Please Help! Problem with iMovie '11

[emjb53]

So, I've been working on a project on IMovie 11' since November w/ music & clips I downloaded from YouTube. I was more than half way finished with it, it was perfect & all of the sudden, it went nuts on me. The first thing that happened is an entire event folder of video footage greyed out - I assumed it was because I had over 10 hrs worth of clips & it was too full, so I moved some to another folder & it worked - all the clips came back & I could see them in the project.
The next time I opened the program, it was saying "Optimizing Video" & loading something. Then, it wouldn't even let me playback the project, edit or add anything to it. The thumbnails were still in the project & all the clips played within the event folders, showing the orange line indicating what was in the project ... but when I try to playback the project, it's just a grey screen & plays random audio from another one of my video projects.
I even tried exporting the movie & saving it to my computer - when I played it, it was a totally different video project!
None of my other video projects will play either, it only plays the audio & shows the grey screen. ALL the clips play in the event folders, so I don't understand why my projects won't playback.
Anybody have any idea what's going on here? It's really not letting me do anything & I'm really upset because I've worked so hard on this If anybody knows the problem or how I can fix it, I really appreciate the help!
If I have to, I might have to redownload IMovie & start over. I know there is a new version of IMovie, but if I update will I be able to get all my old projects & do you think they will work?
Thanks!

 

[firedept]

So, I've been working on a project on IMovie 11' since November w/ music & clips I downloaded from YouTube. I was more than half way finished with it, it was perfect & all of the sudden, it went nuts on me. The first thing that happened is an entire event folder of video footage greyed out - I assumed it was because I had over 10 hrs worth of clips & it was too full, so I moved some to another folder & it worked - all the clips came back & I could see them in the project.
The next time I opened the program, it was saying "Optimizing Video" & loading something. Then, it wouldn't even let me playback the project, edit or add anything to it. The thumbnails were still in the project & all the clips played within the event folders, showing the orange line indicating what was in the project ... but when I try to playback the project, it's just a grey screen & plays random audio from another one of my video projects.
I even tried exporting the movie & saving it to my computer - when I played it, it was a totally different video project!
None of my other video projects will play either, it only plays the audio & shows the grey screen. ALL the clips play in the event folders, so I don't understand why my projects won't playback.
Anybody have any idea what's going on here? It's really not letting me do anything & I'm really upset because I've worked so hard on this If anybody knows the problem or how I can fix it, I really appreciate the help!
If I have to, I might have to redownload IMovie & start over. I know there is a new version of IMovie, but if I update will I be able to get all my old projects & do you think they will work?
Thanks!

First, do you have a backup of you projects & events? You could try to restore it.

Second, did you move your files around in Finder? This is not always the best idea, as iMovie creates paths to those files as it is generating those projects & events. This could be part of your problem, possibly? Try putting the files back where they were if this is what happened.

Third, the new version of iMovie may not be of help to you at this moment. And if you do import your current projects into the new version, you can not move them back to the previous version. I would be surprised if they would import given you are having problems with them in the version of iMovie they were created in.

After you have you projects & events all sorted out, then maybe give the new iMovie a try. But try a project that you do not care about just in case you do not like the new version of iMovie. When you do download the new iMovie, your old version of iMovie will be put in a folder and left in Applications.

There is not anything else I can think of off the top of my head. Others will hopefully have some more suggestions for you.

 

[daybreak]

From what I can read, it is not your work but material you downloaded from YouTube? Did you asked if you could download all this material?
Are you using the new version of iMovie or still the old?.