Archiving Mini-DV Tapes - iMovie or QuickTime 7 Pro?

Hello,
I've been through many similar posts here and on the Internet. Like many, I have mini-dv tapes that need to be archived to an external hard drive for storage and editing, later. After considerable research, I am inclined to select either iMovie 6 HD or QuickTime 7 Pro as the capture and editing application of choice:
Due to the skip field issue on interlaced source material, it appears that iMovie 6 HD does support interlaced source without resolution compromises. It's not clear whether the skipped field occurs at capture as some purport or as a new project; regardless, the skipped field negates iMovie 8, 9, 11, and probably 2013 (mavericks) consideration for capture and, moreso, editing mini-dv imported video.
QT7 Pro has been suggested by some as having some strong file format/conversion features. In addition, while its' editing features may be more limited, this application merits consideration if it truly provides a long-term archival format capability. The native .mov format appears to be a historical main-stay for Apple (notwithstanding iMovie 2013). And, the appeal of QT7 Pro is its' ability to import mini-dv tapes continuously without multiple clips and time-code issues.
Final Cut Pro is not part of this thread's objective despite obvious strengths.
It all boils-down to which would be the best (lossless transfer/no compression) capture application (iMovie 6 HD or QT7 Pro) and lowest common denominator file format (dv or .mov or other) for long term archival and editing at a future time.....
Suggestions?

My preference would be iMovie 6 as DV files.

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Where do I find them
By clicking on the link I provided in my first post (the purple-colored word is a link).
Apple offers do support from their poeple. We are left on our own. Great racket.
Sure they do. But you have to call them. And you don't get free support for a $30.00 product, nor for video formats that Apple doesn't support. That's why Apple (at significant expense) provides these forums; so people can get help from other users for those issues that Apple can't handle.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

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< putting hands of ears... aahh! good! >
same here: I'm not a 100%, what iwaddah tries to accomplish, I stumble over "QTpro" and "image sequence"...
QTpro allows the conversion of a socalled image sequence into a dv; e.g. you do cellpaintings for a toon, you open that sequence - voila! => video...
buuuuut:
these files have all to be the same size, rotation, aspect ratio and have to fullfill some specs in naming (consequtive, pic001, pic002...)
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a Svedish, a Dubai, a German - talking English, trying to understand each other - I LOVE the iNet...

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Problem with create archive from mini-DV tape

I have a fairly large collection of homemade mini-DV tapes. They are getting a bit old and I would like to back them up to my computer as well as have easy access to the footage with FCP.
The tapes were made on a Sony TRV8 camcorder (either directly or as backups of older VHS tapes). I am using the same camcorder for playback.
The camera shows up as expected in FCP. My goal is to "Create Archive" on each tape. Here is where I ran into some problems.
My first tape ran about halfway through - around the 30 min mark and gave me a "end of tape" message. The footage was captured properly, but there is still half the tape to go. I tried a second time and only reached the 5 minute mark when the archiving ended with an "end of tape" message. I am on my third try as I type this and have made it to the 15 minute mark.
I thought to possibly create multiple archives, picking up where I left off. However, whenever I select "create archive" FCP insists on rewinding the tape to the start. This behavior differs from the Apple KB article which states archiving will start from the current position of the tape.
Adding to the problem is an issue of jittering playback.
When I playback using the camera controls of the "play" button in the import window, things are fine. When "Create Archive" handles the playback on its own, the pictures jumps as if it is on a trampoline. Sometimes I am able to hit "stop" and then "play" to get a normal playback - sometimes hitting stop stops the archive with an "end of tape" message.
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The bit about archiving from the current tape position is from Apple:
"Final Cut Pro begins archiving from the current location on the tape."
From Final Cut Pro X: Create and manage camera archives
Last updated 9.16.14
Obviously, that is wrong.
The part about archiving ignoring timecode and just archiving the entire tape I have read in several online forum posts. Some I believe are in this forum. These same folks usually advise to use archive rather than import in a bad TC scenario. Again, it seems that wrong information.
I am now simply doing an "import" of a tape, which appears to be working as expected. Seems either the age of the tape and/or the playback device is causing less than perfect timecode. Lot's of stutters resulting in a single "scene" being imported as many separate clips. I understand what you mean by assembling when ready to edit, but this is not practical. It looks like some areas are broken down to clips of 1-2 seconds (some even less).
What a mess. I'm looking for a mini-DV player as I suspect my camcorder may be the culprit. Not easy to find one.
Seems I will have to assemble the multiple clips to recreate the original. I am hoping I can then output the assembled sequences to DV files to maintain the "original" quality of the import (which should be the same as the tape since it is all digital). I would then create some FCP libraries to organize and store the clips.
Was really hoping to simply do the camera archive thing. My tapes are all cataloged and organized. Having a number of archives which match each tape would have saved a lot of time and trouble.
--and thanks for the help. It's a bit frustrating trying to preserve old tapes, especially when things don't work how you expect. Any workarounds or ideas to get a library of raw files out of this mess is appreciated. IF I can get that far, I plan to back up to M-disc.

Customising import of DV tapes using Quicktime Pro

Hi all,
I am trying to import a lot of DV tapes onto my Mac (and some other analogue stuffe that I route through the camcorder so it ends up in DV even if it originated from VHS), the ultimate aim is to have the videos available within iTunes so I can stream them to my Apple TV 2 after some minimal editing (cutting out bad bits mainly).
I have tried to import via iMovie, but it has the following drawbacks: Huge file sizes, spends ages creating thumbnails, and then is really really slow to encode into H.264 compared to something like Handbrake.
I am not *too* fussed about final image quality, I am more concerned with being able to complete the job without spending too much time. What I want to do is encode into H.264 during the import, and then quickly be able to cut out what I don't want, and save into iTunes. Quicktime Pro is the closest I have found, but it seems to have the following limitations: Very limited selection of encoders and sizes without any ability to customise means I can't choose an appropriate quality level - the best is only 640x480, with no info on bitrates etc. This should be fine for my analogue sources, but potentially no good for some stuff in genuine DV format. Also, there seems to be a limit on how long it will record for, which doesn't make a lot of sense as it's capping out on videos less than 200Mb in size leaving me with extra steps to combine the individual videos into a larger one (References movies are quick to make, but won't stream to the Apple TV 2)
Is there a way to customise these settings to ammend the import settings and increase the maximise size, either unofficially or not?
Many thanks for yout time.

In the interest of ripping this stuff with the least complexity possible I was wanting to use QTP, but it seems that using the "best" preset with a widescreen DV input provides a file that is only 640x360 encoded at 96kbps, which is a lot smaller than the input native and isn't really good enough for me sadly.
The stated data rate looks more like an audio data rate that a video or video + audio data rate. Since the preset must be compatible with both NTSC and PAL "standards," it appears Apple programmers lower, more universal settings for greater device compatibility.
I can select Device Native, but that would get me back into massive DV files again. Not sure if this would be better than using the Vidi Firewire Capture would be better or not than this setting?
The basic rule of thumb here is "you can never have enough hard drive space." I currently have 25 TBs in external hard drive space connected to my main iMac for recreational/non-professional use. And, while you may consider DV data rates/files to be massive, HDV data rates/files would quadruple yours and some Apple Animation data rates/files could easily quadruple the HDV data rates/files. As to the question of using Vidi, if you are going to capture your files as DV content and don't want to use iMovie or other video editor application, then Vidi would be the utility to use.
Either way, at a couple of hours long the timeline within QTP becomes too "small" to be able to select bits to cut with any accuracy as it is not zoomable unlike iMovie, but putting them in iMovie would then start with the old thumbnailing again...
The QT 7 Pro Player "time line" is zoomable to some degree. This "zoom" capability is related to the size of the player. If you expand the size of the player to fill your screen as much as possible, you can "scrub" the playhead in smaller relative increments. Basically you should start your edits by expanding the player as large as your display allows and scrub the playhead to the rough area of your edit and then refine the position of the playhead using the fast play and jog controls in the A/V pallet and finally use the left/right arrow keys to select the exact frame you wish to edit. With some practice, you should find this work flow to be fairly quick if/when you know what and how you wish to edit the file.
As an example, a 1 hour 58 minute 23 second and 15 frame 640x360 file displayed at its default size can scrub the playhead in approximately 15 second increments. If I expand the player to its maximum dimensions on my monitor, the "scrub" increment is reduced to about 4 second with fast play and/or jog able to refine the playhead location to within a few frames of where I want to be.
What I was doing to remove the bits I don't want in iMovie was to create a project, include the bits I want, then delete the events using the option to only remove unused elements. This is a yet further step which takes a long time, but then gives me chunks of files I can queue in handbrake and then stitch back together using QTP.
Most strategies fall into either a "subtractive" or and "additive" work flow. I normally make "rough cuts" in the first pass and place the results in an folder/bin for further refining later. Once I have everything sorted and trimmed, I then merge/join the DV clips to create a single file which is then converted all at once to the target compression format or, in frequent instance, to several different compression formats or variations dependent on target use—burning to DVD, burning to BD, TV viewing, posting to the internet, etc.
I just tried a native capture with QTP, and it gives me the following video settings:
DV, 720 x 576 (1024 x 576), Millions
16-bit Integer (Little Endian), 4.0 (L R _ _), 32.000 kHz
1024 x 576 pixels (Actual)
If I encode this with Handbrake using the Apple Universal I get:
H.264, 720 x 592, Millions
AAC, 2 channels, 32000 Hz
1033 x 592 pixels
I would normally encode the file using the source file standard. In my case that would the NTSC 720x480 (853X480) equivalent of your PAL 720x576 (1024x576) anamorphic DV import. Would also prefer the AAC audio track be encoded using a 48,0 KHz sampling rate at 160 Kbps since my DV audio is set for 16-bit/48.0 KHz. (I also include an DD5.1 passthrough at 448 or 640 Kbps if available.) You can create and save your own custom resets which is what I use for HandBrake conversions specifically targeting the TV2 device and which include additional analysis/motion prediction settings.
So it looks like getting QTP to encode into H.264 just won't do it well enough, even though it should be able to go better without extending beyond the limits of the source
If you are referring to the conversion of DV source files to H.264, then use the "Movie to MPEG-4" or "Movie to Quicktime" export option to enter your own custom target settings. However, nether of these export potions offer the same ease for setting up custom anamorphic encodes for custom dimensions as HandBrake does. (I personally prefer using HandBrake here.)
I think the size limit was CPU bound with it not keeping up with the input fast enough to real-time encode and thus stopping. It's not done it since.
That may well be the case. My old G5 processed files in handBrake at 4 to 6 time "real time." My MacBook Pro converts files in roughly "real time" using my custom HandBrake presets. On my new iMac the default TV2 HandBrake preset process at about 180 fps and at 70-90 fps using an even higher quality custom preset I just added. As you can see, the different CPUs involved cam make quite a difference in conversion speed.

PLEASE HELP! Quicktime Pro with iMovie and .MPG Files

Hello. Please help me. I'm on a G5. 10.5.3. iMovie 7.1.2 (577) I have a series of .MPG files that I need to import into iMovie to edit, arrange and then export over to iDVD, etc. iMovie does not see the .MPG files. The Apple site states that iMovie sees only MPEG-4 files and DV files. I also own Quicktime Pro 7.5 (149.5). When I open the .MPG file in Quicktime Pro, even though the file plays perfectly, when I select "Export to MPEG-4" so I can create a readable file by iMovie, I get an error message that say's "Failed: Export process terminated unexpectedly (10). Complete frustration. Is there another way I can convert these files so iMovie can see them? What's wrong with my Quicktime Pro? I bought DivX Pro last night. I thought maybe that program would make an iMovie readable file. No luck. I used DivX to convert and it created a DivX file with NO SOUND. Wasted money.
If anyone has any solutions for my problems noted here or possible alternatives so I can achieve what I'm trying to do successfully, PLEASE ADVISE as soon as possible.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and THANKS, in advance, for your help.

You'll get a ton of ideas from others so, by no means, don't think that mine will solve your issue. I, personally have fallen in love with [StreamClip|http://www.squared5.com>. It does a ton of stuff.
As for your Error 10, hopefully that's just an "out of space" (on your drive) error and not an I/O error (a problem with the drive reading/writing)
But, you said you have Quicktime Pro and you're going to iMovie so I'd try to make your .MPG files a DV Stream...I think that's what I movie likes.
Anyway try that,
Tom
----- !http://hockeynarrative.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/sharkslogo.gif!

What's faster: Importing a long film to imovie 6 or Quicktime Pro?

I'm making a "mix video" for someone and want to include a short clip (ten or fifteen seconds at most) from a movie that's almost two hours long (about 750MB). Considering that it will take about five hours to import the entire film to imovie HD just so I can isolate that small section and trash the rest, I thought it might be much easier and quicker to make the cut in Quicktime Pro 7. But I've never used Quicktime Pro 7 and am not sure how quick and painless that process would be. Does Quicktime Pro also require some sort of time-consuming importing process, or can I simply open the movie in Pro and edit out the parts I don't want in no time flat? If not, does anybody have any other suggestions?
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Provided that you are able to play the video and audio it shouldn't be a problem to save a selection out to a different format. If you want to keep it in avi format then follow this link:
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FastCut
http://www.timesforfun.de/
SimpleMovieX
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24972

Need to get mini dv tapes transfered to imovie...

Please, please anyone with any answers:
I have dozens of mini dv tapes. I need to get them in to digital format. I would love to get them in to imovie. My Sony handycam will not see the mac book pro and my mac book pro will not see the camera. ANY DEVICE is great, does any one know which device can do this??????
h e l p
D.

Not when they developed Firewire! 8^)
Your pro should have a FW 800 port, and you can get adapters to the 4pin firewire cable.
This shows the ports:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3629?viewlocale=en_US

Archiving Mini-DV Tapes - iMovie or QuickTime 7 Pro?

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