Copying VHS to iMovie

[wolfvilleian]

Hi everyone,
I just got a iMac to edit our old home movie's (which are on VHS tapes) I've figured out how to get them on but was wondering if there was a way to get iMovie to split the video up into clips, in between each video section there is about 3sec of black which is where I want it to stop/end a clip. Is there any way to do this? It's just annoying to have to sit there and click import each time I want to split it.
Thanks for any help!

 

[Keleko]

I'd like to know what you're using to put the movies on the iMac from the VHS.

 

[gkarris]

^^^ probably some sort of movie box or some early camcorders let you input the video composite and output to the FW (an older Sony high-end camcorder did this).

You'll probably better off putting this into the "Digital Video" thread where there will be more people able to answer your question. Hit the exclamation point on the left to ask the Mod to move it.

I use the older iMovie HD, I'm not too up on the new one...

On VHS, you also have to be careful on Audio Syncing and you may need a Time-Base Corrector to keep them synced properly.

 

[wolfvilleian]

I'm using a Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge. I'll try to move the thread. I'm using the old iMovie HD too, I was told the new one isn't good?

 

[juanster]

I don't knwo aout it being not good... but it's just very different fromt he old one,, the new one just seems waaaaaayy too user friendly not so video editing softwarish (by teh way i love making up words..)

 

[pwrtrader]

Hi there,

I just did this for a co-worker this weekend, he gave me a few VHS tapes to digitize and place on DVDs. I used iMovieHD (not sure which version, the one that came with my Intel iMac from 2006) and a Sony TVR-38 as the bridge to firewire (it has an Analog to Digital converter setting).

Anyway, I just imported the entire VHS tape into iMovie so I wouldn’t have to babysit the importing process. Once the whole clip was digitized, I would move the playhead in iMovie to find the beginning of a blank spot and then do a “split video at playhead” which is under the “edit” menu. This would split my clip into 2 clips.

Then I would find the end of the blank spot and place another “split” now leaving me with 3 clips from my original 1 clip. Just delete the clip that contains the blank footage and repeat as necessary.

Although a bit time consuming, at the end of the day, using this method ensures you’ve captured everything on the tape and moving around in the clip is actually pretty easy once it’s digitized.

And if you accidentally delete the wrong clip, it’s still retrievable from the imovie trash can which is a nice option (and one I used on more than one occasion).

Obviously, the downside is the huge amount of disk space you'll eat up but you probably knew that already.

Good luck with the project.

 

[pavelbure]

Anyway, I just imported the entire VHS tape into iMovie so I wouldn’t have to babysit the importing process. Once the whole clip was digitized, I would move the playhead in iMovie to find the beginning of a blank spot and then do a “split video at playhead” which is under the “edit” menu. This would split my clip into 2 clips.

Then I would find the end of the blank spot and place another “split” now leaving me with 3 clips from my original 1 clip. Just delete the clip that contains the blank footage and repeat as necessary.

that's what i did for all of my movies also. make sure you get everything, i found that if there is sometimes a big gap in between recorded footage i movie will just assume the import is done and stop importing. i usually check back every 20 min. or so to make sure things are going good.