Which file format (.avi or .mpeg) is best to edit home movies in iMovie

I am having VHS and Hi/Digital-8 home movies converted to digital files and saved on an external hard drive. I am a novice video editor & Mac user.  I plan to edit the movies for personal use.  The company I sent my original tapes to only converts to either .avi or .mpeg4. What is my best option?

I have this question too!  Surely there is someone out there who can help!?

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  • AVCHD + iMovie, best tactics for home movies

    Hey all. Thanks ahead of time for your help. Even after a decent amount of research, I'm having a hard time figuring out some of this.
    I have a late-2008 13" MBP (2.4GHz ic2d), iMovie 08, a Canon Vixia HF20. My previous camera (mini-DV tape Panasonic) imported into iMovie a consistent 6.86 MB / second at 29.97 FPS and 853x480. I guess we're spoiled by the small amount of hard drive space this uses up, since we have several years of footage (unedited) on my MBP.
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    I've been reading up on programs that convert the AVCHD format to MP4 and DV so that iMovie can read them (the conversion process takes forever). I guess I don't understand the benefit of this. If my iMovie already can import them into AIC, why would I need a 3rd party conversion program?
    Or more specifically, does using a converter program to take AVCHD to MP4 retain full HD quality but reduce file size? How about to DV format?
    I'm not wild about the idea of taking 12x the clip length to convert the AVCHD files into MP4, but if that will be a one-time "suck it up" process, and we'll ultimately have small file sizes (yet full HD quality), I can see the value there.
    We're not tied to using iMovie (we don't even edit really, we're just using it as a player/organizer right now). *So I guess our goal is to keep file sizes down so we can (ideally) have all our unedited video on my MBP for view-any-time fun... all the while retaining HD quality if we ever (way in the future) want to edit it.*
    Sheessh, it's just home movies. Got so complicated so fast.
    I do have an ASUS G73JH (i7-720QM, Win7), and I read AVCHD is native to Win7, but I'd really like to avoid using the PC for the videos.

    Thank you so much for responding. But my questions aren't really about archiving the raw AVCHD/MTS format (which I believe I can already do right now using Disk Utility or my PC).
    The issue is that we still want to play/view the unedited HD files on the Mac, but need to keep the file sizes down (so AIC format is out of the question). I guess my questions can be summarized as follows:
    *1) How can we simply view/play the raw AVCHD files on the Mac, while (a) keeping the file sizes down, and (b) maintaining the HD quality to do some editing in the (very) distant future?*
    I tried the VLC Media Player program, but it didn't work (even with the entire folder tree from the camera).
    *2) Does converting the AVCHD format into MP4 (or DV) result in a loss of video quality?*
    My couple tests doing this (with AVCHD Converter program) took forever to do the conversion to MP4, but ended up with very small file sizes as well as file types that Mac could play. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the video quality went down. I have not tried converting to DV yet.
    *3) If you are trying to retain the most video quality while keeping the file size as small as possible, is it better to convert AVCHD format to MP4 or DV?*
    *4) Is the conversion from AVCHD to DV/MP4 quicker based on CPU?*
    VoltaicHD, for example, says it takes 12 times as long as the original footage to convert the clip, but it didn't mention the CPU. If I did the conversion on my i7 quadcore PC, would it all go faster?

  • What's the best workflow for Home Movie Importing and Enjoying?

    I'm new to iMovie (and the mac) and have started importing all my home movies from my camcorder into iMovie. I quickly realized that movies take a huge amount of disk space and it may or may not be reasonable to import all my movies and keep them on the hard disk in .dv format. At 12GB/Hour I would need 1.2 Terabytes of storage (plus backup). If that is the best workflow, i'm happy to invest in a few terabytes of storage and back up. But before I do that, I want to check to see if there is a different workflow I should follow given my use case.
    Here is my use case:
    I have 100 hours of 8mm and miniDV tapes already and plan to continue creating more.
    I want to import them all into the iMac for ease of organization, searching for the clips of interest, and watch them either on my iMAC and also on my TV (via TIVO).
    I may do some editing, but this is not a big priority for me at this time. I may do more editing in the distant future when I have more time. My editing for now will be limited to rejecting portions of clips I don't want.
    I plan to watch the movies from my iMac on my TV via my TIVO (i've already ordered the Roxio Toast software that I understand I need, per the Tivo web site).
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    Should I maintain my event library in .dv format? (and bite the bullet on the storage)
    Or is the .dv format intended only for temporary editing and users are expected to compress into another format after editing? if so, what format and which tool is recommended? (keeping in mind that I want to view the clips via Tivo and Roxio/Toast).
    If I need to byte the bullet and invest in storage, my quick math suggests I'll need about 2 terabytes for the library and 2 more for back up for a total of 4 terabytes!?. Is a RAID system recommended for this? (I was surprised that the Apple store did not carry such a system, so perhaps that is not the best option). What would you recommend?
    Anyone out there with a similar use case? I know I've asked a lot of questions here. I'd appreciate any recommendations you may have, even if you cant answer all of them.
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    I am in a similar mode, though about half as much existing DV footage.
    +Should I maintain my event library in .dv format? (and bite the bullet on the storage)+
    Short answer, yes; long answer:
    I did "bite the bullet" since 1T drives are at or just over $100. I'm using a MacBook Pro so I bought an 2 port eSATA card for my cardbus slot ($34), and a 1T eSATA/Firewire/USB drive ($119). I don't plan to "back up" as I am not going to get rid of my Mini DV tapes/vhs/analog tapes, etc. Those will be in an off-site dark cool closet elsewhere. I don't want to do RAID or such as it still puts everything in the same drive unit, in the same location. Basically I'm splitting my video import to two different physical drives. So if lightning, thieves, personal incompetence or whatever strikes, there's more chance it'll only affect one of the drives. I've thought about a Drobo, which you might consider. It is unique device that offers a spin on RAID that offers some advantages.
    Everything I read here on these boards suggests that it is best to grab the source video in the original format whenever possible. Since storage is cheap, makes sense to me.
    It is likely you wouldn't compress your video unless you were going to edit it. For example if you wanted to make a video of the kids growing up to give the relatives you'd likely end up compressing to burn them a dvd. You would compress if you were going to use MobileMe, YouTube, etc. to post some footage. Whether you watch the video from home, or output to DVD for others, or post online, at least you'll have the source video in it's best possible original format to work with.
    This is an aside, but might be useful, I imported one tape at a time, let iM09 create a new event and split per each day. THen I renamed every event based on what the content was before doing the next tape. This really helps later on once yo realize you have a hard drive with 50 hours + of everything in your life on it. I included the year in the name in some way, for example, John's wedding 1994, Hawaii 2000, Hawaii 2004. Then I ended up drag/dropping Hawaii to one event.

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    Hello,
    I have Home Movies imported into iMovie 11 on my iMac 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo.
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    Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, journaled)
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    Are the home movies stored both in the iTunes file on my iMac, so I can see them via AppleTV, and the external hard drive.
    If so can I just use the external hard drive without having these large files filling my iMac disc?
    Hope that all makes sense.

    The difference between case sensitive and non-case sensitive is self-explanatory. Non-case sensitive iis easier to work with as it can avoid confusion with files names.
    The others are weird and wonderful/partly useless Microsoft formats only of interest to Windows users, or those who want to have both Apple OS and Windows on the same computer. Not all of them can be read by a Mac at all, some of them have inconvenient file size limitations.
    More info here:
    http://formatharddrive.net/types-of-hard-drive-formats.html
    Message was edited by: Klaus1

  • What is the best software for home movie editing

    Have some old home movies that were digitalized from 8mm film to VOB format.  Want to edit and clean them up and reformat into modern mp4/H.264 format. What is the best software/app to use on iMAC running 10.9.2?  Thank you for any suggestion.

    I would expect that iMovie would be quite adequate for this. If you find it lacking, or if you're just curious, take a look at Final Cut Pro X. There is a thirty day, fully functional trial download so you can find out first and whether it's worth $300 for your purposes.
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    I recently purchased Wondershare software. I've converted many video files and made a movie. imovie quitting. Wondering if there is a problem with Wondershare and imac compatibility. Any thoughts?
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    Not sure about the codec- Wondershare asked where I was sending to in setup and I selected imovie. It did the rest. I have been successful with editing on storyboard, but imovie (09) quits when I attempt to view project full screen, or prepare the movie for sharing. I have removed some files (to ensure headroom), and have installed most recent updates.

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