[cal4ever]

Hello,
I posted a similar question on another forum, but I have more questions to add this time. I am making a video with a friend of mine using imovie. She has an emac, and i have a pb. She's doing having the movie on her emac and mine on my pb, any suggestions on how to import her imovie file onto my pb?

Someone suggested using a firewire cable, and connecting our macs together.

My next question is, how should I burn this on DVD? I have a superdrive, and I am not sure which file to burn so that it will play as a dvd movie.

Thanks ahead of time!

[stevesnj]

Yes use a Firewire cable in Target Disk mode, press and hold the 'T' on her eMac and her HD will mount on your desktop.

If you keep all the files together in one floder iDVD will know what files to use, it does it automatically.

[cal4ever]

Originally posted by stevesnj:
Yes use a Firewire cable in Target Disk mode, press and hold the 'T' on her eMac and her HD will mount on your desktop.

If you keep all the files together in one floder iDVD will know what files to use, it does it automatically.

Will the clips (from the emac) stay in the order that they are in, or will I have to rearrange the clips?

Thanks again

[scottiB]

Originally posted by cal4ever:
She's doing having the movie on her emac and mine on my pb, any suggestions on how to import her imovie file onto my pb?

Someone suggested using a firewire cable, and connecting our macs together.

My next question is, how should I burn this on DVD? I have a superdrive, and I am not sure which file to burn so that it will play as a dvd movie.

Thanks ahead of time!

If her half is complete and does not need to be intermixed with your clips, I would export it as a full quality DV file (from within iMovie, File menu >Export>To QuickTime from the pulldown menu>Format: Full Quality DV from the pulldown menu). This will create a standalone QuickTime movie, with all music/effects/transitions/titleing she may have.

Without iMovie being launched, copy this QuickTime movie to the Media folder of your iMovie project on the PowerBook (via FireWire target disk mode or ethernet cable). Open your iMovie project.

The following warning will appear (with your QT movie name rather than what's listed here):



Choose: Move Files to Clips Pane

When iMovie finishes launching, the movie QuickTime file created on the eMac will be added to your clips pane. Drag it to where you need to add it to your timeline.

Once your iMovie project's complete, the easiest way to author a DVD (using iDVD) is: from within iMovie, choose the iDVD button:



and select "Create iDVD Project". This will launch iDVD (asking you to name and save your project) bring up the DVD menu templates, and you can create your layout.

Note that iDVD allows a 90 minute maximum movie length.

[cal4ever]

For the most part, her half will be complete. We just need to add it to mine--if that's what you mean. Her half will immediately follow my half (but i will not be editting any of her clips). Does this mean that when we import her half, the clips are going to be out of order? And if it is, is there another way to import the clips without having to put them back order--we're talking lots of clips here.

Btw, thank you for the detailed response. I'm just learning imovie right now--it's an amazing piece of software. I can't even begin to imagine how awesome Final Cut Express...and PRO must be!

[scottiB]

Originally posted by cal4ever:
Does this mean that when we import her half, the clips are going to be out of order? And if it is, is there another way to import the clips without having to put them back order--we're talking lots of clips here.

In exporting her iMovie project as a QuickTime movie, you get her complete, edited movie as one file (and all the transitions, etc., that she's done): you'll not be importing any of her clips (in fact, you won't be touching any part of her iMove project folders). You can open this with the QuickTime player and watch it without iMovie.

Exporting from within iMovie is a method of distribution--meaning, "I have this edited movie done, now how do I share it?" iMovie will allow you to export a movie back to a DV camera, to make VHS copies, for example. Or, you can export to a QuickTime movie in various sizes, frame rates, and qualities for various purposes (emailing, web posting, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.). I often export rough edits into QT to share with friends for critiquing.

Anyway, the reasons I suggested what I did in my previous post is that (1) you only need what she edited and the way she edited it, and (2) you need it in a format that will cleanly import into iMovie.

Say you dragged all of her clips into your iM clips folder; you would only get the full, original clips--not any of her editing. You would be starting over. The iMovie project file is what notes and controls all of the editing, transitions, etc. (where they go, what duration). As far as I know, one can't import one iMovie project from another one, so you need a way to have her complete, edited movie and nothing more. Exporting to a QT file will provide this.

Secondly, iMovie uses the DV codec. By exporting using the "Full Quality DV" option, the result is a QT file in the same size resolution using the codec that is native to iMovie. I believe iMovie offers the "Full Quality DV" as a easily selectable option for the very reason that you need it--or to use the resulting QT file with FCE, FCP, or other packages.

You can do a dry run of this by exporting your current project and reimporting it as a new clip.

iMovie is quite cool--and can be used for more that just video: montages of still images set to music; cross-fading two songs and exporting them as one aiff for audio CDs.

I highly suggest this David Pogue's book:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/imoviemm3/

[cal4ever]

After I import it as a quicktime movie, how do "add" it to my half when we burn to a DVD? Will they be separate files, and if so, how can we play them so they look like one continous movie.

Sorry if I seem lost, I understand what you are suggesting (for the most part ), however, I'm still not clear on how to put 2 quicktime movies together--or if i can--or at the very least, make them look like one running, contionus film.

I will also try your other suggestion--I will try exporting a test file from her mac to mine.

Thanks again

[scottiB]

Originally posted by cal4ever:
After I import it as a quicktime movie, how do "add" it to my half when we burn to a DVD? Will they be separate files, and if so, how can we play them so they look like one continous movie.

Actually, I found a easier way to do this.



Drag the QT file onto your clips pane (I dragged "1example.dv"). iMovie will copy this into your Media folder (so realize that if you copy your friend's QT to your HD first, it will duplicate the file in copying it (soaking up a lot of HD space). I'd mount her HD first and drag directly to your iMovie project.



Then you can drag the clip to your timelline.