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Eug · Feb 1, 2003, 01:58 AM

Take a .mpg file and drop it into iMovie 3. It imports it just fine, whereas iMovie 2 would just spit it back out at me. To use these clips in iMovie 2, I would first have to convert it to DV before iMovie 2 would would take it. This is a very tedious process if you have a lot clips, since QT Pro doesn't not batch convert files. iMovie 3 has just saved me LOTS of time.

The only issue is that it does not import the audio along with it. This is not as much of a problem though, since one can use a program like Extractor to batch extract the audio to .mp2 tracks, which in turn can be batch converted to AIFF in iTunes or something.

IEEE1394 · Feb 1, 2003, 09:15 AM

OFMG, teeheehee

.

Eug · Feb 1, 2003, 12:52 PM

OK. OMFG. Or OM

G.

Anyways, to my surprise, iMovie 3 now imports QuickTime movies as well. I know iMovie 2 didn't support MPEGs, but I thought it didn't support QuickTime movies either. So it would seem this is also a new feature.

iMovie's support of JPEGs is lame though. There does not seem to be a direct uncropped direct import function. Even with the Ken Burns effect set to zoom = 1.0 for both start and finish, one gets these annoying jiggles at the start of the clip.

tr · Feb 1, 2003, 12:54 PM

are you serious???

holy freakin' crap!!!

Eug, are you telling me that i can take a muxed mpeg-2 file, demux it, convert the audio to aif, and now drop both the audio and and video into iMovie3? and i don't have to go through DV with these native mpeg 2 clips? wow! this is indeed excellent news!

i'm a happy camper!

so basically, this is sort of like what you said about FCE, did you say in another post that you tried out FCE, and it let you import mpeg 2 files?

the only question i have now deals with iDVD 3: if i send this iMovie project into iDVD3, will iDVD3 waste my time re-encoding the native mpeg-2 file into mpeg-2? i hope not...

tr

Eug · 01:23 PM

Originally posted by tr:
are you serious???

holy freakin' crap!!!

Eug, are you telling me that i can take a muxed mpeg-2 file, demux it, convert the audio to aif, and now drop both the audio and and video into iMovie3? and i don't have to go through DV with these native mpeg 2 clips? wow! this is indeed excellent news! i'm a happy camper!

so basically, this is sort of like what you said about FCE, did you say in another post that you tried out FCE, and it let you import mpeg 2 files?

the only question i have now deals with iDVD 3: if i send this iMovie project into iDVD3, will iDVD3 waste my time re-encoding the native mpeg-2 file into mpeg-2? i hope not...

Yes, it does work, but I think what it is doing now is converting to DV for you, instead of making you do it manually with QuickTime. (I haven't yet checked though what the exact format of those imported clips are, but it stands to reason they are indeed just DV.)

ie. When you drop it in there is this long import process. In fact it's far longer than what one would expect for a normal export to DV IMO. I don't know why it takes so long.

But, the good thing is that you can pick up an entire group of MPEG-2 clips and simply drop it into iMovie 3. Every clip will import individually into iMovie 3. Just go and have dinner while it's importing. In fact, you don't even have to demux beforehand. You'll still lose the audio, but if you don't need the audio then you save a step. (However, if you do need the audio, then you'll have to demux to AIFF and drop that in separately.)

One thing I noticed though dragging and dropping works better. If I try importing from the menu, it works for .mpg files, but does NOT for .m2v files. However, dragging the same .m2v file into iMovie will work.

And since it does seem to convert to DV format, it's still gonna have to re-encode when exporting for iDVD. But I don't care. This is just now so much more convenient. My last video of a party consisted of 99 separate clips. I didn't relish the thought of manually converting all 99 clips using QuickTime to DV, like I would have needed to with iMovie 2.

-------------

Furthermore, it works for QuickTime .mov files now. I don't remember iMovie 2 ever supporting QuickTime .mov import, but I'm not 100% sure.

I just wish JPEGs worked better. There are still some things that need to be worked out. Hopefully in 3.1. At least iMovie 3 doesn't seem to have that annoying creator code issue any more. I couldn't use JPEGs at all before in iMovie 2 since most of my JPEGs are on my Windows machine.

tr · Feb 1, 2003, 01:22 PM

so if i'm dropping an mpg into iMovie 3, it's converting it to DV? eh, not ideal for my work, but it'll do. you're right, i can just drop them in, and go do something else. at least i won't have to waste my time exporting each file in QT.

and that's good news about movs in iMovie3. you are right, Eug, it has never been possible with previous versions. you would've thought that apple would have implemented that a while ago...

tr

Alex Duffield · Feb 1, 2003, 02:08 PM

OK, I just tryed this, (over night) but got an error, and it seems that the import failed when the converted DV file got to 1.99 GB...

Does QT or iMovie suffer from the 2 gig file size limit??!!!!!

Eug · Feb 1, 2003, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by Alex Duffield:
OK, I just tryed this, (over night) but got an error, and it seems that the import failed when the converted DV file got to 1.99 GB...

Does QT or iMovie suffer from the 2 gig file size limit??!!!!!

Yes.

Neither iMovie 2 or iMovie 3 can handle more than about 9 minutes of video per clip when importing. That's about 2 GB of DV.

In iMovie 2, when you do a DV capture, it splits them up to separate 2 GB DV clips. However, if you try to import a DV file (which you've already captured on disk with some other software) which is say 4 GB, iMovie 2's import just chokes. It seems the same is true iMovie 3. Also when I try to import a 1 GB 20 minute .mpg file (which would be over 4 GB of DV) in iMovie 3, it also chokes.

To import these large files you'll have to split them first. In my case it's not a big deal though, since so far I've only ever had clips up to a few minutes in length. But this would get VERY irritating in certain situations.

Alex Duffield · Feb 1, 2003, 02:47 PM

OK, that sucks, but how do I split the file?

snotnose · Feb 1, 2003, 02:59 PM

this is really good news

Millennium · Feb 1, 2003, 03:03 PM

This is good news, simply because it makes importing these things much more convenient. But don't get your hopes too high: iMovie won't decrypt .vob files or anything, and it probably never will. Apple's not about to get into the DVD ripping business.

tr · Feb 1, 2003, 03:43 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:
This is good news, simply because it makes importing these things much more convenient. But don't get your hopes too high: iMovie won't decrypt .vob files or anything, and it probably never will. Apple's not about to get into the DVD ripping business.

i don't think i'd EVER expect iMovie to decrypt .vob files...that's what OTHER programs are for.

but, these features are good for the most part, because it allows files that have been ripped to be put into iMovie (albeit, still kinda time consuming), and then you can move the project to iDVD, so those cool new themes can be used.

tr

Eug · Feb 1, 2003, 04:56 PM

I wonder if Apple is intentionally keeping the 2 GB limit. 9 minutes per clip is pretty much useless for editing .mpgs from ripped .vobs from commercial DVDs.

You'd essentially have to rip the 90 movie and then use 3rd party software to divide it into 10 or more separate clips, and then reincorporate that in iMovie. If you're into backup of DVDs, then it'd really only be useful with trailers and such, without having to do 10 extra steps.

Not that I care that much though. The .mpg I use are mainly from my MPEG-2 DVD-RAM camcorder. I don't usually keep the thing on for more than a couple of minutes at a time. The 9 minute limitation would get irritating quite fast though if I wanted to shoot say a friend's wedding, with the camera on for 30 minutes at a time.

erw · Feb 1, 2003, 07:57 PM

Yes, but the 2Gb clip is fine if importing from miniDV which iMovie seems designed for. Since you just add the clips together in iMovie and they act as a continous clip.

Tho Very irritating for other stuff...

CBoldman · Feb 1, 2003, 08:26 PM

This pretty cool. But one problem, audio. I use bdemuex to get two files, *****.m1a and *****.m1v. The .m1v can be imported to iMovie, but the .m1a dosent import. I tried to convert it to .aiff with iTunes, but I got an unknown error. I got the same trying to make it .mp3. Anybody have any ideas?

dampeoples · Feb 1, 2003, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by CBoldman:
This pretty cool. But one problem, audio. I use bdemuex to get two files, *****.m1a and *****.m1v. The .m1v can be imported to iMovie, but the .m1a dosent import. I tried to convert it to .aiff with iTunes, but I got an unknown error. I got the same trying to make it .mp3. Anybody have any ideas?

Wouldn't buying the $20 mpeg codec for QT Pro from Apple fix this?

CBoldman · Feb 1, 2003, 08:40 PM

Oh, ok. I have QT Pro. How exactly would I do this? Thanks for the help.

dampeoples · Feb 1, 2003, 08:51 PM

Assuming it works (i'm guessing here), you'd just export the movie and sound to another Quicktime codec, and go from there. reading about the Codec on Apple's page states that it's a read only codec.

CBoldman · Feb 1, 2003, 09:03 PM

I checked my Quicktime pro settings, and I looks like I am fully updated. I guess my system allready has the $20 codec. Now the question is how do I use it to get the audio into FCP or iMovie.

erw · Feb 1, 2003, 09:05 PM

The only issue is that it does not import the audio along with it. This is not as much of a problem though, since one can use a program like Extractor to batch extract the audio to .mp2 tracks, which in turn can be batch converted to AIFF in iTunes or something. [/B]

Eug, where did you get Extractor from. I can't find it on Version Tracker

dampeoples · Feb 1, 2003, 09:13 PM

Originally posted by CBoldman:
I checked my Quicktime pro settings, and I looks like I am fully updated. I guess my system allready has the $20 codec. Now the question is how do I use it to get the audio into FCP or iMovie.

Whoops...according to the FAQ, it looks like you can't transcode the mpeg audio to other formats

dampeoples · Feb 1, 2003, 09:14 PM

...But....audio-hijack or something like that should be able to get the audio out.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 1, 2003, 09:33 PM

So uh, does "OFMG" mean what I think it means or is that a typo?

tr · Feb 1, 2003, 09:58 PM

Originally posted by erw:
Eug, where did you get Extractor from. I can't find it on Version Tracker

can't seem to find my link to Extractor, but here's a link to DVDBackup

Originally posted by Eug:
You'd essentially have to rip the 90 movie and then use 3rd party software to divide it into 10 or more separate clips, and then reincorporate that in iMovie. If you're into backup of DVDs, then it'd really only be useful with trailers and such, without having to do 10 extra steps.

Not that I care that much though. The .mpg I use are mainly from my MPEG-2 DVD-RAM camcorder. I don't usually keep the thing on for more than a couple of minutes at a time. The 9 minute limitation would get irritating quite fast though if I wanted to shoot say a friend's wedding, with the camera on for 30 minutes at a time.

i just came across this shareware app, Mpeg2Splitter, which can split large mpeg2 files into 2GB sections.

yeah, i don't care much either. i'm usually dealing with mpeg2 files that i've encoded using my ADS InstantDVD for Mac box. it comes with software to edit the mpegs, so i can cut them to any size i want.
it would be really cool if i could just drop these files into iDVD3, and just burn (without encoding, since they are already in mpeg2 format); the InstantDVD comes with software (sort of like iDVD) to burn these files to disc, which works fine. but it's just that the iDVD themes are a lot cooler than the PixeDV/CaptyDV themes (some of these are just strange..like the vegetables one

)

tr

Eug · Feb 1, 2003, 10:27 PM

Eug, where did you get Extractor from. I can't find it on Version Tracker

Extractor.

Whoops...according to the FAQ, it looks like you can't transcode the mpeg audio to other formats

Use Extractor to extract .mp2 audio. Then convert to AIFF with iTunes.

it would be really cool if i could just drop these files into iDVD3, and just burn (without encoding, since they are already in mpeg2 format

How about demux, and then drop audio and video into QT Pro to output an iDVD-compatible .mov?

like the vegetables one

Cool! Screenshot?

So uh, does "OFMG" mean what I think it means or is that a typo?

Should be "OMFG". See above.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 1, 2003, 10:29 PM

Oh, I thought it you meant "Oh F*ck Me God" but I thought that was a little too dirty for you.

CBoldman · Feb 1, 2003, 10:50 PM

Sorry about the crosspost, I have a FCP3 question. Whever I try and throw in the .m1v file in FCP, I get some sorta color error. Some colors show up as white with colored stripes thourgh them. Anybody have any ideas?

mrchin · Feb 2, 2003, 01:36 AM

Is mpeg2 muxed? I thought it was mpeg1 files that needed demuxing in order to extract A/V. If not, then it must be both.

mitchell_pgh · Feb 2, 2003, 02:09 AM

Originally posted by Eug:
I wonder if Apple is intentionally keeping the 2 GB limit. 9 minutes per clip is pretty much useless for editing .mpgs from ripped .vobs from commercial DVDs.

You'd essentially have to rip the 90 movie and then use 3rd party software to divide it into 10 or more separate clips, and then reincorporate that in iMovie. If you're into backup of DVDs, then it'd really only be useful with trailers and such, without having to do 10 extra steps.

Not that I care that much though. The .mpg I use are mainly from my MPEG-2 DVD-RAM camcorder. I don't usually keep the thing on for more than a couple of minutes at a time. The 9 minute limitation would get irritating quite fast though if I wanted to shoot say a friend's wedding, with the camera on for 30 minutes at a time.

Perfect for TV shows...

Eug · Feb 2, 2003, 09:41 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Perfect for TV shows...

Why do you say that? If you record a 1 hr TV show to DVD-R, then you would have the equivalent of 13 GB of DV video. ie. You'd have to split your video into at least 7 parts first before you could use it in iMovie.

ReggieX · Feb 2, 2003, 10:14 PM

You can also use MAD audio encoder to convert the demuxed .m1a file to AIFF. I use bbDEMUX to demux the video+audio.

Eug · Feb 2, 2003, 10:19 PM

So I'm considering reverting back to iMovie 2 for the time being, assuming I can extract it again from my CDs.

The .mpg support in iMovie 3 is a bonus, but iMovie 3 is extremely unstable if you have a lot of clips.

The other main benefit of iMovie 3 is the chapter marker support, but for some of my edited video, chapter markers are not that important (since I only have a few minutes each). It's too bad that it seems I can't have BOTH iMovie 2 and iMovie 3 loaded. For the times I need iMovie 3's features I'd use it, but for other stuff I'd rather just use the more stable iMovie 2.

Or perhaps version 3.1 will come out soon?

RoofusPennymore · Feb 16, 2003, 02:09 PM

I'm trying to find a way to edit tv shows I extracted from my Tivo. They come out as .m2v and .m2a files. Before when I would convert a .mp2 audio file to .mp3 the length of the file would shorten by a minute. Would converting to aiff be better, and how does one do this in iTunes?

biscool · Feb 16, 2003, 02:17 PM

So I'm considering reverting back to iMovie 2 for the time being, assuming I can extract it again from my CDs.

The .mpg support in iMovie 3 is a bonus, but iMovie 3 is extremely unstable if you have a lot of clips.

The other main benefit of iMovie 3 is the chapter marker support, but for some of my edited video, chapter markers are not that important (since I only have a few minutes each). It's too bad that it seems I can't have BOTH iMovie 2 and iMovie 3 loaded. For the times I need iMovie 3's features I'd use it, but for other stuff I'd rather just use the more stable iMovie 2.

Or perhaps version 3.1 will come out soon?

I have imovie2 and imovie3 both installed. You just can't run them at the same time. Maybe you have to have imovie2 installed before imovie3, I made a copy of 2 before I installed 3, just so I could go back...