Very long iMovie project

I've got an iMovie project of about 3 hour's length. I now need to get it into idvd and eventually burn to a dvd. I realize I probably first need to break up this long project into smaller chunks in order to import/work on it in idvd. What would be the best method of doing this? Cheers.
PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

hi themuse:
Welcome to discussions!
Short of having a DL burner, you will need to chop that movie up.
Follow Dan Slagle's instructions here:
http://www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/usage/5003.shtml
Sue

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Very big iMovie project file

Here is what I do. I record a movie with Miglia Eyetv and a Mac Mini, setting Apple Imovie, it is ---.mp4 format. The file is about 1,7 gig. Next I want to remove begin and end, commercials and add some chapters. So I import the movie file into iMovie. After doing the simple editing stuff I end up with a project file about 26 gig (!?). Then I want to share it with iDVD to burn a disk. The disk space that is required is about 7 gig. It is to big for a single layer disk.
The editing work is done on my new iMac. I think I have enough power under the hood to do this kind of work.
Then, I life in Europe, so my records are in PAL. Each time I create an iMovie project its is set in NTSC. I cannot change anything; Preferences doesn't show any option. Importing the mp4 file takes considerable time, probably because the recoding PAL to NTSC.
In short, I want to burn (a standard, 2 hour, movie) on a single layer disk, with normal quality. Then I don't want to hustle withe the PAL - NTSC thing.

You can set the PAL vs NTSC when you create a project. However, if for some reason you cannot, you can export the movie as QuickTime and convert it. You can wait until you have completely finished the movie and then convert it, or you can export it at the beginning when you have just a couple of clips in the movie, and then you can continue to add to your movie and edit it.
See this from iMovie help:
+Exporting your movie for viewing in PAL or NTSC format+
+When you first create a new project in iMovie HD, you can select a video format for the project. The video and images you later add to the iMovie are converted to this format. However, if you need to format your movie to be viewed on a VCR or DVD player that uses another format, you can use the expert export options to convert your movie.+
+NTSC is a format commonly used in North America and Japan. PAL is a format commonly used by devices in Europe. There are also different versions of these two formats, such as DVCPRO-PAL and DVCPRO50-NTSC, so determine the precise format you need before exporting.+
+To export a movie in NTSC or PAL format:+
+Choose Share > QuickTime.+
+Choose Expert Settings from the "Compress movie for" pop-up menu, and then click Share.+
+Type a name for your movie and choose where you want to save it.+
+Choose "Movie to QuickTime Movie" from the Export pop-up menu, and then click Options.+
+In the Video pane, click Settings to open the Compression Settings dialog.+
+Choose a format from the pop-up menu (DV-PAL or DVCPRO-PAL for Europe, DV-NTSC or DVCPRO-NTSC for North America and Japan).+
+Choose a value from the Frames Rate pop-up menu (25 for PAL and 29.97 for NTSC)+
+Drag the Quality slider to the desired quality. Best is recommended.+
+Click OK.+
+Click Size to open the Export Size Settings dialog, and then click "Use custom size."+
+Type a value in the Width field (720 for both PAL and NTSC) and in the Height field (576 for PAL and 480 for NTSC), and then click OK.+
+Click Settings in the Sound pane.+
+Choose Stereo (L R) from the Channels pop-up menu in the Sound Settings dialog.+
+Choose 48.000 from the kHz pop-up menu (or type it in the Rate field).+
+Choose 16 from the "Sample size" pop-up menu, and then click OK.+
+Click OK in the Movie Settings dialog.+
+Click Save.+

Combining iMovie projects into a longer iMovie project

I have built a bunch of iMovie '08 projects and would like to combine some of them into a larger new iMovie project. I know how to drag movie events and photos to the new project, but do not see how to drag projects to the new project.
I already tried building the new project in iDVD without good results so it was suggested that I build it in iMovie. Can anyone help me out?
Thanks

There does not appear to be a way of merging projects together without a lot of manual work involved.
I have tried all the options that I would have expected to work (as I suspect you have), but as you say you only appear to be able to move the video from one project to another in one copy/paste. Then you need to do the other items separately (audio etc).
Perhaps a suggestion here for the next release:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/imovie.html
Ian

HT1645 Long iMovie Projects and iDVD.

I have a long project on iMovie which is over 2 hours. I have a Double Layer DVD that can cope with up to 240 mins unlike the usual 120mins DVD. Why doesn't it work? I have a Multiplexer Error. HELP! Thanks

The multiplexing error is related to the movie file and not the length of the movie. Check Bengt Wärleby's post in these topics: Stage 4 Multiplexing - Media error in...: Apple Support Communities and HT1645 I was burning a DVD and the...: Apple Support Communities
OT

HT2479 What is the best way to get my hour long iMovie project to a DVD?

I have iMovie 10 but do not have iDVD. I have heard that the iDVD that comes with iLife 11 has compatibility issues with this version of iMovie. I am open to buying software but want to hear what people think is the best route to go. I also need to purchase a superdrive since I do not have a disk drive.
Help please!

Well you'll nedd the drive at least.
iDVD is still available on sites like Amazon. Look for iLife '11.
Alternatives are presented in a User Tip from one of our resident gurus, Karsten Schlüter, here:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3711
Matt

Incorporate existing iMovie project into new, longer one

I have an 8-minute iMovie project, with lost of careful editing (multiple sounds tracks, transitions, etc.)
I need to incorporate it as one section in a longer iMovie project I'm now working on. But when it becomes the one section of a larger project, I have to shorten it in half, to be only 4 minutes.
Two questions:
1) How do you insert an existing iMovie project into a new one -- bring over all the pieces at once, with everything in tact (music, transitions, etc.)?
2) This is a little more complicated. Since I have to boil down the 8 minute piece to 4 minutes, I'd rather not have to go back into the original and do painstaking editing -- which would involve rejiggering transitions, music fades, and all kinds of things. I'd rather export it to Quicktime, bring that into the new, larger iMovie project, where I can crop out parts I don't want and tie togehter the remaining pieces with transitions.
My concern: when I export original 8 minute project to Quicktime, doesn't that compress it? If so, and I bring that already-compressed Quicktime into new, longer iMovie project, when the new one is finished and I export it out to a DVD (end product) -- won't that be re-compressing the already compressed portion?
Thanks for any insights.
imac 20 inch Intel Mac OS X (10.4.8)
Mac OS X (10.4.7)
imac 20 inch Intel Mac OS X (10.4.8)

... or export as Quicktime/Full Quality file, which is a bit identical copy of your project => no quality loss ...

How do I migrate iMovie project data/pointers from iPhoto to Aperture?

This may be a rather tricky question but here is what I want to do. I have 22GB of Photo's/Video's in iPhoto that I originally used at some point in the past to create some travel home movies. I currently have about 44GB of Photo's/Vid in Aperture. I like Aperture so much that I never use iPhoto anymore.
I've started moving just the albums with pictures in iPhoto over to Aperture. (simple enough) But now I have a lot of space I need to free up.
My question is possibly broken down into 2 parts.
1) How do I move albums with photo's & video to Aperture and index them accordingly without affecting the iMovie projects that link to the original iPhoto data?
I want to keep my iMovie projects the way they are, in editable form, thus eliminating the need for iPhoto, so I can clean up 22GB.
2) In iMovie, on the left window pane, it says "iPhoto Library" & "Aperture Library", with all the old iMovie projects pointing to the iPhoto library. Would moving the rest of my iPhoto library into Aperture automatically purge iMovie editable video projects?
I've backed everything up onto an external hdd, so I would sincerely appreciate any help on this topic. It sounds complicated, but I think it should be fairly straightforward. However, I thought I'd ask the community before actually attempting to do so.
Again, appreciate your help folks. Thanks.

Thanks for your suggestions, However I tried to do a simple test on one very short iMovie project and this is what has occurred:
Setup: (iPhoto '11, iMovie '11, Aperture 3.1.1 - All up to date)
to understand what's going on, prior to what I did below this is how my projects are setup, iPhoto has an event & album tagged F1 Montreal Weekend '08 with both photo / video. (my test project for the purposes of trying to get this to work) iMovie has a project I created based on that photo video and it's saved as an iMovie project called 'F1 Montreal' with references to the iPhoto database.
Action:
First, in Aperture, I imported the whole iPhoto event above which brought over all 192 photos and about 36 videos. I then filed it in aperture under my new way of storing albums/videos and created a smart album for video within the Aperture project. Once I verified all the data is there, I then trashed the iPhoto event and album mentioned above to free up some space since it's now in Aperture. Finally, i closed both iPhoto & Aperture and loaded up iMovie.
Results:
The project 'F1 Montreal' shows up as normal, with all its edits and such after clicking edit project. However, there is a little yellow exclamation mark that says this on every slice of video:
"This clips media file is not currently available.
/users/{me}/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Masters/2008/F1 Montreal/{moviehere}.mov"
After some research on what this is and how to fix it, it seems there's no menu option to repoint the movie files to a different location, am I missing something or have I moved / merged these files the wrong way? Apparently there is some help in the iMovie help file that shows how to reconnect data, but I can't find it anywhere.
I would really appreciate any additional help on how to do this. I'm sure someone's tried doing this before, yes?
Thanks!

Have accidentally deleted video clips and now an iMovie project won't play (did initially after deletion but no longer). Is there any way to rectify this? I have a very upset daughter as the video was her holiday memories....

I have deleted the video clips used to make an iMovie project as I thought the bits usedt were saved as part of the iMovie project. Initially the project still played post deletion. However it is no longer working as it says it can't find the video clips. Is this rescuable?
I have a very upset daughter as project took her 2 days and was her holiday memories....
Any help gratefully received
Karen

There's no harm in looking inside the Trash folder.
When a file or folder is deleted, it is moved into the Trash folder to give you a chance to recover it if it was deleted by mistake. Of course that means Trash folder could grow large as time goes and more files are deleted.
You can recover your movies if they are still in the trash.
You should also empty the trash if you think you don't need the files in it to free up disk space.

Can no longer see projects in library viewer in imovie '08 and need to find a different apple editing program

Can no longer see projects in library viewer in imovie ’08 and need to find a different apple editing program
I had approximately 15 projects that I can no longer see in imovie. I have read almost every thread on this community for imovie regarding error messages associated with looking for clips. In each case I have rebuilt the project. However, today I continually received a message to search for a .dv file. I have located the file and even changed the .dv file to .mov file and yet none of my projects will appear. I have rebooted, deleted the plist and nothing works.
I was planning on buying a new Mac in 2014 with new editing, and use my old Mac as a backup for imovie files. Very frustrated that I can’t work with any projects now! I se the files in my Movies/imovies/iprojects folder but they don’t appear in the viewer.
Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get back my projects into the viewer? Or, can someone recommend a basic program compatible with imovie 08 that I can use to import my exiting projects into?

No, Wasn't sure if I could continue to upgrade to 9.0.9 since my Mac is relatively old.
Just don't understand why I have to keep starting a project over and over again. As I type this, the imovie icon is jumping and asking for "clip 135-02-05-05;27:15" cannot be found. Without this file, the movie cannot play properly." I have located this clip and pointed imovie to the clip, and nothing happens. I even try to locate the corresponding clip in the event viewer but it is not there.
Today is the first time I have not been able to see my projects in the viewer.

How do I find an iMovie project that is no longer showing up in iMovie?

Our students have 32gb iPad Airs and are currently using iOS 7.1.1. We've had several students come in to the IT office over the last couple days saying that a project they had been working on in iMovie has disappeared. The alert notification that popped up says that the video they were using can no longer be found or the file name has been changed. When we try to search for it, the iPad can't find the file. We check in the camera roll and there are NO more photos OR videos in her camera roll even though the student insists she had a good amount of photos and videos in there. In addition, "Upload to iCloud" was turned on for iMovie as well as Photo Stream in her iCloud settings. So where did her iMovie project and other pictures and videos go?
I tried accessing them via a Mac by opening the iCloud dashboard but no projects or photos and videos are showing up in there either. How can we avoid students loosing their school work in these apps?

As with the Mail app on a Mac, the iPhone's Mail app stores all email recipients in a list of previous recipients. The email address autofill feature when addressing an email pulls from Contacts and from the list of previous recipients.
Different from the Mail app on a Mac, there is no access to the list of previous recipients to add a previous recipient to Contacts that is not already entered in Contacts or to remove a previous recipient from the list - not at the present time anyway.

IMovie '11 will no longer show project or open the project file

Upon finishing a project, I was ready to do a Share > Export Movie command, and opted first to do a restart on my computer (by first doing a File > Quit in iMovie).
Now my project no longer shows up in the projects pane!
While the import of the original footage still exists in the Event Library pane, the project is nowhere to be found in the Projects Library pane.
In addition, while the project file that sits in my iMovie Projects folder is there, it will not open!
When I option click it to open with iMovie, iMovie launches normally (displaying no messages) but does not show the project in the projects pane!
What has happened here? The iMovie Projects folder is on my internal hard drive and I have not ever moved any files around. Is there any way to get it back?
I have tried to open my project file on a different computer that is networked in the same room, but the same happens: iMovie launches normally, however the project does not appear in the the Projects Library pane.
As a test, I have created a couple new projects that I have named "Test1" and "Test2" and they indeed show up normally every time I launch iMovie or do an "open with iMovie" command from the iMovie Projects folder. But my origional project just doesn't work. Please help!
If this is of any help: my origional project comprises of a 26 minute MOV file that I have simply imported in iMovie and have added subtitles (no transitions). I had been working for two days on it, and there were 2 times early on when I had to force quit iMovie because I was getting the spinning ball - I was worried about whether the changes were saved, but each time they were indeed saved and I could access the project normally. (I had considered this was caused by a shortage of memory, so I did not think anything of it.) Since then and up to the moment of the problem, I had occasionally shut down or restarted my computer (by first doing a File > Quit in iMovie) with no problems up to now.
Looking through the forum, I have tried 1) logging in/out, 2) logging in as a visitor, 3) creating a new admin account, in addition to 4) subtracting the iMovie preferences file from the Library, but nothing has worked.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I'm running Mac OSX 10.7.5 and iMovie '11 version 9.0.8 on an iMac 27 inch, 2.8 GHz i7 with 4 GB ram.

Are you running Time Machine?

IMovie Project seems to skip and pause very briefly during playback

I am creating a video montage in iMovie '09, though when viewing the project during playback the video does not play smoothly and seems to skip and pause very briefly while continuing to play. Each clip separately played smoothly prior to its addition into my iMovie project.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

What kind of clips are these?
Specifically, if you right-click on a clip in the Event Browser and select "Reveal in Finder", then right-click on the clip in the Finder and select "Open with...QuickTime Player, and then hit Command-I in QuickTime Player to open the Inspector Window, what codecs are mentioned next to the word "Format:"?

Simple Question: How long can my iMovie project be?

I've got a movie project in iMovie '11 (9.0.2) that is a bit over 2.5 hours and I get an error when trying to export it ("Unable to prepare project for publishing..... Project is too long.) Unfortunately the error doesn't come up until AFTER it's gone through the motions...5 to 6 hours later! This seems crazy to me since I would think people burning to DL DVD would have projects as long or longer. I'm not going to iDVD with it so I don't need it to be under 2 hours for a SL DVD.
I have 70+GB of space available on my HD and let it run overnight several times. Haven't tried exporting to Quicktime out of it since it says it's going to take 22 hours to process!
I can split it in half if necessary, but does anyone know an official project length limit or other workaround? THANKS!

Yes, your movie is too long. Divide it up into 5 30 minute movies. You can do this by selecting your movie in the Project Library View, and clicking FILE/DUPLICATE PROJECT 5 times. Then for project 1, delete everything but the first 30 minutes. For project 2, delete everything but the 2nd 30 minutes, etc. If 30 minutes is still too long, you can shorten it again with this method.
If you need to make a theatrical length movie (e.g. 2 1/2 hours), I suggest Final Cut Pro X. It will make movies this long.
Final Cut Pro X can import iMovie Projects, so if you want, you can create your movie in Final Cut Pro X.
The reason iMovie is not the right tool for you is that it was designed for amateur home movies. Technically, iMovie will render the entire movie in a single pass. This means that the longer your movie, the more powerful computer, memory, and disks you will need, but ultimately there is a limit to what can be accomplished in a single pass. However, Final Cut Pro X can do multiple renders. It will render as you go, so that at the end, when you make your 2.5 hour movie, it can just string together sequences which have already been rendered.

I started to publish an iMovie project in iDVD but it failled .... the mesage was start up disk needsmore space. deleate files to make more space. how can I do that, please? in help menue thre are no entris on start up... Thank you VERY much. Michael

I started to publish an iMovie project in iDVD but it failled .... yhe mesage was start up disk needs more space. delete files to make more space. how can I do that, please? in help menue tehre are no entris on start up... Thank you VERY much. Michael

Startup disc is Macintosh HD. If your HD is getting near full capacity you'll need to offload some files to an external drive or drives.
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
How to free up my disk space:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html

Copying SELECT PORTIONS of longer clip to another iMovie project.

I recorded a play last night.
I'm making a montage. Let's say I want a four or five second clip from a 42 minute long video. I split the clip so it is autonomous, copy it, and paste it into the new project, but iMovie copies the ENTIRE video...leaving me with a lot less hard drive space and unneeded files.
How do I just get that TINY bit into the new project?

One way is to export the 5 second clip to your desktop as a Full Quality Quicktime Movie (File/Export/Full Quality), then drag that movie into your iMovie project in place of the 5 second clip, then delete the old 5 second clip.

Very long iMovie project

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