Huge iMovie file

I've made many iMovies and iDVDs using iMovie6. I'm putting them on a LaCie 1TB external hard drive. The current movie that I'm making by cutting and pasting two movies together is about 2 hrs long and the file size is about 500GB! It hs 95 clips, they all say the same 12 GB size in the info.
All of the other movies have been fine. I'm not sure, but I think deleting from the the iMovie trash may not be sending them to the Finder trash.
My guess is that I need to copy the clips to a new iMovie and see if it becomes a normal size and if so delete the current iMovie.
Any ideas on what the problem and the fix are?

+The thing I don't understand is that I started with two tape import iMovies, each around 25 GB. After copying from one to combine it with the other to make one iMovie and editing clips, it became a 500 GB file.+
I speculate you edited your video after importing, and then dragged individual clips from one project into another. Every time you do that, the entire source clip is copied, even if you have trimmed it down to only a small portion. If you do that with another portion, it doesn't know that you already have a copy of the source clip in the other project, and copies the entire source clip again.
To clean that up, you have to export into a .dv file at full quality, and then export that into a new project. Do this only when you are done editing, as this will render all your effects and transitions, and you cannot modify them anymore afterwards.

Similar Messages

Huge iMovie file size.

I made 3 movies in Quicktime from Keynote presentations, sizes 4, 24 and 48 MB, but when I import them into iMovie, the project file grows up to 7+ GB. Could somebody tell me why this happens, and is there a way to make it smaller or am I doing something wrong. That takes up almost all my free hard drive space, and taht is only 1 of three project I want to create.
David

Hi David
Karsten is 100% on this I just want to speculate around how I would do.
Easiest way:
is to get an external hard disk BUT THIS SHOULD be:
- a FireWire disk - no USB/USB2 - will not behave if one stores video material on it and tries to work with is here
- has to be Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (journaled) - DOS/UNIX/Mac OS Exchange will not work
There should be at least 10Gb free space on internal hard disk (thumb-role
is 10% free space). at less than 5Gb the Mac OS gets problems due to that it
really is UNIX with a Mac interface. = lots of temp-files (invisible) and virtual
memory management.
Worse way:
Tidy up the internal hard disk so that it has about 10 - 25Gb free space by
storing old documents elsewhere - eg DVD disks, ext hard disks etc.
Yours Bengt W

Huge iMovie file won't fit DVD

Hi everyone! I have a wedding movie I have converted from my handy-cam into an iMovie. Duration about 1.5 hours. Size of file 18Gb. Is it possible to compress onto 1 DVD? If not what do you advise?
Many Thanks John Simpson

IMovie and iDVD use a very different storage format (DV vs MPEG2) so it will fit as long as the content length is below 120 minutes (or below 240 minutes with a dual layer DVD burner). Just set iDVD's prefs to "Best Quality".

Huge iMovie Project file to big to do anythin with

I imported my first movie clips from 2 super 8 video cassettes. Total run time 130 minutes. This created an iMovie file that is 26.65 GB large. Now I can't burn it to DVD or import it into iDVD. Too big. Why did this import to iMovie so large? Direct to DVD transfer fits on one (or 2) DVDs just fine.
Thanks
Harold

Hi Harold,
welcome to this forum
one hour of dv (which is the internal video compression codec of iM) = ~12Gb
BUT
a video-DVD produced with iDVD can fit up to 120 minutes (not GB...)
anything below 120min can easily transferred to iDVD by clicking on iDVD in iM....- don't care for Gigabytes....
you can seperate your project as discribed above (select a apart, export selection only), or cut off that 10minutes...
besides:
to my knowledge iDVD DOESN'T support double-layers....

Deleting imovie files after export

Can I delete my imovie folders for movies that i have finished and exported to a .mov file? The folders with the original imovie files are huge (17 gig on average) and I need the drive space. To make dvd's in the future do I only need the idvd project file and the exported .mov?
thanks,
Craig

Welcome to the forum, Craig.
To make dvd's in the future do I only need the idvd project file and the exported .mov?
To edit a DVD later you need 1) the iDVD project file and 2) the source movie you originally included on that DVD.
If you exported the iMovie project to a movie for iDVD, you don't need to keep the iMovie project any longer. You need to keep it only if you haven't exported the project to a movie for iDVD. If you still have the movie, it's okay to trash the entire iMovie project folder.
Note that iMovie 4 lets you make an iDVD project without exporting the iMovie project to a new movie.
Karl

Imovie File Storage

I had to capture HD footage using imove HD on my mac workbook pro. now I want to edit this content using Final Cut pro. does imovie store its clips like FCP does and I need to find this folder or does it have some other form of majic and I need to convert the 1hr of HD footage into a super huge 30GB file??? ok thanks??

Gregg's Mac wrote:
.. does imovie continue to reference the original file for future use or could the original file be deleted with no consequence? ..
iM does import any files 'physically' into its own Library, no 'ref links' ..
I'm a bit shy about deleting original files.. for two reasons:
does the original use a different codec than iMovie? e.g. the modern AVCHD-codec from some HDDcamcorders gets converted by iM08 .. probably you're allowed in the future to edit 'directly' AVCHD.. but, if your originals are allready 'iM08 compatible' no need to think abut that...
and: backups, backups, backups.. the 'original' is a copy of your Event.. if you erase it, you have to backup the Libary..

IMovie file too big?

hey guys! thanks for the GREAT help on converting a mpeg file for iMovie use. anyways new question now.
i just looked at the iMovie file im creating now and its 7 something gigabytes!! is that actually how big the converted quicktime movie will turn out to be? or will it be smaller once ive converted it? im just freaking out a little, because i want to distribute this to a few people and if it gets any bigger, itll be stuck in my computer useless! (sorry once again if this is a dumb question, this is my first imovie! how fun!)
thanks,
chris

no dumb question, just dumb answers...
iMovie uses a (mostly) lossless video compressor, called "dv" - same as on miniDV tapes... 1h video = ~13GB of data...
that huge files are needed, because you want in an edit app all 30/25 frames per second to edit, and b) you want the whole beauty of your shots...
but…
that is for edit.
when you playout to tape, the file size stays the same, a miniDV tape has 13GB/h storage...
using iDVD, which is an authoring, encoding and burning app, your huge file gets converted, from dv to mp2 - which is a delivery format (no single frames needed..), looks good, not editable... much smaller: 1h = ~2GB... besides: iDVD cares for length (<120min) of project, not size! an average 2h iM project contains at last 20 - 30GB => will fit on a 4.4Gb DVD!
when you want to use your video in the web, you have many options/other compressors to choose from... click share/Quicktime/expert options... at this point, you get lost as a beginner... anyhow..
you can reduce the resolution (e.g. 160x120), the framerate (e.g.15fps) and for sure the compressor (mp4/sorenson/h264) - and pronto, your file shrunks to some dozend MBs...

IMovie File Storage Recommendations

In short:
I want to keep all my clip material
And I want to be able to edit it again at a future date
But iMovie Help and tutorials doesn't explain the best way to manage the huge amount of digital file size this entails.
I am new to DV. I just converted my first old 2 hr analog tape through my DV camcorder into an iMovie project. Then I cut it down and burned an iDVD.
Now I've got this iMovie file taking up most of my available hard drive space (26MB) and I'm realizing there is no way I'm going to be able to convert a half dozen analog tapes and store them on the drive. I tried to export the iMovie file to an archive disk and it said it is too big.
I want to save all the original clip material in case I want to edit or use it much later on.
So the question is: how do people normally save and store all their iMovie clip material since after making a few hours of movies since the native file size is clearly way too big for a hard drive? Should I be saving it back on to my DV camcorder digital tapes? Or should/can I save segmented DVD archives (I couldn't see how to do that)? Are there different file formats I should consider? What is the most convenient and reasonable cost way to manage all the clip material?
thx
ed

Exporting the project to tape is a good backup solution. That helps get rid of unwanted material too. Only the content of the Timeline is exported to tape. It helps you "purge" stuff you don't want.
The trouble is, when you want to use it someday the clips are not particularly accessible. You have to watch the tape to find the part(s) you want to re-import.
To eliminate that hassle many buy a large external hard drive and store projects there. Each hour of imported video is about 13GB, so a single large drive may be sufficient.
(Note that with important video, it's never a good idea to rely on just one copy. Hard disks fail, as do tapes. So exporting a project to tape is a good idea too.)
So importing the video, doing a rough edit, exporting the Timeline to tape, then re-importing can help get rid of unwanted stuff.
Remember, iMovie is a non-destructive editor, which means that all the video of each imported clip is preserved. Splitting a clip, then discarding the excess and emptying the iMovie Trash does NOT remove the discarded video from your hard drive.
Normally, when we import video we tell iMovie to split the video at the scene breaks. But when importing analog material — which contains no scene breaks — all the video arrives as a single clip. Then, NONE of that clip is ever discarded, which means no disk space is recovered by emptying the iMovie Trash.
So when importing analogue material it's a good idea to set iMovie preferences to limit the size of clips to 3 minutes or something. Then you can discard an entire three minute clip and empty the iMovie Trash, which recovers that disk space.
Whatever method you choose, be sure to do a test run of the entire capture/export/re-import/edit process so you discover early any pitfalls.
Karl

"the finder cannot complete the operation because some data in [name of iMovie file] could not be read or written (Error Code 26)

Hi all,
I have an iMovie project in iMovie HD 6.0.3. (Mac OS 10.5.8)
It plays, but I cannot copy the file (including saving it to a flash drive). I get either a message
"the finder cannot complete the operation because some data in [name of
iMovie file] could not be read or written (Error Code 26)" or the
message "A project file is missing. The file [name of the QuickTime
movie inside the project.dv] couldn't be opened and is being skipped."
This happened suddenly, I was able to save a backup version numerous
times while working on the project.
I followed some of Karl Petersen's advise on apple discussions. I opened
the package contents, and everything seems to be there. The source file
(original QuickTime movie) is there and can be opened and played. I
replaced the current project file with the backup in the package
contents, but that did not change anything. I was able to export the
movie timeline into a new project as a single clip, but would like to be
able to copy the current project.
Thanks for any ideas..

Make sure all drives are formatted as "Mac OS Extended". (Journalling preferred, but not necessary).

Can't find imovie file on my hard drive

I have a imovie file on my hard drive that I can't find. I really want to delete it so
that I can free up some room on my hard rive. It's at least 15 gigs big. I tried using the search icon in the upper right hand corner and I tried using the 'find' option under the 'finder' menu, searching for any files over 5 gigs in size. Can anyone help me find this file so I can get rid of it?
[email protected]

An iMovie project is a package, not a file; the actual files inside it are smaller. Use a tool such as WhatSize to locate it.
(23171)

Moving an imovie file from one mac to another

My mac says it's too big to burn the file onto a disk and I don't have a DVD burner. So I've been trying to move the file to my friends mac. I've tried to export the movie and made it a DVD project and burned it as just a normal data file but when i try to open it onto my friends computer there are missing components. Now I've given up i just want the imovie to be on my friends computer.

Welcome to the forums.
The iDVD projects don't transfer because they are not self-contained -- they are drawing information from the iMovie projects. If you Shared/Exported from iMovie to Full-Quality Quicktime, and the resulting file was bigger than 4.5ish gigs, then some options (rather than a data DVD) are:
- connect your two Macs with Firewire or Ethernet and transfer the Quicktime file (I have a small Ethernet network that was very easy to set up).
- use an external hard drive to transport the Quicktime file.
- use Quicktime Pro (or similar) to break up the large Quicktime file into pieces that will fit on a DVD (I think Roxio's Toast 8 automatically splits files across multiple media).
The Quicktime file will be smaller (perhaps dramatically smaller) than the iMovie files, and it will be self-contained. Perhaps do a search in the forum and see if there are some other ideas for transferring video files/iMovie projects between computers.
John

Advice needed for network storage for iMovie files

Hi
I'm after some advice as to what a good solution for a school is to store iMovie files. I don't have a lot of Mac experience, however do manage the schools PC network and have a pretty good understanding of the general issues.
The schools media suite has 7 Macs (3 reasonable G5's). Because some units are better than others they don't want to assign students to certains PCs (which could allow them to work with files locally).
To date they have been storing all the iMovie files on a old G4 server, however this is running out of space and we want to provide a longer term solution for them.
When I say storing the "movie files" I mean the whole iMovie project -- the project file and all the audio and video clips. These are all stored on the network so the students can open them from any mac. Which has been working (more or less) ok from the old G4 just the disk space is the big issue.
We have tried using a Lacie Raid NAS device for the movie files but this had problems with the Mac extended character set in file names and wouldn't always open or allow saves to the device.
We have also tried using the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (using raid) which supports AFP and OS X and seems to work ok and faster in general than the Lacie device. However playback from the Netgear causes the video/audio playback to stop and start. I'm not sure this is the same stutter issue that has been discussed here since if I copy the iMovie file to the local disk it will play back ok. It appears to an issue of bandwidth. The Macs are all 100Mb, the Netgear is 1Gb, which is connected to a Dlink 1Gb switch.
Mostly the students movies are quite short (3-5min) but the project files have lots of clips and range in size from a few Gig to up to around 8Gb.
I can't figure how an old slow G4 can out perform a new 1Gb NAS Raid device.
They are using iMovie06, would upgrading to 08 help?
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Thanks,
Simon

simondg wrote:
... They are using iMovie06, would upgrading to 08 help?
welcome Simon to the  boards ...
definitely NOT.. iM08 has a very different file management concerning projects.. it offers a Library of ALL (=tons of gigs) imports ever ('Events'), and keeps Projects and Events in different locations; to delocate those makes the use of socalled SymLinks neccessairy...
plus, iM08 has high demands on the grafic-card of a Mac, so read the specs carefully before investing...
iMHD6 is a bit 'iffy' concerning drive's format.. as long as you're using 'MacOsFormatted' drives, easy does it ..
so, why not buying an external, firewire-connected housing for 3-4 standard (=cheap) ATA-drives, each 500GB (=cheap), connect that to goo' ol' reliable G4 and done?

Java Programming: Any Ideas for breaking a huge class file into smaller ?

Hello Java pros,
I have some very huge class files, some with dozens of methods; each method containing an average of a screen-page full of code.
Obviously, such huge class files are difficult to maintain inspite of using an IDE, especially when changes have to be made to a bunch of a category of methods scattered all over the class.
I am wondering if there are ways/best-practices out there to make the core class file smaller/smarter - fr eg.
<a> by retaining the real core definitions within the core class and moving the detailed implementation outside the core class
<b> by breaking down the file into more manageable pieces - something to the effect of using 'include' files that some languages support
etc.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Sree Nidhi

If you have huge class files with dozens of methods, maybe the design of your application is not so sound. You could use all kinds of OO design techniques to design your application so that it is easier to maintain.
Start by learning about design patterns. The most famous book about design patterns is this one: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201633612/qid=1029971487/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-4299125-5141710
Here is also a nice book about anti-patterns: http://www.antipatterns.com/
Jesper

Need help -To Restrict Huge temp file, which grows around 3 GB in OBIEE 11g

Hi Team,
I am working on OBIEE 11.1.1.5 version for a client specific BI application. we have an issue concerning massive space consumption in OBIEE 11g installed linux environment whenever trying to run some detail level drill down reports. While investigating, we found that whenever a user runs the drill down report a temp file named nQS_xxxx_x_xxxxxx.TMP is created and keep's growing in size under the below given folder structure,
*<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/tmp/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips1/obis_temp/*
The size of this temp file grows huge as much as around 3 GB and gets erased automatically when the drill down report output is displayed in UI. Hence when multiple users simultaneously try to access these sort of drill down reports the environment runs out of space.
Regarding the drill down reports:
* The drill down report has around 55 columns which is configured to display only 25 rows in the screen and allows the user to download the whole data as Excel output.
* The complete rows being fetched in query ranges from 1000 to even above 100k rows. Based on the rows fetched, the temp file size keeps growing. ie., If the rows being fetched from the query is around 4000 a temp file of around 60 MB is created and gets erased when the report output is generated in screen (Similarly, for around 100k rows, the temp file size grows up to 3 GB before it gets deleted automatically).
* The report output has only one table view along side Title & Filters view. (No Pivot table view, is being used to generate this report.)
* The cache settings for BI Server & BI Presentation services cache are not configured or not enabled.
My doubts or Questions:
* Is there any way to control or configure this temp file generation in OBIEE 11g?
* Why the growing temp file automatically gets deleted immediately after the report output generation in screen. Is there any default server specific settings governing this behaviour?
* As per certain OBIEE article reference for OBIEE 10g, I learnt that for large pivot table based reports the temp file generation is quite normal because of huge in-memory calculations involved . However we have used only Table view in output but still creates huge temp files. Is this behaviour normal in OBIEE 11g. If not, Can any one Please suggest of any specific settings to be considered to avoid generating these huge files or atleast generate a compressed temp file.
* Any other work around solution available for generating a report of this type without the generation of temp files in the environment?
Any help/suggestions/pointers or document reference on this regard will be much appreciated. Please advice
Thanks & Regards,
Guhan
Edited by: 814788 on 11-Aug-2011 13:02

Hello Guhan,
The temp files are used to prepare the final result set for OBI presentation server processing, so as long as long you dataset is big the tmp files will be also big and you can only avoid this by reducing your dataset by for example filtering your report.
You can also control the size of your temp files by reducing the usage of the BI server.I mean by this if you are using any functions like for example sorting that can be handled by your database so just push to the DB.
Once the report finished the BI server removes automatically the tmp files because it's not necessary anymore.you can see it as a file that is used for internal calculations once it's done the server gets rid of it.
Hope this helps
Adil

Viewing iMovie file with Windows Media Player

Is it possible to convert an iMovie file to allow viewing on a PC with Windows Media Player? Unable to use Quicktime on the PC due to unique reason while on mission.

RobbieSnr wrote:
AppleMan1958 wrote:
You will need [Flip4Mac|http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm]
I have a similar problem, which is that I want a Windows user to be able to view my iMovie file using Windows Media Player. I have Flip4Mac on my Mac but isn't that for converting the other way around - for viewing a Windows Media Player file on a Mac?
Sorry, I see that there is a Studio version that allows conversion to wmv - I only had the free basic version for Flip4Mac - should have looked more closely at the website!

Huge iMovie file

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