IMovie HD projects on an external hard drive problems?

I've recently been making a highlight tape for my football team. Since i dont want to take up that much space on my computer, I've decided to use an external hard drive. Making this project means taking DVD's that arent in the correct format and ripping them into the right format. I then save this onto the external hard drive. Then i import them into IMovie, cut the clips i want, and save it. I save it to the external hard drive. A couple days later I'll open the project back up, to continue work on it, and it wont work. I can see the thumbnails of all the different clips, and when i click on them, the monitor goes black and nothing plays. But, the weird thing is that some of the clips worked. 4 out of about 30 of the 5 to 10 second clips worked. Im wondering if any one has had problems with this and any suggestions they might have to fix it. Thanks!

Hi jwgoldsmith - welcome to the forum!
Are you sure that the external drive is formatted for Mac computers? It must be MAC OS EXTENDED, not FAT 32 or such. If you need to re-format, make sure you have saved important files to some other drive as re-formatting erases everything.

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Saving iMovie 4 projects on an external hard drive

I'm starting the ambitious project of copying our family videos from 8mm tapes to iMovie to eventually making DVDs. since I don't have much disk space on my iBook, my plan is to put the iMovie files on an external hard drive & work from there. Here are the system specs:
Camera: Sony DCR-TRV520 (Digital 8)
Computer: iBook 800 MHz PowerPC G3, 28GB hard drive, 5GB available
OS 10.3.9
iMovie 4
Hard Drive: LaCie Eternet Disk mini 300GB (150GB available) format: Mac OS Extended
Problem: Open a new iMovie project on the external hard drive. Start to import the footage. After one or 2 seconds, the image freezes and import aborts.
Solution: Open a new project on the computer. Footage imports fine.
Problem: Can only import 1/2 hour or so of video before I'm in trouble. Files WAY too big for my itty bitty iBook!
Solution: Make a new iMovie file on the external hard drive & copy the clips from the computer to the hard drive. (this takes TONS of time!)
Problem: Open movie file on the LaCie. Import the clips. Clips show up but won't play!
Question: Is there any better way to do this? Why won't the project work on the external hard drive?
I teach video production at a high school and have done this many times on newer iMacs (iLife 6). We can't save every project on the computers, so certain projects I'll copy to an external hard drive. I've never had a problem working on an iMovie project from the hard drive. I considered uploading my movies on the computers at school, however then I'm stuck with iMovie 6 files on the hard drive and iMovie 4 at home.
Any suggestions -- other than get a newer computer?

Importing new footage from a video camera and working with iMovie with footage already on the computer are two completely different things.
At school, do you actually IMPORT video from digital camcorders directly to the USB drive as you said you were doing at home?
Because while you can indeed work on iMovie projects off a USB drive if you are not actually importing video, the whole importing process from a Firewire camcorder is sort of a streaming video type transfer and Firewire is used because it has a mode for this type of transfer. USB, on the other hand, can not import video from a camcorder straight to a USB drive reliably because there is way too much CPU overhead associated with USB transfers and it therefore can not keep up with the "streaming" video coming out of the camcorder.
If you want to find out more details, do a search for "isochronous" with Firewire. Firewire uses type types of transfers. Asynchronous transfer which is like USB uses where you transfer data, wait for the CPU to respond, then transfer the next chunk of data. Video transfer uses and isochronous process where, to put it very simply, the camcorder starts spitting out chunks of footage with a checksum and the receiving end receives it, calculates a checksum and if the checksums match, stores the chunk of data. If they don't match, the data is discarded and it starts to receive the next chunk of data. There is no ability to resend failed data so you get dropped frames in your footage.
If you import via Firewire from Camcorder to Mac then directly to an external USB drive, the transfer from Mac to USB drive will be too slow as the CPU and drive have to start doing their "did you get it?", "Ya I got it, send another/No, send again please", "OK here it comes" routine while in the meantime the camcorder to Mac Firewire transfer is just pumping out data at a fixed rate. Once the USB connection falls behind the process aborts.
Patrick

I have copied videos onto an external hard drive. to free memory on my macbook. When I try to delete these I am warned that I will not be able to use this video in existing projects How do I point iMovie to events in my external hard drive so I can pl

I have copied videos onto an external hard drive. to free memory on my macbook. When I try to delete these I am woarned that I will not be able to use this video in existing projects
How do I point iMovie to events in my external hard drive so I can play projects which use them?
MacBook, iMovie 9.0.4

Hi
You can do this - by not doing it the way You describe as it will not work.
a. the external hard disk - MUST BE - Mac OS extended (hfs) formatted -
UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange - will work for most things - BUT NOT FOR VIDEO (iMovie, iDVD or FinalCut doesn't matter)
b. Do not alter or move any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - at all
All moving's of Events and Projects must be done within the iMovie Application - then connections will not break.
(move them back and see if iMovie remembers them - then do move as described above)
Yours Bengt W

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer than my own? If so how?

Can I open an imovie project from an external hard drive on a different computer other than my own? If so how?

If you used the Finder to move the files, iMovie will have lost track of them. iMovie holds the locations of the Event files, and Project files contain references to those locations. If you move the files, iMovie has no way of knowing where they are.
If you can, first move all the files back to their original locations. Plug in the external drive. Open iMovie and move the files in iMovie's interface (help explains how, but basically, just drag and drop in the event pane).
Then you can connect the drive to the new computer, and iMovie will see them.

Can I save my movie projects to an external hard drive?

I am an elementary music teacher and often make DVDs of my students' performances. This is maxxing out my hard drive on my Mac. I have an external hard drive with a lot of memory, so my question is: can I somehow put iMovie projects onto the external hard drive, to free up memory on the Mac's hard drive? If so, how do I go about doing this? Conversely, would this be a bad idea, and if that is the case, could I move iTunes (also have a ton of music, as you can imagine) or iDVD to the external hard drive? Or iPhotos?
I'm not high-tech savvy, so need help in simple English, please.
Thanks so much!!!

Within the project library of iMovie you should see your external drive listed along with the projects stored on your mac. To copy a project you simply drag the project from its current position to your external drive. You will then get the option of copying just the project or project and events. As Bengt rightly states you should copy both project and Events. If you hold down the alt key as you drag the project you will get the option of moving rather than copying. I would NOT recommend doing this in case there are problems during the copying/moving process (I don't find iMovie to be the most stable of apps) and you might find the original project has been deleted without properly copying it across. Better to copy to the external drive, check it works ok and then delete original.
Hope this helps.
Russ

I am using Iphoto 11 ver 9.4.3 on mac using oxs 10.8.5 i want to export calendar projects to an external hard drive. what is the easiest way to do this? i have tried export and import but it didn't seem to work.

I am using Iphoto 11 ver 9.4.3 on mac using oxs 10.8.5 i want to export calendar projects to an external hard drive. my goal is to store them in an external hard drive so it doesn't use up memory on the mac hard drive. is it possible to copy the specific projects without copying the entire library? what is the easiest way to do this? i have tried export and import but it didn't seem to work.

What do you not understand?
You can duplicate the iPhoto library (command - D ) and delete everything except the project and its photos from the copy and move that
Or
However the calendar takes very little space - it is simpy database entries - it is the photos in the calendar that take space - and for most people you would wnat to keep those photos in your library
you can use a photo in 50 calendars and it still is only one photo in your library - as I explained calenders do not exist as such - they are simply database entries telling iPhotop how to display the calendar - they take almost no space at all
LN

Final cut is not reading events or projects from my external hard drive, what can I do?

Final Cut X is not reading events of projects from my external hard drive, what can i do?

Like this
Cmd-Shift-4. Drag a box around the area to capture. Screen shot appears on the desktop. Click the camera button in the message reply window.

New computer - Can I open previous FCPX events/projects from an external hard drive on my new computer?

My old computer died - a Macbook Pro from 2011. Fortunately, I saved all of my FCPX events and projects on an external hard drive. Unfortunately, many of those projects were unfinished.
I have since bought a new iMac with FCPX, but I can't figure out how to open my old projects.
On my external hard drive, I have 2 folders: Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects.
Under a specific event, there is an "Analysis Files" folder, a "CurrentVersion.fcpevent" file, an "Original Media" folder, and a "Render Files" folder.
Under a specific project, there is a "CurrentVersion.fcpproject", a "Render Files" folder, and a "Shared Items" folder.
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It may have been an earlier version, but that doesn't seem to be working. See attached photo
Its not allowing me to click on my Events or Projects.
Any other ideas?

Premiere projects stored on external hard drive & re-editing

Hi guys, I seem to be one of the few Mac users editing on Premiere Pro 5.5 with AVCHD (from Panasonic HDC-SD700) files. Luckily I can use even the 1080p/50 files, but I have this problem: After I move the project folder (all Premiere files inc. the footage which I store copying everything from SD-cards and not changing the file names) to an external hard drive and later copy it back onto the computer for further editing, it asks where the files are. This should be fine if I know where the original file is but the problem arises as I am not renaming the footage - I understand this could be a problem with AVCHD files - and it is impossible for me to know which one of the 00000.MTS or 00004.MTS files is the correct one. (This obviously only applies to projects where I have recorded footage on more than one SD-card. In my case all the projects seem to be that big - I am an artist rather than a computer person. Apologies if the lingo is not quite right!) I tend to edit hours of footage together by speeding it up and using split-screen. Is there an easy way around this problem when saving the projects on an external hard drive or should I just start changing the file names to something like SD1clip1 without a worry? Or do I just randomly choose one of the similarly numbered clips and check if it happened to be the correct one and everything in the project falls in place? This seems silly and time-consuming too. Many thanks for your suggestions. Elisa

according to other opinions in different threads NOT to put all media in one folder, i wouldn't necessarily go with this approach. sometimes it's the best you can do. and you can always manage your footage with the editing programm, creating folders and alike.
in some cases you're left with no choice - in AVID e.g. unless you use its AMA (avid media acess) interfaceand sort of soft-link to your media AVID will first transcode and then story everything in one folder by default. it then creates a little index file that tells you right away if something is missing.
personally, if i knew i have multiple folders with the same structure and file names i cannot change (cause it'd disrupt the file structure), i'd definitely put in the initial time to transcode to not to run into obstacles later on.
advantages: better codec, less choppy playback, less rendering, no relink issues
disadvantages: transcoding time, less disk space, probably larger files
sure, nowadays software is designed to avoid just that and all my conversations with PP pros showed me that the basic thought behind PP is to "just slam your footage in and start editing" - but this isn't always the wisest choice. not because the software is not able to handle the codecs - but because you'll run into problems with data structures.
plan your postproduction like you would plan a nice dinner.
chop the onions before the pan is hot.

Can I move idvd projects to an external hard drive?

I need to make space on my hard drive and would like to move all the dvd projects to an external hard drive. Can I do this without causing any problems with accessing them again?

Yes and No
The Yes part:
It is possible to run an iPhoto Library with the Originals stored outside the Library folder, but I strongly caution against it - especially if the Library and the files are on different volumes, as you propose. Why? the short answer: if the files become detached from the database then you will end up reconnecting every single one, one by one. For more see this:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3062728?tstart=0
Further, if the external is not plugged in when you launch iphoto it will ask you where each file is. All of them. One by one.
So that's really a 'Yes... but...' I suppose.
The No part:
You have currently got a Managed Library. There's no way to convert to a Referenced one.
Then there's the... 'how much money do you want to throw at this' bit?
If you purchase Aperture this is a cinch. It can relocate masters, reconnect them if they get seperated and so on. Pay more, get more options. And Aperture can use the same Library as iPhoto, but there is a bigger learngn curve.

How can I save a project to an external hard-drive?

Hey guys,
I'm trying to clean out my computer and I want to move a finished project to an external hard-drive (while still being able to edit in the future if I choose)... How can I do this, and once I accomplish the task would I be able to delete everything that was on my internal hard-drive?

Use FCP's Media Manager to copy to the external drive. Once copied and you verify everything is OK, you can delete the original files.
-DH

Unable to open projects from an external hard drive... Help??

Ok, so here's the problem. I recently moved all of my projects onto my external hard drive (G-Drive) and now I am unable to open them in FCP X. All of the projects were originally created using FCP, opened them using FCP X this morning, saved again to my hard drive but now they won't show up. Am I overlooking something?? I haven't changed any settings or touched the projects since they were last opened in FCP X and moved onto my hard drive. Has anyone accessed projects off an external yet in FCP X??
Thanks for your help,
Katie

Sorry, Katie, but as many of us found out very painfully today, Final Cut Pro X cannot open any edit files from any earlier version. The fact they are on an external drive doesn't matter.

Moving projects to an external hard drive in FCPX?

Hello, in previous versions of Final Cut Pro 10 was no problem moving projects to an external hard drive. In the latest version I do not get this. Anybody have any tips?
Regards Marius

File>Open Library>New.
Set the location of your new library in the save dialog.
In the Libraries pane, drag the event that contains your project into the new library. It will make a copy. Or use the Move or Copy commands from the File menu.
Russ

Using iMovie to save project files to external hard drive?

I have a MacBook Pro with very limited space on the internal hard disk drive. I also have a few FireWire external hard drives.
A friend recently gave me his Hitachi DZ-HS300A mini-DVD camcorder so I could copy footage off of it, load it into my machine, edit it and upload it (several minutes) to YouTube. He can't do this because he lives in a remote area where there is no broadband yet.
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You should generally leave the iMovie Project file on the boot drive. The Project File is mainly a small text file with in and out points.
The iMovie Event file is where the video assets are stored. You can store events to an external hard drive in two ways:
1) As you import from the camera, you will see an import screen. You can select the external drive on the import screen
2) If the event is already on your internal drive, you can click View/Events By Volume. Now you can drag and drop the event to the external drive in the Events SOurce List in iMovie.
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I cannot use iMovie Projects / evnets on External Hard Drive

Hi,
I am a long time iMovie, Finale Cut Pro, X... user. I have 26 iMovie projects from my mac at school which I copied to an external HD inside of the imovie software. I've done this in the past to create more space on the mac's hard drive in the past. Recently, I was told the school district was reimaging all of hte computers so I moved all of the projects (and events) to an external HD (again inside of imovie). I wanted to edited the movie's on my desktop mac at home but when I attached the external hard drive and open up imovie on my home computer, I can see the external hard drive inside of imovie, but their are no events or projects????).... Yes, everything is uptodate. I can open the hard drive in a seperate window in the finder (outside of imovie) and see all of the files. I even tried importing and dragging the .rcproject files and double clicking to just open them. Nothing is happening. Can anyone help??? Thanks , Joe
Notes:
1) Both versions of iMovie are the same on both macs.
2) When I open up Final Cut X it also shows the hard drive with the imovie projects / events... but says "no files exist on this disk".... that's crap because I can see them on the hard drive!!!! What the heck is going on!!!!

Top Level of the Drive!!!!!!! . ...Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.... that solved it.
I had ogranized everything into subfolders, so it makes since... just didn't realize they needed to be at the top level. Big help and thanks!!
I am marking "This solved my question" because I accidentally marked "This helped" on the reply above. I don't know how to change it bu Appleman 1958 solved this problem for me. Thanks Appleman 1958
.... for everyone else with the same problem, please see the reply from Appleman1958 from above.
Joe

IMovie HD projects on an external hard drive problems?

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