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Question re: Importing in iMovie08

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I have a 25 minute video, 346.5 mb in size.

iMovie 08 is telling me its going to take 395 minutes to import this file into iMovie. That sounds completely insane to me!

I saw on some other forum that someone recommended converting the mp4 into a dv file, and then importing. Should I follow this advice? Will it help me at all? What should I actually do?
 
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I also tried using MPEG Streamclip...the In and Out thing is great, but when I ripped the selection, it did audio only... I can't figure out why..
 
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The 395 minutes is probably a lie. Just try it. ****, do when you go to sleep.

To get further help from someone, I think you need to say what codec the video is in. The MPEG Streamclip experts might have some suggestions then.
 
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The codec says: H.264, AAC

So I let it go overnight. Now I'm trying to export a 5 min 30s clip from the aforementioned video and iMovie says its going to take 120 minutes!

How is this possible? I've used iMovie before, and I know it pretty well - I've never had these problems before!

Any help :/
 
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I can't see how a re-install would help.

Did the 5 min clip actually take 120 minutes to import?

What kind of hardware are you running on?

What is the container file type? Where are the files coming from?
 
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The 5 minute clip didn't quite take 120min, but it was still about....75-80 min.

I have a 2.16 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo. 2 GB RAM. (It's a 3 year old Macbook)

The files came from a DVD that I ripped using HandBrake. So - the file I initially used was an mp4 at 346.5 MB (which mind you, took 7 hours approx to just bring into iMovie).

Again, I've used iMovie before, and it's never been this difficult.
 
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Interesting. Have you loaded any new codec software lately? Updated anything related?

This isn't the first time I've seen someone ask about long imports. Sorry I don't have any links, although I'm sure it has been asked here a couple of times too. Trying to track this kind of thing down is a pain.

Have you tried using another tool to first convert the file to some friendlier QuickTime format?
 
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No recent codec software.

I tried another video and it actually worked normally! 30-35 min to go into iMovie, and 20 to export a movie file. So that ended up working...

I didn't try converting the file to a "friendlier QuickTime format", but what do you recommend if I run into a situation like this again??
 
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Having never had this problem, I don't have a recommendation.

People like MPEG Streamclip, but it looks like you need to find the formula that works for you.
 

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