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Crop video before importing into iMovie

K

karohan

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 25, 2010
396
0
Is there a way I can crop my movies before importing it into iMovie. I have a long video on my recorder and I only need like 30 seconds of it, I don't want to have to import the whole movie (it's HD, so it'll take a while). Is there a quicker way to do this?

If iMovie can't, just out of curiosity, can more advanced programs like Premiere Pro or FCE/FCP do this?
 
By crop, do you mean just cut out the little bit that you need? Can you connect your recorder to your Mac, and does iMovie see it? In iMovie you should be able to play your movie on the recorder until the bit that you want and then click import and then stop when you have all that you need.

If not can you play it in Quicktime or MPEGStreamclip? Both have an edit function.
 
Yes, by crop I mean that. I'm sorry if I'm using the incorrect word haha, but I felt that described it best.

When you say the "recorder", is that just the mini-player on the import screen? I didn't notice a record button, but I shall try that then. I won't notice any loss of quality right? It's not doing something makeshift like recording my screen playing the video to get the crop right?
 
Okay so I have iMovie 09. And I see no way to record only a portion of my clips to import. I just see each individual clip and I can play them to preview their contents. I can either import all the clips or just individually chosen clips. The problem is I want to import a tiny portion of a large clip. If I imported the entire clip and then cut it via MPegStreamClip, it would still take an enormous amount of time. Is there a way to import only a portion of the clip without having to import the entire clip first?
 
Where is the clip that you want to edit? Is it still on a camcorder? What type?
With your camera connected this window should open if iMovie recognises it:
Screenshot2011-01-01at1935.jpg


You should be able to play the movie to the point that you want and then click on Import.

Or is it a movie file on your computer?
 
Hmm, so I am trying to import from my camcorder. I don't get that screen however. I get a different import screen that comes up. It looks like this:
http://imgur.com/tReay
 
So I'm guessing from the picture that you have some sort of hard drive camcorder? In that case, it looks like you're going to have to import the whole clip unless the camcorder has some sort of editing feature.
 
OH! That's probably it. I was wondering if the High Def was an issue, but the hard drive is probably it! Thanks a bunch because at least now I know that it's not possible. Do you know if any other programs can or if it's just not possible to trim my clips unless done on the camcorder itself?

Thanks a bunch!
 
Oh I can import my clips. I just cannot say take only a couple minutes out of a say 1 hour long clip. So I'll just have to wait a while to import my clips but that's all right.
 
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