IMovie 11 - Black/Empty Preview Window

This is a problem that arose yesterday and after searching the Internet I can't seem to find an answer other than "You need to re-install the OS" - but obviously that's a last resort for me.
Basically whenever I import a clip in to iMovie 11 the preview window on the right shows up as black - sound doesn't seem to play either.
I'm using iMovie 11 on a 13 inch MacBook Pro using a 2.4Ghz dual core processor (the model that came before the current quad core ones) with 4GB RAM. I've happily been using it without any real problems up until now.
I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software but that doesn't work.
Any solutions? I'd really rather not have to install OS X all over again. Random, nonsensical issues are the reason why I jumped ship to OS X.
Update: The preview box now shows a preview image, but it's a frame of a video that I did not import in to iMovie. http://i51.tinypic.com/2mg3uh.jpg

well... after a lot of trial and error, with a similar problem...
I have narrowed mine down to 2 differnet approaches that work (anything else results in black/blank video in preview and export)
If the photos already fit the proper aspect ratio (i.e. cropped in iphoto to 16:9 already)
- setup project with NO transitions when you define it to start with
- before you import anything, turn ken burns off, set it to "fit image" or whatever
Regardless of size/shape of image
- setup the project WITH transitions (i've just used the default Disolve i think it was)
- leave ken burns ON...
Bottom line, if i try to turn off Ken Burns AND have it Crop the photo.... i'm dead in the water... and the transitions seem to be tied with Ken Burns.... either take em both or neither....
of course your mileage may vary... but maybe that will help someone .... or maybe apple will read it and fix it

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Imovie '11 blank preview window

Intel Core 2 Duo, 2Ghz, 3gb ram, 10.6.8
When trying to play back any clips from camcorder or iphone there is only sound and no video.
This also applies to the movie themes that come with the app.
I recently did a clean install of os and dont wish to do that again, surley that can not be the only answer?
Out of the many threads on this same problem an os install seems to be the only answer.
Please comment or like this if you have this issue...

Thank you for the prompt repsonse. I did update the nVidia driver as Steve suggested, but that did not fix the problem. The problem apparently is related to new mouse driver/software as you had thought might be the case. I had installed a new Microsoft mouse and updated my software to MS Intellipoint 8.0. Reverting back to 5.2 fixed the problem.
Now, is there anyway to inform Adobe of this incompatibility? I have found nowhere to report bugs or incompatibilities. I was lucky that my old mouse came with a software disk and I had run fine with the old mouse and driver/software. New mice just point you to the MS website. So others may well have the same problem as me, but without an old driver/software to fall back on. Since Intellipoint 8 is much newer, I would hope Adobe would want to have PE9 compatible with it.
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IMovie 11 projects no longer working, preview window is glitched or black, event library not playing imported vids

I am having a lot of trouble with iMovie 11. I bought a new MacBook Pro 15" for the sole purpose of editing surgical videos for work. iMovie 11 was working great initially for me (taking full length surgical video - up to 2 hours) and editing these down to anywhere from 5 to 30 min videos highlighting crucial steps for the surgeries along with transitions, ken burns, etc (with the plan of overlaying narrative voice-over later). I had about 15 of these videos edited sitting in my Project Library and multiple imported videos (dvd to m4v via handbrake then imported via iMovie 11) in my Project Library. Now none of my projects play in the preview window, it's either black or a weird glitchy picture (like messed up pic of my doc or desktop... really weird) and only about 2 of my imported videos play in the project library, otherwise they are just black when I roll over them. My projects are still intact as far as edited clip lengths and transitions, but nothing plays, even in full screen mode. I tried making a new project and the imported video shows in the event library but when I add it to a project it's black (but does play in full screen mode, but impossible to edit this way). I think the audio is actually intact although i'm not positive because these videos don't have any audio (there's some baseline level that fluctuates on the audio bars).
I tried finalizing and exporting a project as an m4v (one that was a combination of two edited imported videos - one of the source imported vids working in the event library and the other not working) and the first half is all glitched up with no surgery video, but the second half is there with the transitions and everything (the half that is working in the event library). This part does not show up when I am trying to edit the project.
fyi - I had deleted some of the videos from my event library to unclutter a little some time ago, the projects were still working after that.
I can find all of my imported videos (in .mov format) that should be working in the event library when I look in the folder:
users/me/movies/iMovie events
If someone could please help me resolve this issue, I would really appreciate it. I put a lot of work and time into these videos and it would be near impossible to start from scratch (which would probably be on some other movie editor like windows movie maker since my iMovie is not working properly even for new projects). I'm hoping this is just some sort of glitch that can be fixed and my projects are still salvagable. I can't remember if this started after I did a system software update or not. This will be a huge dissapointment for me in the Apple platform if I have to scrap my projects because I had just switched over from the PC platform.
I even got Norton antivirus and internet security to make sure I don't have some sort of weird virus.
I have a Feb 2011 15 in MacBook Pro 2.2 Ghz, 4 g RAM, 750 g HD, 1 g vid card. iMovie ver 9.0.4. Lion 10.7.2

Did you by any chance upgrade your Mac OS from version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.7 (Lion) during the time you were working in iMovie on all these projects?
If not, start by deleting the iMovie Preferences file.
Go to the Desktop
Hold down the Option key and choose the Go Menu > Library
Go to Preferences > com.apple.iMovieApp.plist
Move the .plist file to the trash and restart iMovie
See if the Project files react any differently. Failing that try doing a Repair Disk Permissions:
Restart the Mac, hold down the Option key continuously until 2 hard drive icons appear
Choose the Recovery Volume as your startup disk and let it run until you see the Desktop
Choose Disk Utility from the Recovery Menu
Run Repair Disk Permissions in Disk Utility
Reboot the Mac and when you see the Desktop appear launch iMovie
See if the Project files are the same or different. Next step after this is to one at a time take the Project folders out of users/me/movies/imovie projects. Move one to the desktop and start iMovie. Try skimming the projects that acted up recently. Moving one project at a time might help isolate which project may be causing problems. You can also place project folders back in their original location after doing this testing and iMovie will recognize them on the next relaunch. It won't hurt anything.

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I see you've had 50 viewers look at this question, but no one has answered it. No one commented on my post on the same subject two days ago either, but we both have a similar problem. Here's my situation:
I am not able to see my movie in the "Preview Window" of iMovie, after creating a project and event. I had just erased my hard drive, installed a new system directly from SnowLeopard and added iMovie09 (then updated it to v. 8.0.6). Before opening and importing photos to iPhoto, however, I downloaded a DEMO VERSION OF APERTURE, to see if I wanted to purchase that instead of using iPhoto. Next I opened iMovie and imported some photos from Aperture. Everything worked fine. After a few days of working with Aperture I decided to delete it and use iPhoto09. Here's where the problems started. I could bring photos into iMovie from iPhoto but when I tired to make them run as a movie, nothing appeared in the Preview window. I've made dozens of iMovies before, so I expected it to work as it always had.
I deleted everything I could find about Aperture, even the Library/Cache of Aperture. I deleted everything I could find about iMovie even the Library/Preferences/com.apple.iMovie08. I reinstalled iPhoto09 and iMovie09. I've emptied the iPhoto libraries and started over there too with photos only, no video even, but I still can't bring in even a simple photo and have it appear in the Preview window of iMovie.
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hey everyone,
i have final cut pro on my macbook running mountain lion, it has worked forever and although it takes some time to start, while it's running its great. I had to use it for a project today because iv had another problem on imovie. Anyway, im importing mov and mp4 videos from my harddrive, into two seperate events. The first event, had the same problem, but after i started using a movie, they all showed up. the problem is that they are on my library and in the event, but the preview window shows as black. and if i pull one of these videos to the time line, the audio plays but the image continues black. I cant understand what the problem, is and why one of the events turned ok and the other didn't... any ideas? what can i do?
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I'm a bit of a novice, so please keep that in mind!
Whenever I'm attempting to edit videos I have an issue where the preview window shows images while paused, but when playing the preview window turns black. I can hear audio, and the timeline proceeds but I cannot see what I'm doing? Please help!
Cheers!
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" ShadowPlay encodes video using H.264 codec and outputs in MP4 format.
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https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1070933 for screen shot instructions
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2nd, What is your exact brand/model graphics adapter (ATI or nVidia or ???)
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•For Windows, do NOT rely on Windows Update to have current driver information
•-you need to go direct to the vendor web site and check updates for yourself
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gate1975mlm wrote:
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Sure, here it is :

IMovie 11 - Black/Empty Preview Window

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