Capture with iMovie – good or bad?

Hi there
I have heard various opinions, but I am not sure what to make of whether having iMovie as part of your workflow is a good idea or not.
On trips we sometimes use 2 camcorders, and on returning it is very useful to import the footage using iMovie 8 for cataloging. One reason for this is the fact that it names the file according to the capture timestamp, making it possible to order all the clips according to capture time. The cameras are HDV, and iMovie converts the clips to the Intermediate Codec.
My question is, for the enthusiastic amateur, does this workflow have negative impact on the quality of the footage, and if so is this effect enough to consider a change in workflow? The projects are done in FCP eventually and output on SD DVD.
Any help appreciated
-hannes

Shane's Stock Answer #20: Using iMovie to Capture for use in FCP.
iMovie handles the media differently from FCP, specifically where audio is concerned. So it is not a recommended workflow. Here's why...
iMovie captures using DV Stream (.dv) standard which does not use timecode. That is a big disadvantage over the way that FCP captures in that you can't go back and recapture the material at a later date if you need to revisit a project.
The DV/NTSC specification (the one FCP uses) also calls for seperate tracks for audio and video, even if you capture it as one clip. iMovie' DV stream format is muxed audio and video, which means that they are tied together (I can't get into specifics because I ain't no engineer or programmer). FCP is a bit more demanding and captures the seperate audio/video tracks, either in a single media file or as seperate video and audio files. With FCP you could capture video only or audio only because each is defined by the DV specs. while with iMovie you can't.
Also, if you drop the iMovie footage into the timeline, your will get the RED render bar forcing you to render the footage in order to see it. You can use either QT Pro or Compressor to convert the .dv footage into DV/NTSC in order for FCP to work with it without needing to render.
Shane

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