iMovie won't import anything. Ever.

[JulesKD]

Hi there everyone,

So, I've seen tons of threads about iMovie only working with certain video file extensions and not others. Trouble is, my iMovie doesn't work with any file, ever. The files show up as "importable" when I go to import them, but then they simply don't import. When I try clicking and dragging them like the program says to, they "bounce back" to where they were. When I click on "last import" it shows up empty.

When I click on "import" it acts as if it's going to work, and an icon reading "new event" shows up, but when I highlight (or click, or double click, or right-click, or anything) that icon, the message reads, "No matching video. Chose a different option from the Show pop-up menu" etc.

I've been trying for months! I love to make videos and with Vegas on Windows I never had any trouble.

Files that iMovie won't import: AVI, MP4, MP3, MPG, MKV, WMV, SFK, and no song files, either.

My Mac is an iMac OS X version 10.5.8

I called the local Apple store and the lady there told me that I shouldn't be trying to use any videos other than ones I'd shot from my own camera anyway. :/

Any help?

Thanks a ton,

Jules

 

[John Doe 57]

I called the local Apple store and the lady there told me that I shouldn't be trying to use any videos other than ones I'd shot from my own camera anyway. :/

Right. If the video is purchased and downloaded from say iTunes or somewhere, the video is Copyright Protected. Same goes for the music.

If you have actual DVD's, you can rip them and then import them into iMovie.

Found this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091231230220AA434mT

 

[JulesKD]

Right. If the video is purchased and downloaded from say iTunes or somewhere, the video is Copyright Protected. Same goes for the music.

If you have actual DVD's, you can rip them and then import them into iMovie.

Found this:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091231230220AA434mT

Thanks. But, yeah, iMovie still doesn't work with anything at all.

 

[spinnerlys]

Thanks. But, yeah, iMovie still doesn't work with anything at all.

Have you taken a look at MRoogle and read any of the "how to import this or that video into iMovie?" threads?

iMovie, like many other editing applications, does not work with every video file container (.avir, .mp4, .mkv) and codec (Divx, H264, MPEG-2), so in oder to use those files, you may need to transcode them first to something useable via MPEG Streamclip. The DV and Apple Intermediate Codec are fine solutions for that.