Confused about imovie file names

Hi - can anyone help me out with understanding some imovie terminology?
I seem to have duplicates of all the clips I've uploaded from my camera. One clip is in
New Event (the date of the event is here)>imovie thumbnails>imovie cache>cache.mov

and then there is a copy in
New Event (the date of the event is here)>imovie cache>cache.mov
- there's no thumbnails folder in that one!

Are both folders necessary? They both take equal amounts of memory and there are a lot of these duplicate pairs. Can I ditch one to save space? If so which?

I also have a number of clips which have just been stored as Cache.mov
What does the Cache bit mean? Also is mov the best format to save on?

A more recent set of clips I've uploaded are also duplicated. This time again it's a case of the thumbnail folder being present with one version and the duplicate not having it. With these clips the one with the imovie thumbnails folder doesn't have a file ending, the one which doesn't have a thumbnails folder has a .dv file ending!

Can anyone explain how and why this has happened and what I can do to simplify things as I have masses of movie files and I can see this becoming unmanageable unless I do a bit of clearing things up!

Thanks

First. Do NOT muck with things in the iMovie Events folder. EVER! Second, also don't mess with the iMovie Projects folder. iMovie manages those.

bobolu said:

Hi - can anyone help me out with understanding some imovie terminology?
I seem to have duplicates of all the clips I've uploaded from my camera. One clip is in
New Event (the date of the event is here)>imovie thumbnails>imovie cache>cache.mov

and then there is a copy in
New Event (the date of the event is here)>imovie cache>cache.mov
- there's no thumbnails folder in that one!

Are both folders necessary? They both take equal amounts of memory and there are a lot of these duplicate pairs. Can I ditch one to save space? If so which?

I also have a number of clips which have just been stored as Cache.mov
What does the Cache bit mean? Also is mov the best format to save on?

A more recent set of clips I've uploaded are also duplicated. This time again it's a case of the thumbnail folder being present with one version and the duplicate not having it. With these clips the one with the imovie thumbnails folder doesn't have a file ending, the one which doesn't have a thumbnails folder has a .dv file ending!

Can anyone explain how and why this has happened and what I can do to simplify things as I have masses of movie files and I can see this becoming unmanageable unless I do a bit of clearing things up!

Thanks

Click to expand...

The iMovie Cache folders appear to hold reference files. This is difficult to explain. Basically it is file that describes characteristics of another self contained movie file(s). It looks to me that it is somewhat representative of your project. I'm not absolutely sure about that last sentence as I've just looked at it.

The iMovie Thumbnails folder contains smaller versions of the files involved in your project. This allows for the quick skimming through the video. If you tried that with a full sized video, it would be slow. The files should be smaller in both screen dimension and usage of disk space compared to the file you imported.

I would expect the dv imports to also have thumbnails that end in .dv too.

iMovie 08 & 09 can use other drives for your events and projects. This can be managed by using iMovie via the appropriate drag & drop technique. If you want to move a project of event, I believe the proper way to hold the option key while dragging the icon to the other device. An event or project master folder will be created on the top level of that external drive and the files placed into that. Play with something small to understand this.

Thanks for your help. I'l try out what you suggested and leave well alone with the folders.