??? iMovie and external firewire drives ????

Hi,
I'm trying to import some home movies from my camcorder into imovie and then burn them to an external DVD.

Problem is I have a laptop that is almost full. I want to have the clips imported to my external hard drive and work in iMovie off my external hard drive. How do I do it?? is there a way to change the directory where the clips are saved?

Hardware I'm using: powerbook 667, sony double layer DRU-800A in firewire enclosure, 260 Gigabyte external firwire hard drive, Panasonic PV-DV203 camcorder.

Seperate extra video question: I also have our wedding tape on VHS, that I would ultimately like to transfer to DVD. Is there a way to do this without buying an expensive video bridge? My VCR has S-Video, composite and RCA's out.


Thanks!!

dflint said:

Hi,
I'm trying to import some home movies from my camcorder into imovie and then burn them to an external DVD.

Problem is I have a laptop that is almost full. I want to have the clips imported to my external hard drive and work in iMovie off my external hard drive. How do I do it?? is there a way to change the directory where the clips are saved?

Hardware I'm using: powerbook 667, sony double layer DRU-800A in firewire enclosure, 260 Gigabyte external firwire hard drive, Panasonic PV-DV203 camcorder.

Seperate extra video question: I also have our wedding tape on VHS, that I would ultimately like to transfer to DVD. Is there a way to do this without buying an expensive video bridge? My VCR has S-Video, composite and RCA's out.


Thanks!!

Click to expand...

Just take your movie project out of the Movies folder (usually the default area) and drag it to your external drive. You can also use finder to find the movie files as well. After you do that you can open it up from external and it should save all work done there after to the FW hard drive. You should be able to hook up your writer thorugh the firewire drive and burn it through there if you have an extra port.

For your wedding video if your cam has AV in/out then hook that up to the camera then hook it up to your vcr av in/out in the back. Then your mini DV cam should have a DV firewire input, if so hook that up and then hook the other firewire end into your computer. Set your cam to VCR or VTR then hit import in iMovie and play on your vcr and the footage should record to your hard drive. The camera becomes your bridge to move the footage.

Sorry if this totally confuses you but I am better at showing people first-hand rather than trying to instruct with words. I have had to do this before and it is very simple it's just tougher to explain like this.

If you want just PM me through my messenger if you use yahoo which is in my profile. I would be happy to guide you through the process since I have my stuff hooked up at the moment from my last project.

thanks for the reply.
I have tried what you suggested for the imovie clips, but unfortunately it copies the clip back to my laptops HD when I try to edit it. Then I end up with two copies of the movie clip. I guess there is no way to change the movie clip directory.... that was pretty short sited on apples part, considering the size of digital video files. I copies the clips in the user/movies/folder.

I thought of what you suggested by using the camcorder as the bridge, unfortunately my camcorder only has a s-video out.

Open up your video clip in iMovie as you normally do. The under the file menu so a save as. Then select the external disk a the target to save your data. The next time you open up that video, it should be pointing to the external disk.

If you create a new movie project, just point it to your external disk.

All of this is so easy on Final Cut.....