I am using iMovie 3.0.2 on a PowerMac G4 Dual 450 MHz with 1.5 GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.2.4. I have a seperate hard drive for editing digital video (internal Maxtor 80 GB HD). I am using a Canon "Ultura" digital video camera.
Before starting this project, I used Drive 10 to defragment the hard drive and optimize the volume structures.
I used iMovie 3.0.2 to download approximately 4 hours of digital video to my hard drive. I have taken approximately 1 hour of this video and placed it in the storyboard/timeline. Some of these are complete downloaded clips taken whole from the clip tray. Some of these are partial clips take by splitting a whole clip into two or more parts. I have used the motion effect to speed up the playback of the video (which cut the playback time down from 1 hour to about 20 minutes). I then placed a few transitions betwen some of the clips in the project.
(My purpose for doing this is to prepare a "time lapse" effect.)
I have tried exporting this 20 minute project back to my digital camera with little success.
The export process stops at about 7 minutes into the project. iMovie says it is exporting, but the process stops.The image in the preview window freezes. The playhead stops moving. The timer in the export window does not change. The image in the camera's LCD viewer freezes.
This freeze occurred when the project came to the first transition. Believe the transition to be corrupted, I deleted the transition and created a new one. Again when I, exported the project, it froze in the same place. I simply deleted the transition and decided not to use one at this point. Again when I exported the project, it froze.
I force quit iMoive for the umpteenth time. I decided to watch the project. The project now stopped playing when it got about 7 minutes into the project. Believing the actual video to be corrupt, I deleted the first seven minutes of video from the project (since I managed to get it on tape). I went to export my new, 13 minute project, to my video camera. I got about 6 to 7 minutes into this shorter project when the export process froze again, same as above. I followed all of the steps, same as above.
I force quit iMovie for the umpteenth*2 time. I deleted these clips from from the project, which left about a 6 minute project remaining. I went to export my new, 6 minute project. Again, the export process froze. Now it is freezing at the end of each and every clip in the project storyboard/timeline.
This is driving me batty! Sometimes the export freeze occurrs at a transition, sometimes at the end of a clip, sometimes in the middle of a clip.
I have repeatedly deleted all iMovie preferences. I have repeatedly deleted the iMovie project file and created a new project (using the old digital video files by placing them in the Media folder). Nothing fixes this problem.
I have never had this kind of problem before (iMovie 2) but then again, I have never had more than an hour of total digital video in any of my previous projects. Does iMovie (particularly iMovie 3) have a limit with how much digital video can be in a Media folder? Can it only work with a certain number of minutes or gigabites of total digital video in a project? Is 4 hours (45+ GB) of digital video too much?
I have had all kinds of problems with iMovie 3.0.1 and 3.0.2. Not even deleting iMovie and reinstalling it has fixed my issues. Do I need to add this to the list?
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