iMovie vhs conversion

[whitenoise]

I have a '10 mbp i7 2.66Ghz that I'm using to convert some old vhs tapes, before they fall apart.

I'm using a dv camera to convert into iMovie. The first couple of files I have completed were simple selections cut from the "Event" and exported as a large 720x540 movie.

At this point I would appreciate a few pointers, on the best way to deal with this video, this is my first attempt and I am a little confused about the best way to deal with - especially the best way to output the video.

The reason for this post - I have a full tape of almost 2hr currently exporting, but I keep getting an error -34, after 3-4hrs, just its finishing. I googled this and its supposed to be about hd space? So, I dumped as much from my hd as I could, making 270GB of free space, but this error is still happening.

Is 2hrs just too long of a video?

Would exporting to a different format make a difference?

thanks for your help.

 

[whitenoise]

hmmm, looks like changing the share settings to medium made all the difference, and the quality doesn't seem to have been affected. (though I still don't see it being a problem with disc space).

I'm still a little confused about the best size vs quality settings for something as low res as vhs, but I'll keep investigating.

 

[whitenoise]

what now?

so, everything was working fine.....

I've been exporting to medium without a problem until, 24:43 - 300.7mb file. with over 200gb free on the hard drive. Getting another error at the end of preparing the movie, this time (-2048).

I havent been able to find an answer to this, its such a small file I cant imagine its anything to do with that. I havent done anything differently - recorded vhs through dv cam - selected section(s) - added chapter markers - share as movie medium.

Is there somewhere that lists all these codes, btw? It would make life a little easier if I had a rough idea of what the basic problem was, instead of just a number.

thanks.


I've managed to get it working. Looks like going into Disk Utility - repair disk permissions fixed this. (I did this last time as well, so it looks like that it was maybe the problem and not the export size.)

As I'm still a novice mac user anyone wanna try explain why this is happening? Is there something strange happening with my mbp or is it easily explained? - edit: seems like this was just coincidence?

 

[whitenoise]

the monologue continues.....

The very next movie I tried to export I got the error -34 , which is supposed to be about low hd space, (from all the googling I've been doing). I tried all sorts of different things and couldn't stop the error, until....

the file was 1:15:00 long, (one clip), I selected half and added to the project - then the other half and added it. The project exported without a problem!

So it looks like imovie doesn't like the clips to be too long, I suppose my use isn't the norm, (most people will be editing small clips together). I will have to try it on another project to confirm, but I hope this is the answer.

 

[b_scott]

Just an FYI, I have exported 1.5 hour 1080p movies with Share > Export Movie > 1080p, but if you try to export using Quicktime to an MP4 rather than MOV from the previous, it errors out for size issues. I don't know why, but just a pointer.