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pb1300

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 29, 2008
587
0
Aigio, Greece
I recently recorded a wedding, with a Sony video camera that using mini dv, and now I want to transfer it to my iMac. I have it connected via FW, and I am running the transfer through iMovie. Does the transfer have to be at the normal running time of the cassette, or can I fast forward it? Also, is iMovie the best to go with, or does anyone have any other suggestions? And just some advice would be helpful as well since I am kind of new with this video stuff, and there is a market for it here where I live because its not available that much here. Thanks for the help!
 
The tape has to play back as if you were watching it normally while the software captures it in.

I only used iMovie once in my time with Mac, and that was just curiosity - I'm a Final Cut Pro user so I can't really offer any tips/help with iMovie, but the process of capturing a tape (i.e. having to play the tape back to capture) is standard procedure.
 
The tape has to play back as if you were watching it normally while the software captures it in.

I only used iMovie once in my time with Mac, and that was just curiosity - I'm a Final Cut Pro user so I can't really offer any tips/help with iMovie, but the process of capturing a tape (i.e. having to play the tape back to capture) is standard procedure.

I have FCP too, legit copy too lol, but never used it yet. I want to do some editing of the video, so I will try it out as well. One thing I noticed after transferring the first video is that the audio is overly loud. We had a line going into the camera directly from the sound board, but the volume was turned up a little much. Any suggestions on how to kill some of the excess noise and distortion?
 
We had a line going into the camera directly from the sound board, but the volume was turned up a little much. Any suggestions on how to kill some of the excess noise and distortion?

If the audio is distorted (clipped) there's not much you can do to salvage it. The best hope is a reshoot - this time using good quality headphones to monitor the audio you're recording.

-DH
 
I recently recorded a wedding, with a Sony video camera that using mini dv, and now I want to transfer it to my iMac. I have it connected via FW, and I am running the transfer through iMovie. Does the transfer have to be at the normal running time of the cassette, or can I fast forward it? Also, is iMovie the best to go with, or does anyone have any other suggestions? And just some advice would be helpful as well since I am kind of new with this video stuff, and there is a market for it here where I live because its not available that much here. Thanks for the help!

I use iMovie for my videos. Its REALLY easy to use. But I'm sure if you want better editing and production tools, you need to go with something more powerful. However, if this is just a simple video, nothing profesional needed, iMovie is the way to go. You can edit all your clips, take out the crap you don't need, add titles, make dvds with chapters, etc.
 
I recently recorded a wedding, with a Sony video camera that using mini dv, and now I want to transfer it to my iMac. I have it connected via FW, and I am running the transfer through iMovie. Does the transfer have to be at the normal running time of the cassette, or can I fast forward it? Also, is iMovie the best to go with, or does anyone have any other suggestions? And just some advice would be helpful as well since I am kind of new with this video stuff, and there is a market for it here where I live because its not available that much here. Thanks for the help!

Being new, I'd highly recommend you stick to iMovie for a while and learn it pretty well. Advancing to FC Express or Pro may never be needed. I have all 3 options on my machine and I use iMovie 10x more than the others. It's just so fast and easy to throw something together. But if you really need to step up, for some specific reason because you can't do what you want in iMovie, the learning curve for FC is a bit steep at first. You'll want a very good reason to be investing that time to learn the more advanced tool.
 
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