Import speed in iMovie?

[ColoJohnBoy]

Aaaaaagh! I'm going crazy! I used an image capture program (iRecordNow) to take some video for my pal's website, and I exported it from QuickTime so it was only about 100 MB (Original was 3.2 GB) so I could then import it into iMovie. The problem is, iMovie says the import will take about an hour even though the clip is 10 minutes! Plus after about twenty minutes of importing, the import time rises exponentially and then begins importing all over again!! How do I fix this?

[jimthorn]

As long as you're exporting through Quicktime Pro, how about cutting it into more manageable pieces and then import and reassemble in iMovie. If you're using iMovie, I imagine you're going to be editing the video anyway.

[LethalWolfe]

What speed is your Mac? It's probably going to take a while 'cause iMovie has to recompress the file into the DV format.


Lethal

[jtown]

What machine are you using? CPU? RAM? OS? Version of iMovie?

Without that kind of info, it's hard to give specific advice.

As for working with video, you generally don't want to compress, edit, then compress again. Every time you compress the video, you lose quality. It's best to edit with the cleanest source material possible. Do all of the compression at the end to maintain the highest quality. Unless you're using lossless compression (and going from 3200 megs to 100 megs ain't lossless), your end prouct will look bad.

According to irecordnow's site, the clips created with the program can go straight into imovie so skip the whole QuickTime thing and just go straight from recording to editing.

[jimthorn]

Originally posted by jtown
According to irecordnow's site, the clips created with the program can go straight into imovie so skip the whole QuickTime thing and just go straight from recording to editing.

This is true. I've done it myself. iRecordNow saves into DV format, which is ready for import into iMovie.