcam? I bought (and then returned) a QuickCam Fusion webcam, which was designed to enable video conferencing at up to 960x720.

It transmits over USB, and works well in iChat (Mac OS X), and with the included software I tested on a separate Windows computer. But iMovie doesn't recognize it, I suspect because it's not Firewire.

Recording through QuickTime resulted in a video playing at only 7.5 fps, and recording in iChat (using the 3rd party "ConferenceRecorder" app) gave me a resolution barely bigger than 640x480.

Recording in Windows also resulted in a video playing at about 7.5 fps.

Am I trying to cheat physics, here, or is there a way to record the video that plays live at 960x720 + 30fps?