imovie help

[1930artdeco]

Hello,

First time poster here and I think I am posting in the right spot, if not please move it to correct spot. I am working with a museum to jump start their veterans interview program. We have a G3 (running OS 10.3) with a 1.9 GB HD. I am trying to use imovie vers. 3 I believe (2003-2005).

The trouble that we are having is the camera that I am using is a 1997ish Canon D.V. camcorder (XL 1A) that only records in high resolution. I also cannot seem to get the computer to upload the video in a lower resolution format. At this point I can import no more than about 8-10 mins. and the HD shows full.

My question is how do I upload in a lower resolution so that I can tape a full hour and then burn to a disk? Is there a way to restructure the HD to 'create' more memory? I am not a computer wiz by any stretch but I can follow directions. So any help will be very much appreciated.

Mike

 

[simsaladimbamba]

That camera is an SD camera and does not record in HD, but since it records on a Mini DV tape and iMovie stores the video using the DV codec, 1 sec of video will approx. take 3 MB/s, 13 GB/hr.
If you really want to use that Mac, either invest in an external Firewire 400 HDD to connect to the iMac* to get more storage.
Since you didn't tell us what exact model your have, we can only guess what its original HDD capacity was (ranging from 4 GB to 60 GB).

To find out what Mac OS X version you run, click > About This Mac:

To find out, what exact Mac model you use, click > About This Mac > More Info > Hardware Overview:

To see a more elaborate image explaining the above steps, click here.
To see a more detailed video tutorial showing the above steps, click here (2 MB, 23s, .mp4).​

​

Have you looked at Disk Utility yet to see, how big the HDD is and how big the partition is Mac OS X resides on?

____________________________________________________________

Links to guides on how to use Disk Utility, the application Mac OS X provides for managing internal and external HDD/SSDs and its formats.

Guide on how to use Disk Utility from the restore / installation DVD.

Using Disk Utility - Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks

which includes:

• Format, Erase, or Reformat a Drive
• Erase or Reformat a Partition
• Add a Partition
• Deleting and Resizing Partitions
• Disk Formats

and some more guides
​

DiskWiping – One Pass is Enough​

____________________________________________________________​

To find out, where you hard drive capacity is being used, you can use the following free applications:

• DiskInventory X
• OmniDiskSweeper
• JDisk Report
• GrandPerspective

Maybe try a combination of several, if you still can't find the "missing" capacity.


Btw, "memory" is not the same as "hard drive capacity":

• What is Computer Memory? RAM vs Hard Drive
• RAM vs. Hard Disk

It is recommended, to have 10 to 20 % of the HDD's capacity unused.

* iMac <cable> HDD <cable> Canon DV camera​

 

[N0k14 D14B10]

The best help I can give is vthat you could get a lower resoulution camera at. Walmart for 40$ and instead of useing what little hdd you have and record vin a lower resoulution....

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The best help I can give is vthat you could get a lower resoulution camera at. Walmart for 40$ and instead of useing what little hdd you have and record vin a lower resoulution....

That will probably more CPU intensive though, as those cameras probably use some compression (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) to store the video.
And what lower resolution is there to get? DV is already 720 x 576 (PAL) or 720 x 480 (NTSC) pixels, 640 x 480 will not be that much lower.