iMovie Export/Finalize for Re-edits/Completion Later

Hello,

I have 4 years of home video footage that I am currently going through. I have researched the two questions below, but am unable to find the answers to them.

1. Right now, in iMovie I am just creating a project, adding all of the clips per year/subject, and deleting the unwanted clips. I would like to save these projects on my external hard drive for future edits (adding themes, transitons, music, etc). Is it best to finalize, or export? How do I transfer this to my external drive, and will I lose any quality doing so? In the end, I want to burn these projects into the best quality DVDs.

2. Going along with question #1, the purpose of creating projects to work on at a later date is to get rid of the numerous un-needed footage currently in iMovie. How do I get this un-needed footage off of my hard drive after the above (necessary, editable) files are saved to my external drive? I am running out of hard drive space on my computer and it is time to clear out some unusable clips. My main and major concern is keeping only the files/footage I want to edit at a later date.

I feel like I'm pretty computer saavy, but don't want to risk losing these files for future edits.

Thanks so much.

Anybody?

Which version of iMovie are you using? The mention of Finalizing seems to indicate iMovie11(v9). If so, then with your external drive connected, it's icon will appear in the Project Library in the iMovie window. Just drag and drop your Project from the Library onto the icon. You will be asked if you want to transfer the associated Events as well. In your case, say Yes, and then you can delete the same Events from your Mac.

With regards to Finalizing, all that does is create versions of your Project in all resolutions that it can support, and make them available to other Applcations via the Media Browser. If you don't want this, then don't bother.