[MacTUG] Importing .MTS files into iMovie

[Steve Hellyer]

HI Glenn,

Good point.

Yes there may be ways to "fool" iMovie into thinking it getting file from a camera when it not.  SD card reader is valid as this is what is presented if it were in a camera.  DMG file might be another way if you did a device copy rather than folder copy using Disk Utility to make the copy. The information is provide via SD card format and files.

This is what we are promising to support.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3290

If you need more flexibility than what iMovie provides you could try a file converter such as http://www.shedworx.com/voltaichd.
But this will cost you about $45.  (Which is about the education price of the entire iLife package.)  Good format to convert to is AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intermediate_Codec

iMovie does have some limitations. Our pro video editing software like Final Cut Express and Final Cut studio tools have more abilities than iMovie.

Workflow we would suggest be....

Step 1 - Video the event.  May need multiple SD cards or tapes depending on camera and length to record.

Step 2 - connect camera or SD card and import ALL clips.  

Step 3 - Edit your video. Mix music and add effects, etc.. Make your editing decisions here not when your importing.

This would be the way a video course would teach at college for example.

Step 4 - Archive and/or back finished movie and unused clips to external disk, or server or both

Step 5 - export to format desired for Web, Email, DVD etc..

I am sure this question will come up...  What if I don't have enough internal disk space for important ALL movies?

Campus computer store or other can replace you drive with larger one. Quick lookup on internet suggest a 1 TB drive is around $100.
That quite a bit of space for video.  You can attache external drive as well.  My suggestion to you is to use Firewire external drive if possible as they are a bit quicker than USB.  Also if you doing a lot of video look for external 7200 RPM drives as that make moving large video files around much faster. Note... typically these drive require external power to run.

Hope this helps.

Steve

On 2010-03-08, at 2:31 PM, Glenn Anderson wrote:

> The OS is 10.6.2 and iMovie 9.x
> 
> 
> On 2010-03-08, at 10:40 AM, Steve Hellyer wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Only iMovie or Final Cut can import and convert these movies and Quicktime can't due to nature of the licencing fee we pay MPEG for this ability.  And it is limited for the purpose imported from camera not convert all MTS files. NOt all camera record the same way and connecting the camera allow Apple to determine what format is used for that camera.
>> 
> 
> 
> The above comment and some other discussions that I have found, sort of explain what is going on, but maybe not fully.
> 
> Here is some observations...
> 
> 1) If one takes the SD card from the digital camera and inserts it in a SD card reader. iMovie is "happy" and imports the files fine.
> 
> 2) However, copy the files to a folder on a hard disk, iMovie isn't "happy" and while it sees the files it won't import them. It can't be an issue of the files being an format that it can't understand, nor an issue that they are from a camera or device that iMovie doesn't know about.
> 
> 3) If there is a movie on the card that one edits out ( deletes ) then iMovie does not seem to handle this situation either.
> 
> 4) People report that if one makes a disk image of the SD card, then mount it, iMovie will be happy with it.
> 
> So it appears not be a problem that iMovie can't handle the files, but one of convincing iMovie that these are files that it can handle.
> 
> -------------------
> 
> The workflow seems to make sense, but obviously there is something missing here in iMovie part of it.
> 
> Step 1 - Video the event
> 
> This results in a number of video clips, which may or may not be used
> 
> Step 2 - Transfer the video clips from the SD card to a hard disk for permanent storage arranged in appropriate folders and named according to what they are.
> 
> Step 3 - As the clips are needed, import them into iMovie at whatever video resolution that is needed for the video project. ( This is the step that is causing a problem ).
> 
> The only solution I can find that people suggests works is change 3)
> 
> to 3a) import the clips that are needed into some other video editing tool and then export them out in a video format iMovie will import from a hard disk.
>     3b) Import these converted video clips into iMovie
> 
> the problem with the above is it adds complexity to the whole process, and it also doesn't make sense as iMovie should by all accounts be able to handle this format itself.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/mactug/attachments/20100309/45c022e2/attachment.html