[OCStingFan]

I'm using iMovieHD to go through my DV tapes and locating useful clips. I want to extract them from the tapes and then save them on an external hard drive, so I can reuse or discard the DV tape.

I want to be able to store the individual clips in some sort of searchable database, so I can retrieve them when needed for future editing. I don't necessary want to edit the clips at the present time, but keep them as "source" material for projects.

Is there a certain software than can take the clips from iMovie (or any video clip really) and catalog them? Sort of like an iTunes or iPhoto for videos (but not finished works necessarily).

[OCStingFan]

Hello all. I'm sorta surprised that no one has commented yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Uncle Skeleton]

There is something called Foottrack that sounds like that. I guess you have to be more specific about what information you want to store. Is it something that is too big to fit in Finder names/directory names/comments? Is it something that has to be sorted (like length, date, area code, etc), or just descriptive?

[OCStingFan]

Hey uncle Skeleton,
Well, a place to input dates, keywords and a small description would be sufficient. Mainly I'd like to be able to navigate through a bunch of clips fairly quickly. I'm not sure about the Finder/comments approach. I suppose that would be okay.

However, how do I isolate the clips that I'm creating in iMovie off of DV tape? If I have 5 clips in a given iMovie project, for example, they are all part of the project file. How can I see them in the Finder as individual clips, and keep them without necessarily keeping the iMovie project (since that is just a vehicle for extracting/isolating clips for future editing)?

Thanks.

[dlefebvre]

You could try "iDive" a kind of digital video shoebox. It works great. You insert a tape it captures thumbnails according to your prefs (1 every 10 sec, 30 sec, 5min or whatever). It detects cuts and you can classiffy your footage as you wish.

iDive: digital video catalog and dv logging tool for mac osx and ipod video 5G

It's not a shameful plug, I really use it.

[Uncle Skeleton]

iMovie projects are just packages (last time I checked). Right-click on them and choose "Show Package Contents," and the individual clips are in there somewhere in .dv format.

[OCStingFan]

Yes, I checked and this is correct. So all I need is an app to drag the clips into for management/sorting/quick viewing etc., and then I'll delete the iMovie file

I'll check out iDive. Thanks.

[OCStingFan]

Just to continue this thread....

iPhoto can catalog video clips as well as photos. However, it does not import .dv clips, but apparently can import MPEG-4 clips.

Can I take an individual .dv clip and convert it to MPEG-4 without any loss in quality (for future use by reimporting into iMovie or Final Cut)? What tool(s) could accomplish this? Any of them free?

[Uncle Skeleton]

mp4 is lossy, so there is no way to encode to it without any loss. But if you encode at the highest bitrate (from anything, QT Pro or QT Amateur (free) for example) the loss will be very small.