Running iLife apps in Rosetta?

September 18, 2006 1:08 PM

Is running iMovie in Rosetta mode so I can run some effects plugins going to cause me trouble?

I recently installed some iMovie plugins from Cf/x that required that I have iMovie HD run in Rosetta mode. Now the video seems choppy and the audio is out of synch with the video when I preview the film. It previews perfectly when I don't run it in rosetta - but then of course, I can't use the effects.

Why is this sync problem happening? Is this going to hurt the final production quality of any DVD's I produce using the Cf/x plugins?

posted by burhan to Media & Arts (1 answer total)

Best answer: Running in Rosetta mode means that the program will run more slowly than in native mode. This is because the system is having to translate every line of code, rather than just running it natively on the CPU.

This will affect realtime previews, but it shouldn't affect the final rendered quality.

When you do realtime previews, iMovie is trying to stay in sync with real time. So if it can only calculate 10 frames every second, then it only displays 10 frames, instead of the usual 24/25/30. This is why the preview seems choppy.

But when you're rendering out a final version, iMovie doesn't have to do the calculations in real time. It can just take as long as it likes to do each frame. So running in Rosetta won't actually affect the calculations that go into rendering each final frame, apart from that it'll take a while longer overall to do the render.
posted by chrismear at 1:27 PM on September 18, 2006 [1 favorite]