How can i create smaller editable files into i movie?

Question

hi first time posting here. i've been working on a family project for a while now and recently decided to add additional footage to an existing imovie i made before. this new footage was coming from a cousin's video cam. she first made a vhs copy of the footage for me and then i used my vhs/dvd recorder to turn it into a dvd. i opened it in my macbook, quit dvd player and opened the mounted disc. i then moved the individual vob files intoi toast titanium and then exported the files so i could manage them in imovie. at first i exported them into dv files. these were HUGE when i imported them into imovie although they were manageable files while on the desktop. i watched my gig availability shrink from 25gb to 11gb after importing a 10 minute clip. i've tried exporting from toast into a quicktime movie file, but somehow, this clip, when imported into imovie also becomes HUGE and somehow not manipulatable. how can i prevent this increase in the size of a clip when i import it into imovie and keep the file available for editing, trimming, etc? please help. thanks scott
macbook   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Answer 1

Hi scojjtoe - first of all, the work-flow is such that quality is an issue:
Assuming your cousin's camera is DV then the source footage has gone from DV, down-graded into VHS, then converted to MPEG in DVD (i.e compressed), then re-formatted once more into DV! Was there no other way of proceeding? Even recording the VHS onto your own DV vidcam would have removed one source of degradation.
When importing into iMovie, your file will be increased in size, as it will be turned into Full Quality DV (I think that is why the bloating has occurred, anyway). However, a 10 minute clip should be about 2 GB, unless that 10 minutes is actually part of a much bigger source clip - remember that iMovie uses non-destructive editing, so a source clip is retained if any part of it is used.