IMovie Lost Project

I was working on a 23 minute movie and had numerous edits, titles and chapter markers. I exported the movie to Media Browser and when I opened it from the Media Browser file, it just showed the whole Events file -not the Project file. Then when I went back to iMovie, the Project was totally gone - all that work just gone.
I can't find the edited Project file. I've used Spotlight-can't find it anywhere.
I can't understand why this happened. And if I have to do it all over again, how do I avoid this? I'm new to this version of iMovie.
I want to burn a DVD using Toast.
Thanks for your help.

Never mind. The file magically reappeared, but it's a learning curve on this new iMovie.

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IMovie Lost project after

First and foremost my MacBookPro Operates on OS X Version 10.9.4 ...
I was working on an iMovie for a really loooooong time and my computer got really hot and just froze up completely ... I tried letting it sit but eventually had no other choice then just manually powering it off. When I turned it back on it asked if I wanted to restore the programs I had running (which the only one that was running was iMovie) I clicked yes... when iMovie was reopened the event with all the footage and content was still there but the movie project was gone... I just about cried.
I looked on other Apple Forums for this and tried the process of locating the com.apple.iMovieApp.plist file in the Library but that didn't work...
Any solutions that will actually work would be AMAZING!

Hi
A. To get it back - Have no idea - Most probably not - As I see it there is more than one problem here if the project got lost e.g. moving of other folders as iMovie Event's and iMovie Projec's - CANT DO THAT on desktop as this results in broken links back to iMovie = most probably hard to impossibly to mend.
Moving Event's and Project's must be done WITHIN iMovie application AND ONLY TO Hard Disks (or ev. USB Memories) that are Mac OS Extended (hfs) Formatted ! UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange WILL NOT DO for Video (even if You use FinalCut - it doesn't work - must be Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted)
B. There are no copies of any material in any iMovie Project's at all - the Project is just a short TEXT document describing What material that is used (Movie's, Photo's and Audio's) and where they are stored e.g. iPhoto Library, iTunes or in iMovie Event's. So if audio on an Audio-CD or USB-memory is used - the pointers in the Project points to this storage and if it is ejected - info is broken.
I do first
• create a folder named as my movie
• in this I put my photos and audio files
• then I use these files in my movie projects + video from Event's window.
THIS folder can not BE MOVED - so I put it from start in my User Account and here in Movie folder. But that's me.
All my photos are .jpg ONLY
All my audio is .aiff ONLY - NO .mp3 or other alient format - I use AudaCity (free on Internet) to convert all to .aiff 44.1kHz or 48kHz 16-bit.
C. But why Your project disappeared - is strange - My guess is that iMovie pref. file got corrupted - If You made Force Quit or Panic Halt - this use to be a major reason to this.
I trash the pref files - AND
Run Repair Permissions - Disk Util tool
to keep my Mac happy.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie lost my project

iMovie lost the project I had been working on for three days. We have tried spotlight and other search methods but cannot find it.

ah! this solved it.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/23557918#23557918

Problem with opening iMovie 2 projects in iMovie 5I submitted this question

I submitted this question some time ago and had some interaction with Lennart Thelander but it was never resolved. I didn't explain my question in as much detail as perhaps necessary to understand what happened, so I will try again.
I was using iMovie 2 for years and created many projects consisting of portions of clips split and moved around, audio, titles, transitions, the works, all dragged into the timeline and saved. Earlier this year I got iMovie 5 HD. When I opened one of my iMovie 2 projects, this message appeared:
"The project “home again home again” was saved with an older version of iMovie. Opening it in this version will cause it to be upgraded, which will make it unreadable by older versions. Are you sure you want to open it?"
I assumed that this could only make for improvement of the project, so I hit OK. When the project opened, the clips were now all exactly "9:28" in length (i.e. 10 minutes), and all the original breakdown of components (above-mentioned) was lost. It seems that iMovie 5 simply flattened the iMovie 2 project and broke it into 10 minutes segments.
My main question is whether there is any way to restore the original movie in its previous fom, with all the component parts. If I want to use any of those video clips in another movie, I need the original clips, which iMovie 5 seems to have flattened and essentially destroyed.

Hi
There are two levels of problem here
A. How to Copy Event's and Project's to external hard disks
- CAN NOT BE DONE - via DeskTop/Finder - must be done within the iMovie application
- The external hard disk must be - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted - UNIX / DOS / FAT32 / Mac OS Exchange - do not work for Video
B. Regarding Audio and photos used in Movie Project's
- There is NO Copy of them (or video) in Your Project.
- The Project is no movie at all - it is just a small TEXT document pointing to where material is stored and howto it's supposed to be presented as the Movie You are making.
IF Audio and Photos are not copies over to the external hard disk - and in Your movie introduced from this new storage - the new Mac can not find and connect to this material. It just don't work.
To move
• iTunes
• GarageBand
• iPhoto
Libraries to the external hard disk - so that the New environment will find and connect to is - has never worked for me.
I maker a dedicated folder and put copies (of audio and photos etc.) into this - and when copied over to external hard disk - re-import them (one at a time) into my movie project. Now iMovie on second Mac will know what and where to look for it/them.
Yours Bengt W

Trouble opening iMovie v4 project in iMovieHD 6

I just tried to open an iMovie 4 project in v6. I agreed to have it convereted, and up it came with no errors. The clips are all there in the right order and length, and the music is in place. However, the clips are like ghosts. Just black with no audio.
It should be noted that I recovered this project from a failing hard drive using Data Rescue II. However, I did import the entire project folder. Any ideas?
MacBook 2.0 GHz, 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Karl,
Thanks very much for your reply. I tried to keep it simple, but here's the details:
I was able to successfully recover an iMovie v5 project and open it in iMovie v6. The v5 projects appear as just one file (correct?), which probably helped out a lot in this case.
I'm still recovering files intermittently from this dead hard drive (on an iMac G3). So, I haven't had a chance to try to open in the v4 project within iMovie v4. I will do that after I've recovered all desired files, replaced the hard drive, and re-installed Tiger and iLife (according to your suggestion, I would do well to install iLife '04, not iLife '05 on this iMac).
This brings up the next question. Some of my previous movies were created in iMovie v2 or v3. It sounds like your advice is to open them in the oldest possible version of iLife. Is that right? Or, otherwise you suggest that I move the Quicktime movie file from the old projects into a new folder and then open it that way. How does that work with this apparently streamlined iMovie HD project file?
Lastly, a short description of my experience with Data Rescue II. It has performed superbly for my situation. Based on the last message this iMac displayed before crashing, I think perhaps my hard drive simply lost the ability to write. But, it appears to have retained the ability to read, so I've been able to recover all the files that I've wanted to so far. I believe that I was lucky. Data Rescue II is great because there is a free demo on-line that allows to see and scan your injured drive. If you can't, you don't buy the software. Very good idea!
Thanks again for your help.
MacBook 2.0 GHz, 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Exporting iMovie/iDVD project for PC friend to edit

I recently posted a question about how to take an iMovie/iDVD project and export the files so that a PC user could take the project and edit on his PC using a video editor. It was suggested that I share the iMovie project to QuickTime and then burn on to a CD. This sounded good at first but then I did some research and saw that sharing to QuickTime means that the quality will be lost (saving to CD setting) and will only be something like 320 x 240. Plus, it takes forever. Even longer if I set it to full quality but by that point, the file wouldn't fit on a CD anyway.
I did see that I could save the movie back to a mini DV tape and then give that to the PC person so that they could just bring it into their computer via their camcorder. But what if that person doesn't have a digital camcorder?
For the project in question, I've been asked to take some VHS tapes and convert them to digital. I've done so using a digital converter. They want a DVD of what was on the tapes, which I've done, but they also want the files so that they can later edit to their tastes on their own time on their PC and then later create a DVD. Given the above, what would be the best way to do this? Isn't there something in the movie project files that I can dump to disk?

a) consider the usage of an ext. harddrive...
b) in iM's "share" dialog, you find the option "selected clips only"; so, select a few clips you like to export, check that box, done... you can "split" your clips at any point to create segments of approbiate size by hitting apple-t at any position in timeline..
c) share/Quicktime/expert options/click "share"/ offers you a dropdown menu, where you can choose the "avi" container...
(your User Interface is for sure english!)
you can click options, and choose the dv codec (which is your project's native video codec)... no loss of quality, and probably compatible for your friend..
d) a dataDVD-r fits ~20min of dv video... 4 disks?
e) using Disk Utility, make sure, you use a PC-compatible disk format....
f) Plan B) export your project back to tape, give your friend the miniDV...

Open imovie 6 project in imovie9

I have seen many threads saying "file, import, imovie hd project".. I have tried, and all I get is a new event in the Library with the relevabt name but with no content. It says "no matching video" I have 25gb of content! The project is on an external hard drive and is clearly visable, not greyed out. Anyone know what I am doing wrong.
I can clearly extract the files somehow and start from scratch ...but......
Project opens fine in imovie 6 on my old iBook from the external.

Thanks Winston. That is what I was finding and, as you explain, I can find ways round it by exporting or converting the files. The thread at:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11218827#11218827
seemed to imply that you could import and certainly doing "file, import, imovie HD project" does make it look as if it is possible - until nothing much happens!
Fortunately the project really has nothing much in it apart from the raw video so not much lost. I really just dumped the files so I could reuse the video cam memory card.
Thanks for your help.

Can imovie 5 project open in imovie 6

I already created a project in imovie 5 after upgrading to Leopard. However, I did not realize that it kept idvd 4 so I could not create a DVD. I also didn't realize that Leopard cannot run idvd 1-5. If I upgrade to ilife 06 (imovie 6/idvd 6), will I still be able to retain the project I already created in imovie 5 by simply opening it up in imovie 6? I lost the original video so the imovie 5 project is all I have left.
Thanks!

iMovie 6 should open iMovie 5 projects just fine.
Make sure you have a backup, just in case.
(You should always have a backup anyway. Think fire, theft, flooding, hardware error, software error, user error etc.)

Open iMovie 09 project in iMovie 08?

I'm trying to open a project that was created in iMovie 09 with iMovie 08. The only way I've figured out to do this is to export the 09 project and then import it as a movie into 08 then drag the event to a project. Are there any other ways to do this?
thanks!

Thanks Winston. That is what I was finding and, as you explain, I can find ways round it by exporting or converting the files. The thread at:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11218827#11218827
seemed to imply that you could import and certainly doing "file, import, imovie HD project" does make it look as if it is possible - until nothing much happens!
Fortunately the project really has nothing much in it apart from the raw video so not much lost. I really just dumped the files so I could reuse the video cam memory card.
Thanks for your help.

Importing from iMovie HD project

I bought a new iMac and i'm importing in iMovie 08 a project from iMovie06.
But i have 2 problems: first not all the clips are imported and second that the clips that are imported are not in the same order of the original projct.
Does anyone have any ideas?

If in iMovie 06 have a project with 20 clip in iMovie 08 found less clips but everyone is complete. Entire clips are missing.
1) If you are counting "rendered" clips in the "Project.PKG > Media folder," they are not included in the import. You will have o move them manually if you want them.
2) If you are counting clips included in the source bin, then I don't know if they are supposed to import or not. (I.e., I don't use the built-in HD import option in iMovie '08.) You can check and see if these are your missing clips. if they are, then add them to the HD project before import and see if they are imported to iMovie '08. If they aren't, then you may need to send a feedback to Apple regarding this issue.
And the order in which are imported is not the same as in the original project
Editing and rendering in an iMovie HD project will change the clip names which, in turn, may re-order the files as the finder "sees" them. (I.e., they are ordered alphabetically in the project media folder.) So, if they are imported in alphabetical order, they would be out of their original "source" or timeline order.

Error while approving change document(TR lost project code)

Hi All,
I am having issue in change document approval, when we are approving change document for unit testing or if release management approving change for pre-production or production approval, we are getting error, I started coming from last two days only,\
when I did detail analysis, in all transports project code related to change document, disappear
although if I create new change document, project code appear,
Do we have way to solve this issue?, I even not able to decouple the transport from change document, it giving error, do we have way where we can resync change document and transport?
Dinesh

Hi All,
Do anyone have some solution for this issue?, it is bigger than I thought, I can check it impacted all systems, and all transports, all transports seems to issue they lost project code in it we rollover maintenance cycle last week and this problem started from their, we put charm master note and few other charm fixes(notes) last week,
this problem not coming any new change document, but all change document created before rollover impacted
Dinesh

If I back up iMovie projects to an external drive does it take the media with it? I want to free up space and remove pictures that were in iPhoto...that were used as media by iMovie when project was under way. In short I want archive iMovie stuff

If I back up iMovie projects to an external drive does imovie take the media with it? I want to free up space and remove pictures that were in iPhoto...that were used as media by iMovie when project was under way. In short I want archive iMovie stuff. If I pull pics out of iPhoto, and later want to drag an archived projet bac into iMovie and the pics are no longer in iPhoto, will I be able to keep working in the project in iMovie?

Very likely not, as the iPhoto's can be used for something else.
More like it took a copy, or it's referencing that spot on the drive in the editable files and most likely made a copy to create a new permanent export file.
Sample one picture and a iMovie file and see what happens.

I made a duplicate copy of an imovie HD project and when I updated the titles on the copy, the video stuttered . I'm using Snow Leopard OSX. The length of the movie increased unexpedtedly too.

I made a duplicate of an imovie HD project so I could have two different versions. I tried making the copies both by using File> Duplicate and the Save As command in imovie.
When I changed the title on the copy, the video stuttered when I played it back. Also the overall length of the movie increased by about 6 seconds throwing off some sync even though the replacement title was exactly the same length in seconds and frames as the one I replaced.
any thoughts how to fix this?
I'm using OSX 10.6.8.
thanks.

*24 December 2009*
*Dear Mac Users:*
Hello. Thanks to AppleMan1958 for answering my question about how to edit an iMovie project
on another computer.
Here is a question related to the process of transferring the iMovie '09 project file from my friend's
computer to an external drive so that I can edit that project in iMovie '09 on my MacBook Pro:
How do I know if my Smart Disk FireLite portable external drive is formatted to MAC OS X Extended (journaled)? How I do format this Smart Disk FireLite USBFLB80C to MAC OS X Extended (journaled)?
When I connect the Smart Disk FireLite to my MacBook Pro via USB, open iMovie '09, and select View
Events By Disk or rather "Group Events By Disk," an icon for the FireLite external drive appears, but there is a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark on the icon for the external drive. What does this "warning" mean? There are MP3s of music on the same external drive and they open just fine in iTunes. The one iMovie project file that is already on the drive will not open up in iMovie.
So, how do I properly format this external drive in order to transfer an iMovie project file from my friend's computer so that I can edit it on my MacBook Pro using iMovie '09?
Sincerely,
Corey

Can anyone help? Imported iMovie HD projects seem screwed up

I have imported video from iMovie HD into 08, and HELP! In one case. the clips don't play, and the titles seem to have disappeared. In another the clips play, but sometimes with the wrng sound, and again the titles have gone.
(Oh, and be careful: if you import video into iMovie 08 and then erase the original copy (which you may need to do if you are not going to overfill your hard-drive), any iDVD projects that use the video content will become useless.)
All very frustrating!

Oooh, do tell more. How do you do what you are suggesting?
Navigate to your iMovie HD project in the Finder. Control-click the project icon to open the "contextual menu options." Select "Show Package Contents" to see the files/folders contained in the project package. Open the "Shared Movie" folder. Inside you should see an "iDVD" folder. Opening it you will find the "Project_filename.mov" that represents the currently saved contents of the the project's timeline to include titles, transitions, effects, etc. (This is the data that would normally be sent to iDVD if you were going to burn a DVD of your finished project.) Simply copy the file to another location or HDD so it can be imported in its entirety to iMovie '08.
NOTE: Never tried moving/removing this file from the package as I thought it might have the potential to corrupt the iMovie HD project and am in the habit of working from work/backup files in case there is ever a problem. (I.e., just don't like restarting from scratch if I can avoid it.)

Help! I can't import iMovie HD project to iMovie 11

I have this project I was working on for hours in iMovie HD (v. 6.0.3), but I wasn't happy with the editing features so I decided to upgrade to iMovie 11. In iMovie 11 (v. 9.0.8), I followed the command of File > Import > iMovie HD Project. Then I selected the project I had been working on with "optimize video" checked and the "Save to" location being HDD.
Once I clicked "Import" I got the following with absolutely no progress bar and no video clips. I have also tried unchecking the "optimize video" box and with different old iMovie HD projects and I always get the same thing: a blank project with no video clips. I also checked for updates for both iMovie 11 and iMovie HD and restarted my computer.
HELP!

Hi
iMovie 1 to HD6 - is one product in up-grade
iMovie'08 to 11 - a compleatly different program with no relation to iMovie 1 - HD6 what so ever.
iMovie'08 to 11 are in my opinion no gain at all over iMovie HD6 only a severe loss of functions.
BUT I USE - miniDV tape = interlaced SD-Video and for this iMovie HD6 is the best tool - if one doesn't go for FinalCut Express or Pro (not Pro-X) - as these are realy the best ever done - for my video works.
So I would stay in iMovie HD6 and complete the Movie - or -
Start all over in Video-editor of choice (the one You like)
There are no working transcioding tools to move project over from iMovie HD6 to ANY THING ELSE - Not iM'08-11 or FinalCut any version - transitions, texts and other editings will not travel over in an editable form if at all.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie Lost Project

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