Imovie taking 1260 minutes to import a clip

[freeedge369]

Hello, I'm still kind of new to Mac video editing, and really enjoy making anime music videos.
However, when I tried to import my episodes to iMovie, it estimated 1260 minutes to import this first episode. Since I have 25 episodes and one movie, that's not good.
Please note that I am using an anime which has not been licensed in America, and is therefore legal to download.
My question:
How can I reduce this to a reasonable time?
I am using the 2.33 GHZ macbook pro, so it's not a lack of power.

 

[banjomamo]

What kind of file are you trying to import? How big is it? What is the running time of the episode (the length)?

 

[xsedrinam]

Doesn't iMovie now have a maximum import size at 13 GB = ~65 minutes? It used to be 2, then 4 GB, but I think version 5 upped the limit. Meh.

 

[adrianblaine]

I once found a way to bypass the whole importing thing... I'm not sure if it will work in your situation, but if you right mouse click on your iMovie project and select "show package contents", and then put your video in the "media" folder, when you open the project in iMovie, it will show that clip in the trash. All you have to do is drag it back to your clips.

 

[Royale w/cheese]

What kind of file are you trying to import? How big is it? What is the running time of the episode (the length)?

Ditto for that. You may want to convert them using something else. What do you want to do with the files afterwards or are you trying to do a mashup?

 

[banjomamo]

The other thing to remember is that iMovie was specifically made for people with their consumer MiniDV camcorders so they could easily edit the footage and output it to a file or DVD. If you can do anything else with it then consider that icing.

 

[Royale w/cheese]

Yes, you do have a point.