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ifjake

macrumors 6502a
Jan 19, 2004
562
1
actually no outside conversion is necessary. iMovie will do it for you. you can either Import under the File menu and select your mpeg, or you can drag your mpeg file onto the little clip selection area. it'll take a couple of minutes or so to make the conversion, but it works. make sure when you're done you use the Share command, essentially Export, which enables you to adjust the quality and size to your liking.
 

Grimace

macrumors 68040
Feb 17, 2003
3,568
226
with Hamburglar.
ifjake said:
actually no outside conversion is necessary. iMovie will do it for you. you can either Import under the File menu and select your mpeg, or you can drag your mpeg file onto the little clip selection area. it'll take a couple of minutes or so to make the conversion, but it works. make sure when you're done you use the Share command, essentially Export, which enables you to adjust the quality and size to your liking.

You can't Import mpeg files thru iMovie. You need Quicktime pro to make the conversions.
 

ifjake

macrumors 6502a
Jan 19, 2004
562
1
well it worked for me. i just did this like two days ago. i don't know maybe it's a new feature of iMovie 4 from the new iLife. but it is doable.
 

Horrortaxi

macrumors 68020
Jul 6, 2003
2,240
0
Los Angeles
Sure enough. I just tried importing an mpeg and it worked. I would have sworn I tried it before and it didn't work. Maybe it's a new thing in iMovie 4 or maybe iMovie knows I have Quicktime Pro. Or maybe I was just wrong all along.
 

live4ever

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2003
728
5
Really, I just tried both a mpeg1 and a mpeg2 and it gave me an error on both files and said it was skipping them.
 

brhmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2003
175
0
Planet Earth
I have iMovie 4

And it won't let me import mpeg files. Get the error messages and the file gets skipped.

I have to use QuickTime Pro to convert them to mov files. The quality is awful and the file sizes explodes. It goes from 6 mb good quality to 100 mb pixelated like crazy quality.

Any ideas?

BTW -- Thanks to all who have responded. :)
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,485
1,571
East Coast
brhmac said:
And it won't let me import mpeg files. Get the error messages and the file gets skipped.

I have to use QuickTime Pro to convert them to mov files. The quality is awful and the file sizes explodes. It goes from 6 mb good quality to 100 mb pixelated like crazy quality.

Any ideas?

BTW -- Thanks to all who have responded. :)
The question that needs to be asked is what kind of mpg files do you have? I know for a fact that iMovie 3 can import mpg files straight into the clip pane. However, if the file is muxed, the sound won't get imported.

I guess there are some types of mpg files that iMovie can't work with.

And regarding the file size. Of course converting a highly compressed mpg file to DV would look terrible and result in a huge file. That just the nature of the DV codec.
 

WinterMute

Moderator emeritus
Jan 19, 2003
4,776
5
London, England
When you export in QT to .mov, make sure you use the Sorenson 3 codec, it'll give you decent quality with reasonable file sizes. Remember that MPG files are already heavily compressed, and they aren't of the best quality to begin with.
 

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Feb 4, 2004
7,275
5,212
Florida Resident
Reason

The reason the quality goes down when converting from MPEG to DV is because it has to resize the MPEG file to be the same dimensions. The MPEG file is grainy to begin, so when the file is resized to a larger size you see very blocky pixels. An an experiment, try using a MPEG file of the same dimensions of DV to see if you still have the problem.

By the way, when you resize a MPEG file down, you should see it look little bit sharper.
 

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,661
1,242
The Cool Part of CA, USA
This is something I recently tried to do, and although there are some people claiming that it's easy, I haven't found that to be the case.

If you've got a MPEG4 file, QT of course has no problem with it. MPEG2 might work if you have the QT plugin, but that costs money from Apple.

As for MPEG1 (generally .mpg files), Quicktime sort of supports them; it plays muxed MPEG1 (that is, MPEG1 with the audio and video tracks mixed together--the standard format) just fine. And, Quicktime knows how to read and export both MPEG1 video, and MPEG1 audio (usually .mp2 or .mp3 audio files--those are actually just layers of MPEG1 audio).

Unfortunately, QT does not, so far as I can tell, properly export muxed MPEG1 files--it'll give you the video with no audio, or vice versa.

You can demux an MPEG1 file using another program, though, and then recombine the video and audio in QT Player (pro version), then export that. You could also theoretically have a non-muxed MPEG1 file, but I don't think it would be standard--it'd actually be a Quicktime (.mov) or AVI container with MPEG1 audio and video tracks.

Getting back to iMovie, I iMovie 4 (which uses QT for everything, so none of this is surprising) definitely won't import a muxed MPEG1 file--it just returns an error. You can open the .mpg in QT Player, export to a DV stream (it'll probably look awful, but that's not QT's fault--just low resolution like ftaok said), then have iMovie import that (or put it in the media folder and have it automatically add it to the clips pane). I've tried the same with iMovie 2 and 3, and it didn't work with those, either, nor would I expect it to until (unless) Apple decides to add full muxed MPEG1 support to Quicktime.

Now, if somebody else has figured out a way to get iMovie to properly import .mpg files with both video and sound, I'd love to hear it, but it sure didn't work for me. Horrortaxi--are you sure what you got iMovie to import was really a valid MPEG1 muxed video, and not a video-only stream or something with the wrong file extension on it?
 

chants

macrumors newbie
Nov 1, 2013
1
0
Just entered discussion ... urgent help needed!

Hi

I have just found this thread and am hoping someone can help. I have just followed the instructions to import a mpg file in iMovie . I went to file , then import , then chose the movie option . However when I selected my mpg file from my desktop I got this message " you selected a directory to import, but no importable movie was found inside. Please select another directory or file. "

What could be the problem. I have also tried to drag the file into the play box, but get the same message. I am a newbie.

In fact what I need to do once I convert the file is to make video clips of material within the file. Could you refer me to a clear, simple tutorial on how to do this as well ?

Thanks a lot

Chantelle
 

ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,485
1,571
East Coast
Hi

I have just found this thread and am hoping someone can help. I have just followed the instructions to import a mpg file in iMovie . I went to file , then import , then chose the movie option . However when I selected my mpg file from my desktop I got this message " you selected a directory to import, but no importable movie was found inside. Please select another directory or file. "

What could be the problem. I have also tried to drag the file into the play box, but get the same message. I am a newbie.

In fact what I need to do once I convert the file is to make video clips of material within the file. Could you refer me to a clear, simple tutorial on how to do this as well ?

Thanks a lot

Chantelle
youve provided a little detail, but to be more helpful, I'm gonna need a little more info.

1. What kind of mpg files do you have? Are they from a device, such as a camera or camcorder? If so, what brand and model device?

2. Do you know the resolution of your mpg files? Is it SD (640x480; 853x480) or HD (1280x720; 1920x1080)?

3. Do you know if the file is interlaced? If you play the file using QuickTime, you can do a "properties" and see the info.

In any event, the easiest solution is going to be converting the file to something iMovie can handle. What version iMovie are you using?

To convert the file, get yourself a copy of MPEGStreamclip. It will convert just about any file. Depending on the type of file you have, you'll pick the file type you want to convert to. Probably DV for a SD file. An HD file should be converted to something like AIC or MPEG-4.

Once the file is converted, it should import right into iMovie.

Hope this helps.
 
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