WTF iMovie?!

[bobber205]

Aargh. I am disliking imovie. In an attempt to make it "easier" it's gone and made things much.

Why isn't there a simple option to add just text one frame of my video. I have a starting where I want to add some text to the top for the duration of its whole 3 seconds.

Yet "converging title" is screwing up. It fades in and out way too quickly. I don't even want it to fade. What do I do....

Why isn't there a "add text"? I hate having to hack different titles to do simple stuff like this.

 

[bobber205]

Aargh. FCP makes me even more frustrated. Most of my videos are from the internets and are of the avi type.

And just love spending 90 minutes rendering 60 seconds of a video.

 

[a1291762]

Why isn't there a simple option to add just text one frame of my video. I have a starting where I want to add some text to the top for the duration of its whole 3 seconds.

I'm not near a Mac and the last time I used iMovie much was version 1 or 2 so I can't verify these instructions...

Figure out the background you want. You can create a black video segment or extract a frame from your video and make it longer. Then apply a text thing to the video segment and extract a single frame from the result. Paste this into your original video. Cut the stream before and after the frame for seamless playback.

 

[shidoshi]

Aargh. FCP makes me even more frustrated. Most of my videos are from the internets and are of the avi type.

Just so you know, there is no "avi type" for video. Avi is a container, inside which a wide variety of codecs can be encoded. So, the problem could be you aren't set up properly to handle a certain codec, or a certain codec is tougher for FCP to work with.

 

[Sdashiki]

Get the correct codec and when the .avi can play in QT, it will play in FCP.

Sucks you wasted so much time rendering!

 

[dejo]

Why isn't there a simple option to add just text one frame of my video. I have a starting where I want to add some text to the top for the duration of its whole 3 seconds.

Wait, I'm confused. Do you want text added to just one frame of your movie (typically 1/30th of a second) or do you want a title that displays for a full 3 seconds that overlays the video below (i.e. 90 frames)?

Also, what version of iMovie are you using? That'll help us answer your question.

Here's my guess (using iMovie HD):
1. Select the (3 second) clip in the timeline that you want the title on
2. Go to Editing and select the Titles tab
3. Choose "Centered Title" and all the other options (font, color, etc.)
4. Set the speed slider all the way to the left (so that the input box show 00:20)
5. Set the pause to 02:10
6. Make sure "over black" is not selected if you want the video to overlay your clip
7. Click "Add"

There is still a slight fade-in/out but that, it appears, is somewhat unavoidable with moving video in the background. If you have a still image, then you can Edit > Create Still Frame and adjust the duration of that new clip to 3 seconds. Hope this helps.