• The Mac-Forums Community Guidelines (linked at the top of every forum) are very clear, we respect US law and court precedence when it comes to legality of activity.

    Therefore to clarify:
    • You may not discuss breaking DVD or BluRay encryption, copying, or "ripping" commercial, copy-protected DVDs.
    • This includes DVDs or BluRays you own. Even if you own the DVD or BluRay, it is still technically illegal under the DMCA to break the encryption. While some may argue otherwise, until the law is rewritten or the US Supreme Court strikes it down, we will adhere to the current intent of the law.
    • You may discuss ripping or copying unprotected movies or homemade DVDs.
    • You may discuss ripping or copying tools in the context that they are used for legal purposes as outlined in this post.

Turn off "generating thumbnails" in iMovie?

Joined
Jan 15, 2011
Messages
27
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Is it possible to turn this off? I have some files I am trying to import and it takes like 30-45 minutes to "generate thumbnails". I don't need it to generate thumbnails. This is absolutely insane. This is with "optimize video" unchecked. If I had that checked, it would take like 2 hours to import one file. I really don't understand how iMovie is even used, if I wanted to import all these videos I have, it would take like 2 days.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
2,511
Reaction score
134
Points
63
Location
Warrington, UK
Your Mac's Specs
PPC Mini, 10.4.11. Intel Mini, 10.6.8. MacBook Pro, 10.14.6. M1 MBA 11.6.3 iPhone 5 iOS 12.5,
I really don't understand how iMovie is even used, if I wanted to import all these videos I have, it would take like 2 days.
iMovie is a basically a video editor to allow you to edit video footage, add music and sound and then share to various destinations. It sounds like you are wanting to use it to a bit like iTunes, but for videos.
 
C

chas_m

Guest
... and that would be incorrect. :)

iMovie absolutely has to have those thumbnails in order to allow you to scrub through the footage and find scenes quickly. It doesn't really work without them.

If you just want to play videos, QuickTime Player will play them, or you could put them into iTunes, which is handy for syncing them to mobile devices.
 
Joined
Dec 4, 2012
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
1
... and that would be incorrect. :)

iMovie absolutely has to have those thumbnails in order to allow you to scrub through the footage and find scenes quickly. It doesn't really work without them.

If you just want to play videos, QuickTime Player will play them, or you could put them into iTunes, which is handy for syncing them to mobile devices.

How about this scenario: I want to import home movies. iMovie creates .dv files and that's all I need. I don't need thumbnails.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Import home movies from where/what format?

And convert them to .dv why? e.g. to play them where/on what device?
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
2,511
Reaction score
134
Points
63
Location
Warrington, UK
Your Mac's Specs
PPC Mini, 10.4.11. Intel Mini, 10.6.8. MacBook Pro, 10.14.6. M1 MBA 11.6.3 iPhone 5 iOS 12.5,
And convert them to .dv why?
That's what iMovie does when you import, certainly with my MiniDV camcorder. For other formats it creates AIC files.

How about this scenario: I want to import home movies. iMovie creates .dv files and that's all I need. I don't need thumbnails.
That's fine. iMovie stores your imports in Home Folder>Movies>iMovie Events>Your Import. However, your import will (usually)be split into separate clips based each time you started/stopped filming. Not ideal for playing back.

Using iMovie you can put the clips in a Project, edit out all the rubbish and export as a single movie file. For that you need the Thumbnails.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
But, it converts for the purpose of editing - hence the thumbnails...

If in the case of the poster above me is not to edit, but merely to re-encode their media to another format, there may be much better alternatives out there than iMovie.

Hence, an attempt to get at what they're trying to do in lieu of figuring out how to do some work around with a software that's not necessarily designed for that specific task.
 
Joined
Dec 4, 2012
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
1
To expound:

I have: video tapes
I want: video files
Why? To consolidate the video and to preserve its quality.

When I started this project, I tried importing the digital 8 tapes into Final Cut Pro, but there were timecode breaks everywhere. It's been so long I don't remember exactly why this rendered Final Cut Pro useless as an import tool, but I think it was because I could have it care about or not care about the timecode. If it cared about the timecode, it was unusable for a reason I don't remember. If it did not, the video and audio got completely out of sync. So I did an Internet search and the majority of people seemed to agree that if you had video with a bunch of timecode breaks, it's better just to import it with iMovie.

Yes, it resulted in a bunch of tiny clips. Moreover, since I was already using iMovie by this point, I imported the analog tapes, which I also have, via Canopus ADVC-55 using iMovie as well. I don't remember whether I tried Final Cut Pro for the analog tapes, but my confidence in it was already lost after the audio/video sync issues, with it going about its jolly business and handing me an out-of-sync video clip. For the analog tapes, iMovie gave me one clip for the entire tape, which was good enough for me. Again, the highest priority is to get the content of the tapes onto a hard drive lest the analog tapes continue to degrade, and also free up the space they've been taking up in my cabinet.

So ideally, with all of the remaining digital 8 and VHS-C (via ADVC-55) tapes I have left, I would have a tool that:
- Imports them with no audio/video sync issues
- Imports them without a significant loss of quality
- Makes only one video clip, not several for each timecode break or blank frame
- Does not import while the tape is blank
- Stops importing once the tape is at the end and saves a video file with a usable format, like .dv
- Does not spend time on tasks that I don't require (like generating thumbnails). I don't need thumbnails, as there are plenty of programs that can edit .dv files without them, and I'm not going into every video to tweak little pieces of it, I may just take the entire .dv file, or even several, and put it onto a DVD.

The thumbnail generation is a time-waster because while it's generating thumbnails, I could instead be importing another tape. So if you have suggestions for a workaround or a better or more appropriate tool for what I'm doing, I'd love to hear it.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
2,511
Reaction score
134
Points
63
Location
Warrington, UK
Your Mac's Specs
PPC Mini, 10.4.11. Intel Mini, 10.6.8. MacBook Pro, 10.14.6. M1 MBA 11.6.3 iPhone 5 iOS 12.5,
I, like you I'm sure, can't find anything on the net that indicates that you can import video using the Canopus without using something like iMovie or Final Cut as the importing Application.

However, with Elagato's Video Capture you import using the included Elgato software which imports the footage as a single video file.
Video Capture - Turn analog into digital video
 
Joined
Dec 4, 2012
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Thanks - that was actually what I tried before buying the ADVC-55. As I recall, the output from the elgato looked pretty good (better than I had expected actually), but I wanted something better. Still, I think that would be probably the best option for many people in a similar circumstance (and maybe I'm just picky).
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2013
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Elgato EyeTV

I've been using Elgato for years, both to convert VHS tapes and to watch/record antenna TV. Works fine, the only confusion at first being that the hardware is called the same thing as the accompanying software. They're both EyeTV. They/it allows me to use my MacPro (with disk farm) as a digital TV recorder. -------
Don't know why there would be any untoward degradation. Tape gives analog output that is low quality to start with compared to today's standards. A/D should be pretty much A/D.
 
Joined
Dec 4, 2012
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Don't know why there would be any untoward degradation. Tape gives analog output that is low quality to start with compared to today's standards. A/D should be pretty much A/D.

You can read about the various errors to which an ADC is prone at Analog-to-digital converter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As it happens, my analog content spans four decades and there are some tapes that demonstrate conversion errors rather poignantly.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2013
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
I'm a little surprised that you say "some tapes that demonstrate conversion errors rather poignantly." I haven't converted all of my collection of VCR and other tapes yet and so would like to know more about your experience.

The wikipedia reference is standard electrical engineering. Audio CD's have the same kind of errors built in, too, but offer better fidelity than records. The goal in product design is to make the electronic errors not unnoticeable, and the EE has lots and lots of low-cost, high-performance A/D chips to choose from. Flat screen TV sales from Korea are supplanting those from Japan even though the visual display is not quite as good. It's because they are cheaper and the degradation isn't quite noticeable.

Tapes don't have conversion error. Tapes have quality and play problems and it is the conversion process that has conversion errors. So to ask my question let's start with definitions of three version of any given video: A = original VHS, C1 = a digital version, C2 another different digital version made from different A/D conversion hardware.

I find that A degrades with time, that C1 is about like A if A is of good quality, but that C1 is worse than A if A is of poor quality. I don't have a C2 to compare. Are you saying that C1 and C2 can be markedly different?
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top