Imovie 10' won't edit

Question

I have been working on a school project that is about 20 minutes long, but just recently imovie stopped allowing me to edit the project. When ever i bring the cursor over the project to edit a rainbow circle thing appears and never leaves, forcing me to force quit imovie. If i open a previous project it will allow me to edit, but when i open my current project imovie seems to stall. Is there anything i can do to stop this?

Answer 1

Hi Tom
Not much new - but I made a list on howto speed up iDVD slightly - if You got time to cheque it off
May be You might like to correct or add something to it. If You've got time for it.
*To speed up DVD*
AND TO GET IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER
• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk - if less than 5Gb slow and unstable - less than 1Gb might even not start.
• Choise of encoding method will give very different productions speeds. On my d-G5 2GHz
*Professional Quality (movies + menus up to 120 min.)* - BEST
Takes about 2 x times the other ones - but if quality is of essence
(Quality might be as good as or even better for movies under 60 minutes - by using Best Performances BUT not for movies up to 120 minutes)
2 hour movie + menu = about 4 hours to encode at it’s best on my system
*Best Performances (movies + menus less than 60 min.)* - High quality on final DVD
1 hour including menu = about 1 hour to encode
*High Quality* (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) *(movies + menus up to 120 min.)* - slightly lower quality than above
2 hours including menu = about 2 hour to encode
• Use an as simple DVD-menu possibly without any animation at all. This reduces processing speed dramatically. I use ”Old Theme - and Brushed Metal” and animation turned off.
• An as fast Mac and as many cores/CPUs possibly. My PowerMac G5 has two CPUs and iDVD uses about 120% = use more than only one CPU/Core. How many it can address I don’t know (anyone ? )
• If possibly - Use two internally e-Sata drives - Drive access takes a great deal of time
else FW-800 or FW-400 or USB2 or network storage (slowest and near to useless)
to work on one (internal, boot, Mac OS, Start-up hard disk - will be BAD - and slow
Normally my d-G5 2GHz takes about 2 x movie material when iDVD and Mac OS on one internal HD and material is on the other internal one.
Now with material on an external USB2-drive and an external Lacie FW-400 as Start-up drive material of about 1.5h will need about 4-6 hours to get encoded and burned to DVD.
Choise and use of hard disks is essential.
• I guess that a Solid State Disks might improve speed
• No other programs running in BackGround eg EnergySaver, Internet, AirPort, Bluetooth etc.
• Don’t let HD spinn down or be turned off (in EnergySave)
• Move hard disks that are not to be used to Trash - To be disconnected/turned off
• Goto Spotlight and set the rest of them under Integrity (not to be scanned)
• Set screensaver to a folder without any photo - then make an active corner (up right for me) and set
pointer to this - turns on screen saver - to show that it has nothing to show
• If Mac with only place for one internal hard disk. Then I would try tu use an external FW (Mac OS Extended) one as Start-Up hard disk and store material on the internal one.
eg iMac or ProBook or alike.
from Karsten -
• I assume that resolution and codec of source is another factor ... scaling (e.g. 1280x720 to 720x576 = that is an 'un-even' calculation). or, a difference in speed reg. to h264, dv-stream or aic as input ....
Yours Bengt W