IMovie import: AVHD vs. DV Tape

I was shooting years with my Sony DV camera which used tapes. Editing in iMovie was a snap as I imported the scenes I needed and rendering was relatively quick. I thought I should upgrade to the newer hi-Def cameras and went with a Canon AVCHD camera using SDHC cards only. But I notice importing to iMovie is slow, clunky, and takes upo considerable space on my hard-drive. Why is that? I am thinking I should have stuck to DV tapes as it was just simplier/cleaner for the type of home movies I shoot.
Is there any advice for speeding up/making AVCHD imports faster/smaller? Is there another version of iMovie coming out that will improve AVCHD import? Right now, I have a lot of footage on my AVCHD camera that I haven't gotten around to putting on iMovie. Unlike tapes, I am going to run out of room eventually, so any help/advice is appreciated.

Actually, iM does allow importing footage to any connected drive...I use FW800 drives to ensure the fastest imports, if using external HD. Of course, using internal HD is fastest, if space is not an issue.
I recall using the "create archive" option which seemed a tad bit faster, as it just copies the files vs converting them on the fly to AIC (useful when you just want to offload the files to free up space on the cam, but don't need them for editing yet). You'll still have to go thru the process of creating events from the archive later, but I assume that would be faster (depends on CPU).
One other option that seemed faster (for importing to Mac) was to copy the video clips from the cam's internal flash to external hi-speed flash (class 6 SDHC), and then sticking this into a 150x SDHC reader plugged into a USB port...This does increase the overall time for import (copy to Flash + import to Mac), but the second step appears to be faster. Think the built-in Flash may have slower Read speeds.

Similar Messages

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    Borrowed a friends camera and shot some wedding stuff, (ours) and wanted opinion on how to do this.
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    What is the best way? If I import to iMovie instead of FCP, would I lose quality?
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    The other will be the extended, with extra footage for close family so we won't lose anything.
    Last SET of DVD's might be the RAW video, all 5-6 tapes.
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    • After Effects
    Thanks

    Hi I'm A Mac wrote:
    Borrowed a friends camera and shot some wedding stuff, (ours) and wanted opinion on how to do this.
    Congrats on the wedding
    Is it best to import as one full TAPE (1 hour) and let it run and then have 5, 6 large files?
    What is the best way? If I import to iMovie instead of FCP, would I lose quality?
    If you have Final Cut and are making all the things you are doing I would go with capturing into Finall Cut. If you use iMovie it needs to be rendered in Final Cut for audio, extra steps.
    I will be cutting up all 6 hours down to 1 version that will be somewhat reality, voice overs, FX (tips on where to create some great FX, (ADOBE, Motion) and it should be 1~2 hours total, and like a reality show.
    The other will be the extended, with extra footage for close family so we won't lose anything.
    Last SET of DVD's might be the RAW video, all 5-6 tapes.
    Questions are, how large will these files be?
    As others mentioned capturing DV would be about 12-13 Gigs per hour
    One would think dual layer or single layer are normally 2 hours at 4GIGS, so wondering how to do this or do I want RAW footage and what is the best way to import for use in other programs such as:
    On a DVD the running time (amount on DVD) is tied to the compression used to make the m2vs. Depending on the type of footage (quality, movement etc.) you can tweak things in the encoder.
    Take a look here
    http://dvdstepbystep.com/faqs_7.php
    Also here about some caveats
    http://dvdstepbystep.com/faqs_3.php
    So with AC3 audio at 160 and a video rate of 4.9 (or so) you can get 2 hours on each layer. The chances are you can drop the rate of the video encode and still get good results. For instance if you have sections where people are just speaking into the camera wishing you congrats it probably can look fine
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  • Trouble in importing from sony, "no tape:.

    i want to just import directly, without the tape, to imovie. is this possible? ive got everything set up, including a working firewire cable. please help!!!!!

    Hi
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    I found that this was due to my tape having been recorded on an older DV camcorder rather than an HDV. You'd think either iMovie or the Canon Vixia would simply tell you that in plain language, rather than give you the kind of cryptic meaningless message that the camera displays.
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    yes, it is not an answer, just another aspect of this problem which I encountered.
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  • IMovie imports only for one minute

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    Use iMovie > Help on your Mac or here -> http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2153
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    Message was edited by: EZ Jim
    Mac OSX 10.7.4

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  • IMovie imports only about 75% of the lenght of clips from my camcorder, I can`t find out how to import entire clips. can anyone help please?

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  • Then new version of IMovie imported nearly all of my video and then suddenly closed.  Now it won't recognize the video that it stil hasn't imported?  I took the sd card out of the canon camcorder but still won't recognize or import it.  Is there a cache t

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