Help! why iMovie app stalls when skimming over movie clips? too big a file?

Question

Hello all,
I've only been using a Mac for about a year; and am pretty new to using iMovie as well. I have a Core 2 Duo- Macbook with OS X 10.4.11 and 3 gig of RAM. Anyway, forgive if I don't use the correct terminology:
Okay I know my screencapture vido clips (.mov format) are about 30-67mb. I'm only loading one at a time that I need to work with in the 'New Event" section.
Even if I turn off every application, disable spotlight, take out the widget apps, background running apps, and turn off wireless, I still get the iMovie app...
...um how to describe...hmm.....well....that pinwheel/hourglass....."please wait a sec' thing comes up whenever I take my mouse and try to skim a SHORT amount of video (with no audio i might add). So if I move it then it takes several seconds for the app to catch up and then play the part that i skimmed over. I don't have to move it far or fast. This is happening even though I have added the movie from New Event to the project space.
Ah, I just looked more carefully and this 'catching up' thing is happening no matter what I'm doing like even trying to get to the menu or close part of the project window. And I might add my fan is gets louder and faster a few seconds after trying to do anything in iMovie and goes down after I do something else shortly afterwards. I noticed on the Activity monitor that it's taking ALOT of CPU power to just skim over little bits of video (or so it seems from the spikes in the visual meter in green 'user' bar part)
What's up with this?
Please help as I'm trying to finish this graduate school webpage project that needs to be turned in tomorrow (yeah I know, I procrastinated :-P
I'm also trying to save money from calling Apple Support and pay them because I didn't pay for that extended care plan
Bri

Answer 1

Okay thanks for that explanation of things. I had forgotten about having data/media on a separate HD. I should have remembered that from when I've dabbled in creating music and had read to store one's audio and other data on a separate drive.
So, yes all my media is stored in the same folder and just on the main drive. Also, in the import settings i chose for the files to be copied to where ever it copies them. I thought that might help. Was that a good choice or.....?
I guess in the long term I need to switch to my external drive. However, I'm not at my house at the moment, and can't use the drive because I have to learn to config it anyway into two separate partitions and formats for storing PC stuff on and Mac stuff...currently have a PC-NTFS formatted partition with PC data and haven't taken the time to learn how to do the other partitioning for the Mac.
I need to figure out how I can deal with this stuff between today and tomorrow
So from the info above in the other reply I guess the Mpeg 4 format is not acceptable then for a format as you talk about making it easier to scrubb? I did a quick screen capture to see which file formats I can save stuff in. So are you saying I should have saved the files in DV-PAL format? BTW, I don't have any audio recorded with the file. It's just a visual presentation. also BTW, the reason I chose the mpeg 4 was in thinking that it might be better with the file size when converting the finished iMovie and then converting it to a Flash .flv file so I can put a small video on a webpage.
So would I need to re-save the clips somewhere to another format? Hmm which app would re-save a current video file if I need to do that: iMovie, Flash, Quicktime, iDVD, and Dreamweaver is the stuff I have that would deal with any kind of video.
I hope all this doesn't end up being that I need to use my external HD which I don't have the time to research/re-read that info for dual formatting a drive for PC and HD. Unfortunately, I've got three assignments to do with the time I have today (Tues.) and tomorrow, then school is finished.
Brian
Message was edited by: BRian_D.
Message was edited by: BRian_D.
Message was edited by: BRian_D.
Message was edited by: BRian_D.