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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!!!

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.

a few more suggestions...
 

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

this just in....
 

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.

iMovie Displays Photos Better Than FCP
 

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.

can anyone address this?

Problems with iMovie HD
 

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?

It is a bit of a setup, and frustrating if you don't follow the "right" steps.

First, I try to make sure that the camera isn't on when plugging or unplugging it. I try not to have the video edit program running until the camcorder is plugged in and turned on. Be sure the camcorder is set to Play/Edit mode before starting the program, this seems to help.

Start the video software, make a new project and be sure to select the DV Widescreen in the new movie project screen, I think under the advanced button or options arrow.

You should now be able to capture in Widescreen DV format. Similar steps should work if you open an existing DV Widescreen project, just make sure the project is set that way.

if you are outputting to DVD using iDVD from iMovie, the software will automatically downconvert for SD-DVD delivery for you. so it doesn't matter on the front end how you edit the footage, format-wise, unless you plan a delivery other than SD-DVD and need to reconfigure. you didn't mention your delivery plans, but this could possibly save you the step....the end results look pretty nice.

Thanks for your adivce. The main reason I wanted to import SD instead of HDV was to save on editing time. Delivery will be SD-DVD so your advice on importing to iDVD is helpful. I will try to do it following all the steps perfectly and see if it won't work. Thanks again!

Optimizing iMovie output for huge screen
 

A friend and I are completing a 5- to 10-minute documentary and have been invited to show the short as part of program of longer video works at a local theater in a few weeks.

I don't have the exact screen dimensions, but I believe the video will be projected from the original projection booth and centered within the cinema's widescreen.

This is a fairly huge auditorium -- I'm told it originally seated more than 1,000.

So, my question is this: We'll be assembling our video in iMovie HD and burning a disc using iDVD. Is there anything special we should be doing to optimize this for a large screen?

Leigh Hanlon

If you are able to hook a dv cam or deck to the projector i would probably just view the final product off of a mini dv tape instead of going thru the dvd compression. may result in a cleaner picture since its being blown up.

Matt,

Thanks for the idea. I'm not sure if they'll be set up to do that, but I'll check.

Leigh

Leigh if not i would use the best dvd compression iDvd does and you should be fine. i have been to a few film fests with them projecting dvds and it looked ok. it really comes down to how they have the projector setup etc. as I have seen some projections that looked horrorible but i beleieve it was due to not having it set up correctly because the discs i receved that were shown looked decent on my tv.

The projector will still only project an SD image.

Update: I found that if you set the VCR mode to automatic, then iMove will work properly with the downconvert.

IMovie file unreadable
 

I have used IMovie to make slide shows for several years. I now am making movies And after hours of tweeking the video. I saved it and opened it , or tried to and the application said "Project File is Unreadable".

Any suggestions?
Lew

did you happen to empty iMovie's internal trash can? that can corrupt your entire file. don't ever throw anything away until the project is completed to its final delivery method.

do a search for iMovie's "Media" file and see if you can recover the clips. it won't spare you the hours of lost tweaking, but it can save you a step if you have to do it over. you can re-import (select all, drag, drop) those files into a new project file, if you need to do it again.

Importing iMovie project to Final Cut
 

Hi,
I need to have a doco edited pretty soon but do not own a copy of final cut yet.
Is it possible to do the rough cut in iMovie and then import the file into Final Cut Pro?
Are there any complications I need to be aware of?

I have the latest version of iMovie HD and will be getting the universal version of Final Cut.
I have footage shot on a PD150 and an A1 E.

Thanks for any advice on this,

Max

iMovie records using the DV stream format.
A- FCP doesn't play back the audio in real-time. Audio needs rendering if it's on the timeline. Audio plays fine in the viewer.
B- DV stream has no timecode. This means you can't recapture from your tapes.

I can't remember if FCP can import iMovie projects... FCExpress can.

Final Cut Express will import iMovie projects so long as FCE is as up to date as iMovie. This is due to the iMovie format changing so often, older versions of FCE just wont recognise the file format.

However, I've attempted this and it's no small feat. A lengthy, theme varied iMovie track just gets jumbled all over the place in FCE. I'd just start again.

Plugins for iMovie HD5
 

Guys:

Please pardon my newbie question. I am a FCP user, first-time iMovie HD5 user. Here goes: How do I install a special effect plugin and have it work with iMovie HD5?

I downloaded it from a website and it is in ".dmg.sit" mode. Do I just drop it into the "plugin" folder?

Please help! thanks

You need to use Stuffit Expander to de-compress the .sit file. If Expander is currently installed on your computer, it should launch by double-clicking the .sit file. If it doesn't, try a search for "Stuffit".

If you don't have it installed, you can download the free Expander application at:

http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/index.html

After that, you'll have a disk image file. Double-click on the file, and a virtual disk drive will mount, and will probably automatically open a window. There will probably be a file with instructions on how to install the plugin.

-Terence

SFX Plugin
 

Terrence:

Thank you so much. I got the plugin to work.


Jason

Jason R U Getting your email?
 

Hi Jason, I emailed you a request for a referral for someone to do my friends wedding video in September. I can be emailed from my profile.

Daniel Cuevas
Temecula, CA

Intel iMac - iMovie benchmark needed
 

MacWorld stated that it took 52 seconds for a 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo iMac to render the Aged Film effect on a 1 minute clip.

I am getting closer to 2 minutes.

Can someone run this simple test on any Intel Mac or even an iMac G5 and let me know what you get?

just apply the Aged Film effect to a 1 minute clip and see how long it takes to render. Thanks.

Film Look In iMovie?
 

hi guys. what would be the best way to achieve quite a decent film (cine-) look in iMovie? cheers.