Constant disconnect after 9 minutes

Question

My boyfriend lives in Australia and I'm in the US - we Skype every day but it's extremely difficult
It disconnects every 8:50-9 minutes exactly during every call. A few times at 3 minutes or 6 minutes exactly. Sometimes when we call each other we cant hear each other at all and have to try again until it works - it can go on for 4-5 tries in a row. I don't know if this is Skype or a network error. It happens to us on Facebook video chat too after the same amount of time and the same issue with the occasional no audio.
My connections are fine but he's on mobile so I don't know if its his network cutting in and out or what but regardless I'd really like some help so that we can screenshare and watch DVDs together
Help is much appreciated!!

Answer 1

The behavior you describe isn't normal, snc. iMovie shouldn't interrupt the import at 9 minutes. There should be no pause to "convert" to DV. That's not typical of iMovie.
The entire video should import to iMovie direct to DV files inside the Media folder, starting a new file every 9+ minutes. That's the 2GB file-size limit for iMovie clips. There should be no pause. Importing should continue until the end of the video.
That said, it's possible there's a tape flaw that is confusing iMovie. A short break in the video at 9 minutes — where you stopped shooting, advanced the tape a bit, then started taping — would cause what you describe. Or, I suppose, a tape defect. Or even, I suppose, a dirty play head that's created an imperfect recording.
Some things to try:
• Try using a head-cleaning tape.
• Try recording longer than 11 minutes with a different tape, and import that. If the problem goes away, the problem is with the other tape.
• Is the project on an external disk? Make sure the disk the project resides on uses the Mac OS Extended disk format. If it's not, iMovie may be having problems saving to disk, causing the strange pause you see.
My guess is the problem will go away with a new tape.
Karl