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Argh! Moving to PC! How to translate imovie?

eclipse

eclipse

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 18, 2005
989
14
Sydney
Hi all,
sorry to say that for work reasons I may be moving to Windows. Any ideas on how to export my imovies to windows and what software I should use?

Also, anyone got experience using PRIVATE youtube uploads as a movie backup database?
Does youtube store at maximum quality and is the privacy trustworthy? Limits on material? I've got under a Terabyte to store, bit by bit over the next few months.

I've had some good times with imovie and mac generally, but sadly it seems like it is time to move on.

This thread is specifically about migrating from imovie, but if anyone has advice for other areas of my big move to PC, please let me know on this next thread.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sad-to-ask-checklists-for-migrating-to-pc.2034507/
 
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eclipse said:
Also, anyone got experience using PRIVATE youtube uploads as a movie backup database?
Does youtube store at maximum quality and is the privacy trustworthy? Limits on material? I've got under a Terabyte to store, bit by bit over the next few months.
Click to expand...

YouTube always stores videos at a very compressed quality setting, whether it be private or public. This goes for both audio and video, and is especially noticeable with fast moving and highly detailed images and colours. And the audio generally loses a lot of dynamic range.

In terms of iMovie, I'm not sure if you can export to XML, but if that's possible, do that. I only really work with Final Cut ever since I bought that a good many years ago, hehe. But assuming you can export to XML, it's at the very least possible to get it into Premiere.
 
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If I understand correctly, you want to move your iMovie projects to a windows platform. iMovie projects won't work under Windows. Output files from iMove, such as mp4, can be used in Windows-based editors, but you won't be able to edit previous work. I would try the Export to FC first -- it would surprised me if this worked on another program.

YouTube re-encodes files when it stores them. You can see this when they are uploaded - it can take a few seconds to several minutes for the processing to complete before the video is ready. They use different formats because their format enables them to optimize storage, serve up at different resolutions, and to different devices (formats). In my experience, Youtube does flag for copyright usage in uploaded content (even when I have rights). Is the privacy trustworthy? In my experience, yes. There are a limited number of accounts you can grant access to - in the past it was 50, and may still be that.
 
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kohlson said:
If I understand correctly, you want to move your iMovie projects to a windows platform. iMovie projects won't work under Windows. Output files from iMove, such as mp4, can be used in Windows-based editors, but you won't be able to edit previous work. I would try the Export to FC first -- it would surprised me if this worked on another program.
Click to expand...

If it is possible to export to XML, if you give the raw footage to another editor alongside the XML file, it should be able to set up the project so it's functionally the same, maybe aside from specific effects and transitions - obviously it won't have the exact same ones as iMovie. This is at least a way to move between FCPX and Premiere
 
Thanks all. I didn't know youtube would compress my stuff! It could take a while to make the change to PC, and maybe it won't happen at all - just thinking ahead. BTW, there's this *free* software called Lightworks that seems to be available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and even rates better than iMovie on specout.com! It gets 84, and Adobe Premier Elements only gets 4 points more, and that's around $100! Filmora gets 89 points, anyone use that? It's a point higher than Premier Elements, but half the price!?
http://video-editing.specout.com/co...ightworks-vs-Wondershare-Filmora-video-editor
 
Hi, thanks for that. I was trying to compare its functionality to iMovie or Lightworks, but it doesn't seem to come up on the comparing websites? Is it known by anything else?

This is what I've found so far.
Lightworks is FREE and even rates 84% compared to iMovie 79%.

Premier Elements is $100 and rates 88%.
http://video-editing.specout.com/co...ightworks-vs-Wondershare-Filmora-video-editor

But the Chinese Wondershare / iskysoft / Filmora is only $50, but rates 89%?

What I can't tell is if Filmora puts iskysoft stuff all over your computer? I’ve read weird stuff about iskysoft, that the Chinese company have trolls everywhere artificially rating their product super-high and constantly selling iskysoft.

EG: How to export iMovie to xml? This next 'article' basically screams why are you using iMovie, it's just too hard to export?
https://www.iskysoft.com/video-editing/imovie-projects-export.html

Then this! iSkysoftware all over the place, and they didn't install it.
https://www.tenforums.com/antivirus-firewalls-system-security/57804-what-iskysoft-nasty.html

Anyone else get bad vibes about Wondershare / Filmora? (Look out, if I'm feeling paranoid I can imagine them having google alerts setup and we're about to get all the trolls in here!)
 
premiere elements could be an alternative to imovie. never heard of that wondershare stuff, but sounds dubious...

lightworks is more professional than imovie - but also more complex. the free version seems to be limited to vimeo and youtube export (1080p and 720p respectively).

davinci resolve lite (free) is also good, but also pretty professional, so it's a step up from imovie.

one step to getting your projects from imovie to windows would be to download the free trial of final cut pro and davinci reslove, then move them to final cut and export an xml from there that can be read in davinci (which akso works on windows). you'll probably lose some effects/titles, but your edits should stay intact.
 
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eclipse said:
Anyone else get bad vibes about Wondershare / Filmora? (Look out, if I'm feeling paranoid I can imagine them having google alerts setup and we're about to get all the trolls in here!)
Click to expand...


You know... That link you gave to the "How to export in iMovie" or whatever, right? It had this comment:

"Overly complicated guide with no valuable information. Oh, and its to push your software product and spam search results on google. Waste of time."

Feel it hits the nail on the head. Exporting isn't that hard in iMovie, they don't even explain the export settings, and if their software doesn't have export settings for the sake of simplicity, it's by no means powerful enough to be considered in my opinion. Overall it seems fishy. Oh, and there were, what? 5 grammatical errors in the article.
 
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Unami said:
premiere elements could be an alternative to imovie. never heard of that wondershare stuff, but sounds dubious...

lightworks is more professional than imovie - but also more complex. the free version seems to be limited to vimeo and youtube export (1080p and 720p respectively).
Click to expand...
The link says it exports to these:-

  • ASF
  • ASX
  • AVCHD(MTS)
  • FLV
  • MPEG-2
  • MPEG-4
  • VOB

davinci resolve lite (free) is also good, but also pretty professional, so it's a step up from imovie.

one step to getting your projects from imovie to windows would be to download the free trial of final cut pro and davinci reslove, then move them to final cut and export an xml from there that can be read in davinci (which akso works on windows). you'll probably lose some effects/titles, but your edits should stay intact.
Click to expand...
Nice, but how do I export from imovie to Final Cut to export the XML from there? Or do I just import iMovie projects from within Final Cut?
 
So good! So that will send it across without iMovie specific transitions & headings, but pretty much all the scene cropping, and I can start again in other software!? Wow. That frees me of hours of imovie editing removal. I'm FREE! Thank you for giving me more options! Who knows, after all this I might dig in my heels and stubbornly stick to mac and iMovie anyway, but at least you've shown me part of the way forward if I do need to migrate. Cheers!
 
eclipse said:
So good! So that will send it across without iMovie specific transitions & headings, but pretty much all the scene cropping, and I can start again in other software!? Wow. That frees me of hours of imovie editing removal. I'm FREE! Thank you for giving me more options! Who knows, after all this I might dig in my heels and stubbornly stick to mac and iMovie anyway, but at least you've shown me part of the way forward if I do need to migrate. Cheers!
Click to expand...

No problems, mate. - It'll try and preserve transitions
 
Ouch! Glad I learned this before making my commitment! The free version of Lightworks is limited to exporting to Youtube or Vimeo, and from what I hear about youtube's compression, it's probably not the best way to archive and keep my finished movies!

  • Export to Vimeo (H.264/MEPG-4) up to 1080p HD
  • Export to YouTube (H.264/MEPG-4) up to 1080p HD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightworks
Click to expand...

Any similar frustrating limits to Resolve? I always thought Lightworks sounded too good to be true.
 
Resolve might be to complex to use if you have trouble with imovie.
it is fully featured with no limits you will hit but it's also complex to use, worth a look and works on windows and osx.

your best off doing what casperes1996 mentioned, then chose an app to fit your needs.
premier elements might be a good easy option.
 
Hi Orph, thanks for that. It's not that I'm having trouble with iMovie — I love iMovie and have done some OK Star Wars movies exporting footage, adding light-sabres, and then reimporting back into iMovie & Garage Band for sound. It's more than I'm thinking of some career changes that might see me moving more into Windows, and was wondering what else was available. Free Lightworks looked good, but then I found out it only loaded into Youtube and Vimeo which I understand have pretty terrible compression, and are not a good way to store original family footage for the future. I guess I was wondering if there were similar problems with the Free Resolve? If there are no major exporting or compatibility issues for Windows free Resolve, I think I'm committing to it, and will just watch as many courses as it takes!
It's just that FREE software as good as Resolve just seems too good to be true. Why is it FREE?
 
try it and find out, download the manual and read it.

there are limitations to the free version, but i dont think they will apply to you.
(like if you want to run it on a server farm you have to pay, or if you want to use more than one GPU to render)
 
Yes, they do sound like very high end limitations and not applicable to me. Thanks for the advice! I'll give it a go. Cheers!
 
eclipse said:
Yes, they do sound like very high end limitations and not applicable to me. Thanks for the advice! I'll give it a go. Cheers!
Click to expand...

There are some export limitations too actually, but they're similarly in the very high end. I forget if 4k is supported by the free tier yet, but at the very least more than 4k isn't and I think wide colour spaces aren't either.

You asked why it's free, and I think it's rather simple actually. – Get young, learning filmmakers to use it, when they/if they then go Pro, they'll want to continue using it, but on such large projects that they'll buy the licensed version that supports the high end features. It's a very popular product in the film world. Often used alongside programs like Final Cut actually, since Resolve is brillant at colour work as compared to Final Cut that does better with editing–both can do both but have their strengths that they are very aware of.
 
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the only limitation i hit in the free resolve version so far is that it's highest resolution is uhd (3840X2160), so it won't do 4k (4096x2160) or higher.

imho other limitations are less severe (no stereoscopic support...). but they might be enough to stop you from working professionally with it - so maybe that's why it's free. also, it's kind of used for selling you blackmagic hardware - there's even a free full license of resolve that comes with most blackmagic cameras. considering that the cinema camera starts at $2k and a resolve license costs $1k, that's quite a bargain...

one other thing that you might want to be aware of: afaik, resolve needs quite a powerful computer, e.g. for working with uhd-footage i'd recommend at least a gpu with 4gb of ram.
 
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Unami said:
one other thing that you might want to be aware of: afaik, resolve needs quite a powerful computer, e.g. for working with uhd-footage i'd recommend at least a gpu with 4gb of ram.
Click to expand...

This is the case fo pretty much all video editing applications. Final Cut is the least resource hungry, but with 4K footage it can still easily put a machine to its knees if you use enough levels of colour correction and whatnot.
 
yeah, but still, resolve is the only one that gave me repeatedly "out of video ram" errors or constantly sent a 2015 top-specced mbp crashing because it needed too much resources (to be fair, it was sony f65 raw footage in a 4k HDR workflow - nothing you'd normally tackle on a laptop). i mean - not sure if this is still true - but one of the first things in the manual was the recommendation to have at least two gpus in your machine, one for the UI and one for the actual rendering stuff...
 
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:eek: wait that's not a 2015 MBP with Intel Iris Pro Graphics
http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/specs-2015/

well it's free so cant complain, the rule of thum is 1080p 2GB vram 4K 3-4GB vram

did you use the proxy options in resolve that might relay help if your working with such large files
quarter resolution might relay be worth a try
there's also the option to optimize media which may help too when working with such complex files.

im on a nice resolve user group on FB and there's lots of pleases to ask for help and learn.

^^ maybe we need to start a topic of resolve help :p as this is getting a tad off topic.

ps wish i had a sony f65 :cool:


(and i still think resolve is amazing but may be to complex for the OP if imovie exports are hard, premier elements is still a good bet id gess. never used it but assume it's of competent quality and runs on both osx & windows)
 
Hi all,
I've just been having a good chat in another thread about getting at the raw iMovie footage, and then came across a bunch of projects that would save me a bunch of work if I exported them using the method described above a few years back to at least get the clip cropping & editing (even if it doesn't keep the titles and transitions etc.) Here it is again, in summary. Is this still an option, or is there another fast way to export from iMovie into, say, Kden live while keeping at least clip cuttings etc?

one step to getting your projects from imovie to windows would be to download the free trial of final cut pro and davinci reslove, then move them to final cut and export an xml from there that can be read in davinci (which akso works on windows). you'll probably lose some effects/titles, but your edits should stay intact.
From the Menu Bar:
File -> Send Movie to Final Cut Pro​
 
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