[iMovie] Can't export a movie in the original 1440 x 900 resolution

[chris4565]

Hi everyone,

I have an issue with iMovie right now that's driving me nuts, it would be great if someone could help me.

- I have a 1440 x 900 screen recording
- I import the clip to iMovie
- I drag it to the timeline
- Then it automatically crops it (I guess so that it fits 16:9) so now parts are missing at the top & bottom
- I then have to de-crop it
- But: As soon as I export it I'm forced to export it in a 16:9 resolution e.g. 1080p which causes a black border to the left & right

Is there anything I can do to preserve the original resolution? Thanks a lot in advance

EDIT: When I import the clip the preview on the right is fine. Only when I drag it to the timeline the issues start. The timeline clip already shows the black borders in the preview after de-cropping.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I'm not familiar with iMovie... but is there a way to set the dimensions of the timeline or project?

It sounds like iMovie is defaulting the timeline to 1920x1080

Ideally you want a project that's the same size and shape of the source file... though iMovie might not allow that.

 

[chris4565]

Ideally you want a project that's the same size and shape of the source file... though iMovie might not allow that.

Yeah, that would be the goal. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any settings where I can set the resolution of the timeline. Since the full imported video shows fine in the preview and only the timeline video gets problematic I was hoping that iMovie supports the 1440 x 900 resolution. But maybe not for the final video 😢

 

[neutrino23]

I ran into this a long time ago. iMovie only exports in HD. At the time I used QuickTime to edit movies with an unusual aspect ratio. I only needed to do simple trimming and clipping so that worked OK. I believe you can still get QT.

 

[chris4565]

I ran into this a long time ago. iMovie only exports in HD. At the time I used QuickTime to edit movies with an unusual aspect ratio. I only needed to do simple trimming and clipping so that worked OK. I believe you can still get QT.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I used the spacebar-preview-edit-thingy to do the trimming of the clip in the meantime. Only negative is that I can't use buttons to go frame by frame but it still did get the job done.

 

[Moonjumper]

I had a similar problem a while back. I ended up switching to the free version of DaVinci Resolve. After an hour or so getting used to it, I find it much better to use. It is also a lot more powerful.