IMovie is a HOG!!

what other options are there for iMovie that are compatible with Mac OS and, hopefully, free??
i briefly looked elsewhere on this forum about this topic, maybe poor search choices, but iMovie is a memory pig.
here's the story- bought a GoPro for mountain biking. loaded a vid from the GoPro cam to Mac's iMovieHD. vid was shot at GoPro recording settings, 760 @ 30fps setting (r2).
iMOVIE IMPORT SELECTION:
MPEG4 import looked like watercolors on the TV. Washy even on a 15" laptop screen.
DV-Widescreen import was much better, but still a little bit washy on TV. on my laptop, not a lot different from HDV-760p import (next)
HD-760p import was very good on the TV. closest to playing the camcorder video file directly on the TV.
FILE SIZE USING iMOVIE:
i noticed the video i put together after adding a title, a couple of transitions and some editing out, was approx 12 min and a whopping 7GB! Geez.
so okay i dropped a single 13.4MB video file from the GoPro into iMovie, without any editing, for comparison:
MPEG4 import: 2MB (slimmed down ~6.5x)
DV-Wide import: 45.8MB (bloated ~3.5x)
HDV-720p import: 97.3MB (bloated ~7x)
why is there such a memory penalty for using this software? are AVS or Windows Movie Maker such hogs?
any other (free) options?
Message was edited by: Joseph Satriano

... especially any real Apple tech people lurking out there. ...
I dare to say: neverever... this is a user2user board, never saw in THIS section of a board a host nor employee..
a) min. requirements..
see my specs: I'm running iMHD5 smoothly on a system, clearly under min.specs... (esp. iDVD)
b) what I've read here so far - avoid a "mixture" of apps and QT components...:
10.3.x. + QT 6.x + iLife 5
or...
10.4.x + QT 7.x + iLIfe 6
we read lots of trouble, people using a mix; makes apps unstable, crashing, misbehaving...
c) MacOsX needs RAM, lotsof... when upgrading my Cube from 512 to 1GB RAM - woooshsh!! less RAM >> lots of hd activity >> slow/if hd crowded >> unstable
d) video needs harddrive space, MacOsX needs hd space.. make sure, you have ALLWAYS 5 - 15GB free on internal (external don't matter in this issue) drive... that makes system and apps stable&smooth ...
e) no HiDef video in use here, but what I've read so far: HDcontent needs a fast/powerful system for importing, 'cause it has to convert first into Apple Intermediate Codec; HiDef needs 4 - 5x more harrddrive space compared to .dv; ... as long as you stay .dv .. should work ...
f) iLife 4 >> 5 made a quantum leap in file-management, mainly the "non distructive editing" feature - means: be careful/wise with import. import just parts of tape, you need for editing; avoid laaaaarge, single clips, try to import small segments...
g) iLife 5 >> 6 made a quantum leap in grafic card resources.. read the specs Matthew linked to ... in a school, I don't see any need for fancy "themes" ... you shoud learn, to do movie editing manually ;-)))
... any letters left, I could fill... ?
hope, you found something helpful....................

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