Frustrated with iMovie 08

I upgraded to a dual G5 2.0 earlier this year from a G4. This brought along with it the upgrade to iMovie 08. So far, it has been one huge exercise in frustration. I haven't had much of a learning problem with Final Cut Express, Aperture, and other programs as I've had with this rather irritating upgrade.
Here's my problem. I have two drives, the primary boot and a secondary drive. I have located all the recent movie files that iPhoto has stored on the secondary drive. I see them, they are there, I can view them through iPhoto and also through the finder.
iMovie, in the Event Library, shows the boot drive with "iPhoto Videos" listed under it. My videos are not on that drive. The event library also shows the secondary drive. Although all my videos are stored on the secondary drive, nothing shows up as being available on the 2nd drive through the Event Library. It simply gives the name of the drive, not listing any videos, even if I click on the "secondary drive" label in the event library.
I wouldn't mind this odd discrepency if the Boot Drive were to show all my videos. If it wants to be goofy and show the videos as being on the boot drive, although they are easily found via the finder on the secondary drive, I'd just keep moving on. However, the crux of the problem is as follows....
iMovie is showing only part of my videos that it displays on the boot drive. I finished downloading this morning all of the christmas 2008 videos and the new years party from last night. Nothing is showing up in iMovie or through the event library, although I can see the movies in iPhoto and I confirmed they are in the normal location in the secondary drive under the iPhoto library.
I had iMovie go through its long slow process of building previews and such. Restarted the computer, all that stuff. For whatever reason, iMovie is only showing portions of the videos I have imported into iPhoto. Some it shows, some it doesn't. Worked fine for thanksgiving videos, but christmas videos and last nights New Years videos aren't visible to (or in) iMovie.
Help?
Two frustrations that are pressing to me, besides the generally slow irritable clunky nature of iMovie:
#1 - why are the videos only showing up as available randomly? Some are there, some aren't, despite the actual videos being all together and visible to iPhoto in the same file
#2 - why does the event library show the videos as being on one drive when in fact, they are on the other drive?
Any insight is appreciated.
Message was edited by: TexasMan_Luvs_Hismac

Am I off track here anyone? I'm hoping this is an option that doesn't end up costing me later some regret.
I would think you could copy, alias, and/or convert files at the Finder level without creating any problems but I would not remove (move/delete) files at the finder level and then expect iPhoto to understand fully what is happening. My personal preference is to convert files to my "Easy Setup..." default editing compression format so as to avoid rendering during the editing process or as prerequisite to the final export. (If you are comfortable re-rendeing within FCE, then this is of little or no consequence.)
ADDED: As an experiment, I just aliased some iPhoto package files and moved the aliases to a visible external location. FCE treated the files as if they were the originals, FCE item properties point to and access the original files still in iPhoto, and, since, FCE is non-destructive, the original files remain safe and useable by iPhoto in their original location. You might consider this as an alternative to physically removing and/or copying your original files as physical "standalone" files.

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sdharwadker wrote:
However, when I finalize the project, the darker hues in my footage always come out pixelated and crappy. Whether it's 1080p or 480p, this is always the case.
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