Capturing in iMovie vs FCE

Hello all,
I have just returned from vacation with a little over two hours of film and as I wait for FCE to arrive, I am wondering exactly what the difference is between capturing this footage with iMovie and FCE because I could just capture it now and then edit in a few days with Final Cut. I know that there is another post about this recently, but I don't really know enough about timecodes etc. that are involved in the explanation. Any enlightenment would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

In Anthony thread "Backing up unedited family video: Should I capture using FCE or iMovie?" I explain my ideas about capturing in iMovie vs FCE. See:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2950085#2950085
In that post I suggest that capturing in iMovie might be a possibility in some specific cases where recovering unused media files is important. However, there are two major assumptions when working in FCE:
- you do not need timecode
- you accept to render audio of all imported clips from iMovie
Timecode
It is a counter in the format like 00:01:00:12 (here meaning 0 hours 1 min. 0 seconds and 12 frames) that is recorded by the camcorder while shooting video and audio.
This is not saved by iMovie into the .dv files it creates during capturing; instead it is saved by FCE/P into the QT movie during capturing.
FCE makes use of it to reconnect media and capture project, even though it does NOT display it in its interface.
(Note: what is called "timecode" in the timeline, viewer, and canvas windows has the same format but refers to the beginning of the clip or of the sequence, NOT to the original timecode recorded by the camcorder)
Audio rendering.
The .dv format recorded by iMovie during capturing is not a native format for FCE. FCE can import it as I think most video/audio format, but it has to convert it by rendering.
This isn't a major issue in my opinion (others may disagree...) if: a. you don't mind waiting for audio rendering the first time you import from iMovie; and b. you use the following steps to prevent from rendering more times:
- import the clips from iMovie to the browser
- drag the clips to the timeline (all of them get a render red bar for audio)
- render all (opt-R) (the only time you do it because of the iMovie import...)
- drag back the rendered clips to the browser
- delete the original imported clips
Now in the browser you have clips ready for editing that do not require more audio rendering than any other clip directly captured by FCE.
I hope this answers your question
Piero

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