Raw video import

Hi there,
I use a canon M31 for my video recording. To date I have been importing a video into Imovie, then immediately exporting the full unedited video to a folder for safe keeping while I edit the original import.
What I would like to do is save a step and copy the files from the canon flash memory straight to my hard drive, save them there and import them to imovie when i want to edit them. They are MTS files on the canon.
Can someone recommend a converter that will convert the MTS files for import into Imovie? or will iMovie convert them upon import?
Thanks in advance.
Marc

You should be able to use the Archive All function at the bottom of the normal imovie import screen.
The Archive All function will make a copy of all the files on your sdhc card or hard drive so you can import later to imovie or the editor of your choice.
Another way to do this is to create a disk image of your flash memory using Disk Utility, but since iMovie 09 introduced the archive function (continued in iMovie 11), I haven't needed the Disk Utility method.
When you import into iMovie, either from your archive or directly from the card, iMovie will convert the AVCHD to Apple Intermediate Codec, which is editable.

Similar Messages

Importing and organizing raw video footage - options

greetings-
Looking for a better solution, if available, for importing & organizing raw video. I am using imovie for now. Soon to switch to FC express. After much exploring & learning on my new machine (recent convert), I’m a bit frustrated on how it video is handled.
Please correct any of these that I’ve got wrong, but it appears that:
Importing video (from DV camera) with programs provided on my machine can only be done through imovie and idvd.
Importing video through these programs requires creating a project, and importing the video to that project.
Then that imported video is associated with that project.
So I want to take the imported clips (say from imovie), and organize them archiving, use on other projects, backup, etc. I know that I can find the actually video files by control clicking on the project in finder, hit show package, and get to "clip 1, clip 2...clip 55". This represents the raw footage, but now I’ve got say 55 separate clips, for just one import.
I’d like to effectively organize my various raw videos by year/event etc. So that when working a project, a can pull in the different footage that I want to use. For instance, I previously imported and organzied video footage with my PC editing software, and now, thankfully, I can just bring that various footage from the external drive into Imovie and edit. If I want to do a project and grab some footage from 04, 05, 06, it's all right there.
Is there a better solution for import & organizing my raw video clips more efficiently with imovie or idvd?? Or perhaps another program. Such that I’ve got the 1/2 hr of video "Christmas 05", one file (not 40 seperate clips), saved, and can pull it into projects as needed in the future... Ideally maintaining the clip breaks. Am I asking to much from apple? How do you all import/manage/save your imported video?
Much thanks for any feedback!
20" G5 core duo Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Ciao Rubbersoul,
unfortunately iMovie doesn't allow you to rename the clips (other than within the project), so if you want to label them for future reference, you'll have to do that outside iMovie.
I personally save the best shots from each project to an external hard drive using the following method:
• simply drag the desired clips from the iMovie project to the desktop
• organize the clips by creating the appropriate folders (e.g. by subject, time, etc.), so you'll find your footage faster
• rename the clips within the folders. If you don't need to give each clip a separate name, you can use tools like Renamer4Mac (http://www.power4mac.com) to batch-rename the clips.
• transfer and organize your folders/clips on the external (Firewire) hard disk. You can do that manually or by using media browsers like iDive to organize and view your clips. iDive is a digital hub that can help you to keep not only your video but also music and pic collections under control, and it integrates with iMovie and FCE/FCP. Check it out here:
http://www.aquafadas.com/idive-digital-video/index.php
Always remember that DV eats up a lot of disk space and don't forget to back up your footage to tape.
spero che ti sia d'aiuto
mish

I have an iMac about a year old. It has OSX 10.8.3 with iMovie 9.0.8. Is there a way to get iMovie to store and use iMovie Events on an external drive? Raw video is eating up my 1TB internal drive.

I have an iMac about a year old. It has OSX 10.8.3 with iMovie 9.0.8. Is there a way to get iMovie to store and use iMovie Events on an external drive? Raw video is eating up my 1TB internal drive.

Yes, you can import to an external drive by choosing it from the Import Screen.
Once an Event or Project is in iMovie, it is best to move it to the external using iMovie, so the Project does not lose links to the Event.
For full instructions on how to do this, see this link.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4141

Can I use a G4 to get raw video footage to a no-firewire aluminum MacBook?

Hi -
I recently purchased a new aluminum MacBook 2.4Ghz and was shocked to discover the lack of a firewire port. Ok, I should have read the specs more closely before ordering, but I never would have imagined this port being removed (other than from the specialized MacBook Air). As others on this board have said, what were they thinking?!
So I have some questions about downloading raw video footage from a firewire camcorder (forgive any ignorance on my part, I'm new to camcorders and digital movie editing--I've never used iMovie). My goal is basically editing home movies.
I have an old G4 tower (1.5Ghz, 1GB RAM). I also have an external firewire/USB drive. The tower will not run iMovie '08 because the processor is too slow. The iLife 08 disc refuses to even load iMovie on this machine.
I haven't purchased a camcorder yet. I spent a lot of time researching affordable camcorders and had settled on a well-reviewed Canon miniDV, which of course, is firewire. This camera does not come with any software.
Would it work to connect the camera to my G4 via firewire, download the raw footage to my external drive connected to the G4, then move the external drive over to the MacBook, connect it to the MacBook via USB, then import the raw footage to iMovie for editing? I realize the copying over USB would be very slow. I assume I need some type of software for downloading the raw footage to the G4. Since iMovie won't run and the camera has no software, is there some type of utility or shareware that lets you capture raw footage?
Is there a better way I can use my G4 to get raw footage from a firewire camera, and then on to my MacBook? Or will this work at all?
I see that there are a few USB camcorders out there, but they seem to be expensive or don't receive very good reviews, so I'd like to go with the firewire Canon.
Thanks very much for the help with this frustrating issue

Well, never mind. I'm returning the MacBook and buying a previous generation MacBook Pro, which ends up being about $200 more.
Solves my problem, but many folks can't afford the Pro. I'll be commenting at Apple customer feedback about the lack of firewire on the new MacBook.
Thanks for reading the post.

Once I finish an iMovie project and I publish it to various destinations (Dropbox iTunes YouTube etc) do I need to keep the original raw video on my MacBook or can I archive it to an external hard drive.

I have now finished 3 iMovie projects and have learned how to prepare them for sharing through various media like Dropbox, iDVD YouTube iTunes etc. but I now have produced a huge number of related files which are filling up my hard drive to the point that I can't import any further raw video until I archive or delete many of these files.
What files do I need to keep on my MacBook in order to be able to keep these various shared locations functioning, and what should I delete or archive?

iMovie works best with uncompressed audio. If your track is MP3 or AAC, you may get better results by converting your track to the AIFF format and then using that in iMovie.
You can do this in iTunes. Go to iTunes/Preferences and click the General button. On the General page, click the Import Settings button. Choose IMPORT USING: AIFF ENCODER.
(note: remember what you changed it from so you can change it back later, before you import another CD)
Now, in iTunes, select your track. Then click FILE/CREATE NEW VERSION/AIFF VERSION.

How can I reduce the storage needs for iMovie events (raw video)

Good news - After borrowing an 8mm analog camcorder (mine died years ago) and an older digital camcorder (mine doesn't support A/V in) I have been able to set up a "bridge" to convert our old 8mm home videos to digital and import them to iMovie.
Bad news - At 13GB per 8mm tape, plus the Mini DV tapes we also have, getting it all in the computer with room to grow is going to require at least 500GB of space, which I don't have. On hand are 120GB internal (MacBook), 120GB external (Time Machine) and 40GB portable.
After my experience with the 8mm analog camcorder (it died, couldn't buy them anymore, tapes useless) I want to get everything digital in a standard format with backup.
1) Is there any way to reduce the storage space required for the raw video (Events) without impacting image quality (already mediocre in the tapes converted from analog)?
2) What's the best way to squeeze an hour of video down to fit on a DVD but still leave the video available for re-import/editing in the future? I'd likely mail the DVDs to my parents house or something to keep them separate.
Thanks!

Hi
You can also use
Yousendit (google it)
where You can send 200Mb movies
- You download Your movie to them
- get an Internet address back ( url - I think it's called )
- this You copy and send in Your e-mail to those that want's Your movie
- and now they can get it from same address
If You pay You can send up to 2Gb (if I remember right)
BUT it will take time ! In most of my cases - burn it onto a DVD and send by snail-mail most often are a better solution.
Yours Bengt W

How do I archive the raw video files from my camcorder to ext hd?

I have a couple hours of video sitting on my Canon Vixia HF S10 HD camcorder. I don't need to edit them in iMovie (at least for now) but I would like to keep those raw video files for use at a later date and get them off my camcorder. I want to put them on my external HD if that's the best thing to do. Does anybody know the best way forward with this task?
Many thanks.

Open iMovie. Attach your camera via USB. The iMovie Import Screen will come up. Do NOT click Import All. But at the bottom of the import screen, you will see a button that says ARCHIVE ALL. Push this button with your mouse and select a folder on your external drive to store the Archive. (and give it a name). [See here for a picture from Ken Stone's Tutorial|http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/imovie_09stone.html#acquiring]
Later on, when you want to edit your movie, you can open iMovie and select FILE/IMPORT...FROM ARCHIVE, and import this into iMovie just as if your camera is attached.
The first time you do it, I would recommend going through the whole procedure and importing a least some of the archive into an iMovie Event. Once you are sure it is working for you, you can delete the files on the camera.

Workflow for Post Processing Magic Lantern RAW Video?

Dear Adobe Community,
I am interested in learning what steps/workflow fellow DSLR, Magic Lantern users take to Edit, Color Grade and add FX to their RAW video? Here is my untested thought process so far:
Adjust the Exposure, White Balance, Lens Distortion, Etc of DNGs in Adobe Camera Raw.
Import DNG image sequence into Premiere Pro for Editing
Use Dynamic Link to Color Grade in Speed Grade
Use Dynamic Link to add effects in After Effects
Render out in Premiere Pro
One of the concerns I have is that I've read on the Magic Lantern Forums that Premiere Pro will reduce 14 Bit DNG to 8 Bit. Is this something you've encountered? Is there a workaround?
I am fairly new to all of this and would greatly appreciate any feedback to point me in the right direction for Post Processing Magic Lantern Raw Video files. I have a subscription to Lynda.com as well if you have any suggestions for courses to look at.
Thank-you for your time.

Nothing Adobe makes can read MLV or RAW video files, so you have to use something else to convert them into CinemaDNG (a folder of images) or a high bit depth movie file (ProRes etc.) - there are many tools listed in the ML forum which can do that.
Premiere Pro can import cDNG footage but it struggles to play back in real time, and will not allow you to grade it using Camera Raw. To do that you have to use After Effects. The workflow is supposed to be "ingest in Prelude, edit in Premiere Pro, color in SpeedGrade", but quite frankly the learning curve for SG is massive. Adobe's attitude to CinemaDNG is strange; although the standard is open, support is only coded for very specific models of camera and the CC suite assumes a Hollywood workflow where professional colorists (who spend years learning how to use the software) operate offline from the rest of the edit, usually after all the cuts are made. It's not set up for a typical lone DSLR filmmaker, which is quite frankly why a lot of ML users prefer another well-known way to resolve the problem.
The 'fast and dirty' approach to getting a cinematic grade in Premiere would be to apply LUT files to the footage using the Lumetri effect (basically running SpeedGrade presets), or you can hand-grade it using the inbuilt Color Corrector tools - but that doesn't cover the other important stuff that ACR can do, such as lens correction, alignment, noise reduction, camera calibration profiles, etc. - for that, you should import the cDNG footage into After Effects (which does support ACR), correct and calibrate the frames, then export back to something high quality that Premiere can work with (such as DNxHD or ProRes 444). You won't notice any visual loss in quality, and Premiere then will play the timeline without struggling, but it takes a loooong time to chew through every clip.
As to if Adobe applications will ever support MLV files natively - well, since Adobe relies on close partnerships with camera manufacturers including Canon, you can guess what would happen if Adobe ever endorsed it. The only scenario I can imagine is if MLV is adopted in-camera by a major DC manufacturer (Alexa, etc) so vendors can support it without slapping Canon in the face. Flying pigs come to mind.

Heads up: I have started to use CR 7 for RAW video

Just a heads up. Interesting times over at Magic Lantern, where they've cracked the Canon DSLR's to deliver RAW video. The resulting .RAW file is converted to a DNG sequence of custom dimensions. The way I develop these is just like I do my photos: I use Bridge to browse, open up a representative frame in CR, do my settings, and sync up the rest in Bridge. Then I use Image Processor to output a JPG sequence for final rendering in Premiere (I use premiere 5, but Photoshop CS6, that is why I dont import the DNG sequence directly in, say after effects or Premiere).
Anyway, lots of people have suddenly started using Camera RAW for grading RAW video over the past week or so.
Just wanted to let you know. Its pretty big news. Here's my first tests: https://vimeo.com/66414746

It's much better to use After Effects to grade Canon RAW/DNG footage, as you can maintain a 100% nondestructive workflow.
You can import a DNG frame sequence into After Effects (and it will display the ACR interface automatically, as if you were opening a single image in Photoshop). Whatever you 'develop' in ACR is applied identically to every frame, so yes there are problems if you do something like add grain as it'll produce a static pattern. That doesn't matter for stills, so nobody in the ACR team bothered to add a random seed to the grain function. Maybe if this workflow catches on we'll see it added to future versions, but right now you should add grain later with AE's effects.
The DNG 'footage' always imports in 32-bit space even though the data from Canon's sensor isn't that deep. If you put it onto a 16-bit comp in AE you can adjust tone/exposure with the same effectiveness as the sliders in ACR, and the non-32 effects such as Add Grain will be happier. There's no real point working in 32-bit comps for these files unless you're doing something extreme. Replicating the shadow/highlight/clarity sliders with curves requires some skill, but you can get some amazing one-click effects on these DNG sequences from plugins such as MB Looks.
Personally I would make the overall pre-grade in ACR (white balance, approximate exposure, lens correction) but I'd do everything else (denoise/curves/grade/grain) in AE once the footage is on the timeline (I'd apply a little bit of MB Denoiser II, then Colorista or Looks, then AE's Add Grain or MB MisFire). Note that you need to set the lens correction manually, as the DNGs from Raw2dng don't include the EXIF tags.
One thing I've been asked is how to get the ACR dialog open again once the footage is imported to AE. You do that by right-clicking the footage in the project bin and choosing Interpret Footage > Main (Ctrl+Alt+G). On the dialog that appears, press the More Options button on the bottom left.
btw - Premiere Pro CS6 does not import DNGs. A previous version did, but Adobe reduced their activities on the emerging CinemaDNG standard and removed the plugin.

Premiere CC does not let me show Camera Raw after imported blackmagic Cinema Camera DNG file

as the title said, I have imported my DNG files that shot from blackmagic cinema camera into Premiere CC 7.2 and the Camera Raw software does not pop up to let me do the color correction !! but in AE works well
please help me !! how to solve this problem (and the workflow if possible)

thanks u for the quick reply.. but can I ask u another question !!!
Can u give me some workflow about how to color correction my Raw video to deal in premiere ? I meant, do i have to Import my raw video to AE and then do the color correction and then export or blah blah blah.. please, i have no idea how to deal with it.. cuz i need to work premiere

Raw video files

where are the raw video files stored for Imovie and how do I delete the raw files from the HDD that I capture into Imovie? (looking for folder path is it in the Imovie Cache?) I need to clear out the old stuff to make room for new stuff. Once I find them I drag them to the trash and empty the trash right?

Open iMovie. Attach your camera via USB. The iMovie Import Screen will come up. Do NOT click Import All. But at the bottom of the import screen, you will see a button that says ARCHIVE ALL. Push this button with your mouse and select a folder on your external drive to store the Archive. (and give it a name). [See here for a picture from Ken Stone's Tutorial|http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/imovie_09stone.html#acquiring]
Later on, when you want to edit your movie, you can open iMovie and select FILE/IMPORT...FROM ARCHIVE, and import this into iMovie just as if your camera is attached.
The first time you do it, I would recommend going through the whole procedure and importing a least some of the archive into an iMovie Event. Once you are sure it is working for you, you can delete the files on the camera.

Fastest iMovie Video Import Fromat for iDVD Processing

Which iMovie video import format will end up being converted the fastest when I export the final result into iDVD?
Should I use DV? MPG4? Or one of the others?
Just what format DOES iDVD convert iMovies into? Seems to take a REALLY long time, even with my iMac G5. If I could initially import the raw video into the same format, seems logical it would take less time for iDVD to do its thing.
Thanks!
iMac G5, Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

DV is the native format for iMovie and iDVD. Encoding contents to mpeg2 is a looong process in iDVD.
Of course authoring a DVD in an app like DVD Studio Pro with mpeg2 files would be a time saver, however unlike DVD SP, iDVD does not except mpeg2 files. (it only encodes to mpeg2).
I usually bring my iMovie project into iDVD as a flatten project.
Meaning all the A/V tracks, transitions, effects, titles, etc. comprising a iMovie project is shared/exported as a DV file(s) into a new project.
I check to make sure the DV file(s) play correctly in the new project and just add chapter markers save and close iMovie. Open iDVD, import the iMovie project, author the DVD and wait for it to finish.
I find iDVD works more efficiently/faster encoding when it doesn't have to deal with mulitple audio tracks, transitons, effects, titles etc.
It also reduces the number of encoding errors that can occur in iDVD.

What is the raw video input source format for Compressor 4?

How do I import raw video as a source for Compressor 4.
For x264 I use .yuv or .y4m from ffmpeg.
Compressor doesn't recognize these raw video formats.

To clarify... H.264 is a video compression standard used by both x264 (which is software) and Apple's Compressor 4 (software). Compressor 4 will take as input a directory of still images and a variety of compressed video formats. According to the documentation it also can ingest 8 bit YUV422 raw video and 10 bit YUV444 video. But these terms describe a color space and color sub-sampling scheme not the file format of the video file. I'm looking for the a file format for the raw uncompressed video that Compressor will read. I tried making a YUV422 format .mov file but Compressor didn't seem to like it.
BTW. Yes to David Brewer, x264 is better than Compressor 4 in every way (better quality, more compression, faster, cheaper). I'm trying to quantify how much better it is. So I need to make sure they are getting the same raw input.
Tx

Replace sound track on raw video?

I'm editing the video that my church takes every Sunday at service. We record the sound on my MacBook using GarageBand. Unfortunately, there is no microphone input on the camera, so I can't get the mixed sound coming out of the sound board into the camera directly.
What I've been doing is muting the sound on the raw video & then taking the GarageBand audio to voice over the video. It works but it's a pain because if I have to cut anything out of the service, I have to make the same edit in the GarageBand audio. Then I have to get everything resynched so the video doesn't look like a Godzilla movie.
Is there any easy way I can take the raw video & replace the sound track on that with the GarageBand audio, so all I'll have to do is cut the video where necessary? I'm not hopeful that the answer is "Yes", but I thought I'd ask.
Thanks
Tony

You could add the GB audio track. Then SHARE/EXPORT TO QUICKTIME in Apple Intermediate Codec.
Then import the AIC file to imovie. You could then edit this as you describe.

VCR recording raw video data?????

Dear all,
First of all I would like to apologise if I am posting this topic in an entirely different section.
I am working on a video project. One of the modules I am working now is I have to record video data into a VCR. VCR will be connected to a decoder from where it will be receiving raw video data.
My project is a applet-servlet application. I dont want to use JMF, as every customer has to go thru the process of installing & other stuffs.
I totally dont have any idea on how it can be done.
If you have any idea on this regard or know any sites.. please do help me on this...
will be awaiting for yr suggestions...
Thanks in advance
Swarna

helloo ,
Please anybody have any idea on how it can be done...
Its real important..
Plzzzzzzzzzz..
Swarna

Raw video import

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