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I'm trying to import a 10 minute movie and it takes almost an hour.
So even as an mp4 it's probably going to be quite a big size, and then iMovie converts it to DV format, but an hour seems a long time. Not worked with HD footgae myself so can't really judge it against anything that I've done.HD file from a Hauppauge HD PVR
So even as an mp4 it's probably going to be quite a big size, and then iMovie converts it to DV format, but an hour seems a long time. Not worked with HD footgae myself so can't really judge it against anything that I've done.
Actually, that's quite small for a 20 minute clip. Digitla Video(DV) works out at about 12GB per hour.20 minutes is almost a Gig.
Actually, that's quite small for a 20 minute clip. Digitla Video(DV) works out at about 12GB per hour.
A couple of tests that I've just done are as follows:
A 500mb DV clip took 1 minute to import, equating to 1GB every 2 minutes. Because it was DV it didn't need converting.
A 4GB Quicktime video(.mov) took 15 minutes equating to 1 GB every 7 minutes or so. This one had to be converted to DV hence the longer time.
What size are you HD clips? Full size HD(1929x1280) takes up 40GB of HDD per hour, whereas 960x540 video only occupies 13GB per hour. iMovie should give you an import size option.
Also, which Mac and how much RAM do you have.May not be related, but how much free space do you have on your hard drive? If it's too full it could be bogging down.
This has to be the stupidest thing I've come across, as the forever conversion seems completely unnecessary for the application to function. perhaps it's a safety net for certain other formats.
I know this is old, but I ran into this earlier and came across this thread in a google search. As it turns out, it takes forever because it converts the video to .mov container (DV format). I found through further searching that you can instead just drop the videos into your imovie project data folder and it will use them without converting. It still takes a few minutes to process (1 hr .m4v 1920x1080 clip took 12 minutes on my new Air, instead of 9 hours as previously estimated through normal import), I suppose indexing or something, but much better.
Specifically, in your home folder, go to Movies -> iMovie Events -> (project name), and drop in your video there. When you start iMovie it should start processing the files, but it didn't actually convert the files. They just popped up in my event library ready to use.
This has to be the stupidest thing I've come across, as the forever conversion seems completely unnecessary for the application to function. perhaps it's a safety net for certain other formats.