12-05-2007, 02:00 AM

Hello, I'm running into some VERY frustrating problems with iMovie 08.

I have a minidv Sony Handycam with about 4 hours of video that I'm wanting to import and make a neat little DVD with iDVD after doing some work with iMovie. It's on 4 separate tapes and there are many breaks in the recording (as in, they stopped recording and started again).

When I import the video, iMovie automatically splits up the movie into clips where the camera was stopped and restarted. I can't seem to merge all these clips together! I drag the clips up to the project and it's already separated and I can't combine them at all!

Here's my question.. How can I import this video into iMovie as one single movie, and I get to separate the movie (i.e. make chapters) where I want to?

Note: it is of a wrestling team's tournament in Oklahoma, spread over 2 days among 28 wrestlers. That's why there's so many breaks and stops in the video.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

12-05-2007, 12:04 PM

Sorry to reply to my own post..

But is this something that many people complain about? I have searched all over the different mac forums and find the question without an answer..

Leads me to believe either

A) I'm such a n00b that I don't know a simple shortcut answer
or
B) It's a big oversight and nobody else knows how to stop the scene detection either

I really would appreciate any help again. Thanks!

12-05-2007, 02:19 PM

After you imported all of the clips. Does is play the way you want them too?

12-05-2007, 06:11 PM

Yes, it's in perfect order and everything.. It's just that there are too many breaks where I don't want them.

Ideally, I'd like to export it to iDVD and use one of the 7.0 themes and create chapters by every kid's wrestling match. However, the way it is now, when I export it, every single time the tape is stopped, it's a new chapter.

12-05-2007, 06:43 PM

I believe you should be able to put the chapter breaks in, even with the clip in the state that it is. I am basing this on iMovie 6, since I have not used iMovie 8.

12-06-2007, 04:04 AM

But it's in 290 pieces (aka clips). I want to combine the whole video and then break it up into about 20 or 30 chapters. The way it is now, it has 290 chapters! How do I combine the clips?

12-06-2007, 04:48 PM

I could be wrong hee, but I don't think you have 290 chapters unless you created them. I have not worked with anything more than 10 clips long. When I look at them there are no chapters defined unless I create them. So if you create the chapters in iMovie and then export the video as a movie file (dv) and then import it to iDVD. What do you get?

12-07-2007, 02:07 AM

The automatic scene detection that's embedded in the dv downloading automatically creates clips in iMovie, correct? I have 290 clips. They look like a bunch of broken up filmstrips. I cannot combine the clips, although I would really like to, so I end up having about 30 clips.

Then I would like to take my newly merged dv files and use iDVD to automatically have 30 chapters. The way it is now, iDVD makes every clip its own chapter. Hence 290 chapters.

Get what I'm saying?

12-07-2007, 10:10 AM

Since I was using iMovie HD 6, I have not seen the problem you are experiencing. Have you tried using the older version of iMovie (Apple iMovie HD - 6.0.3). Also I have not seen a merge function in either application. But the older might handle chapters better.

12-11-2007, 10:27 AM

I was just looking at IMovie 08. Have you tried selecting two clips and then using the join clip option under the edit menu?

12-12-2007, 05:12 AM

rman- You are just adding onto my frustration (in a good way though! haha)

I have tried to select multiple clips, single clips, contiguous clips, in both the event and project windows.. And the "Join Clip" option is always grayed out and I can't select it. I don't have a beta version or anything.. I don't get it!!

AHH!!

12-16-2007, 03:24 AM

Sorry, but I still haven't gotten an answer. Is there a shortcut to merge clips that you've selected in a project (or an event? either or)

07-14-2008, 08:43 AM

Well, I faced the same problem with iMovie. While importing digital video iMovie splits video into multiple .dv files(Probably this easy for editing).

My requirement was to group some of these small clips into one single clip, I searched through google for any free tools for mac that merges digital video clips, didn't find any useful links. I didn't get any answer to combine these selected .dv files into one .dv file.

Finally I managed to combine these small clips into one single clip using the following 4 steps using iMovie itself! (Note: I'm using Leopard Mac OS X 10.5.3)

1) I opened a new project in iMovie and selected the event ( that contains lot of small clips i.e .dv files) from left side Event library pane and it listed all the small clips on the bottom right window.
2) Then I selected all the clips and moved them to my new project
3) Then I chose this option Share -> Export Using QuickTime
4) This gave me various options to export the movies to, i chose "Movie to DV Stream" option.

These four steps helped me to convert all the selected .dv clips into one single .dv clip. Hope this helps.

02-26-2012, 11:54 PM

Originally Posted by rman

I was just looking at IMovie 08. Have you tried selecting two clips and then using the join clip option under the edit menu?

how do you join two clips? i'm having the hardest time with that in '08

02-27-2012, 03:11 AM

(tested, didn't work, nevermind)