Q: Images/stills turn black in iMovie since El Capitan upgrade

ATI Radeon HD 4670

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 4670

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe PCIe

Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x9488

Revision ID: 0x0000ROM

Revision: 113-B8030H-114

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.403

Displays:iMac:

Display Type: LCD

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Built-In: Yes

Ah! an ATI Radeon card.  Can you please just confirm that you are using El Capitan and iMovie 10.1

Thanks,

Geoff.

Hello,

my MacBook 15" pro Early 2011 does feature an AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256MB.

If I force the notebook to use the Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB by using gfxCardStatus I have no issues on iMovie 10.1 with still images (even the one I posted).

regards,

Jan

As I said, on my 2008 iMac under 10.11.2, no image with iMovie 9.0.9 but OK with iMovie 10.1.

ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro :

  Jeu de composants :    ATI,RadeonHD2600

  Type :    Processeur graphique (GPU)

  Bus :    PCIe

  Longueur de la voie PCIe :    x16

  VRAM (totale) :    256 Mo

  Fournisseur :    ATI (0x1002)

  Identifiant du périphérique :    0x9583

  Identifiant de révision :    0x0000

  Révision de la ROM :    113-B2250F-219

  Version du gestionnaire EFI :    01.00.219

  Moniteurs :

If the question was for karenkrn, yes, El Capitan and iMovie 10.1

Also, I reduced the size of the pictures to 3250 max width (they were all larger than that) and now they are not black, so definitely related to the dimensions of the pictures.

Thanks.  yes i asked because yours was the first non - NVIDIA graphics reported with the problem but as you now see there are 2 more examples.

Reducing resolution or converting to pdf are the workarounds but its not just a question of resolution since some high resolution files like the one I linked to a few posts ago work OK even though they are above the limit normally quoted.  You are welcome to download it it and try it on your machine.

Geoff.

Not sure of that, as I've been trying some days ago, without sucess. I've made another try today, with photos exported by Aperçu and Photoshop in jpg and png, 500x500pxl, 72dpi. They're black in iMovie 9.0.9...

It's iMovie 10.1 that I was focussing on and I had misread your previous post that it was only iMovie 9 which had the problem.  With imovie 9 and earlier the only successful workaround I have seen reported is to convert stills to video clips.

Geoff.

Adding my bit, my 2009 24" iMac with the 256MB NVIDIA card has the wacky black image problem.  My brand new 2014 Mac Mini with the Intel Iris card does not.  Both are running iMovie 10.1 on El Capitan.  Even better, the iMac was wiped and reinstalled clean in December when I replaced the HD with a SSD.  And to think I was annoyed as **** for just one evening before I found this post - some of you have been working on this for weeks or longer.  My thanks to you folks as a user.

To a comment you said Rich earlier, about it being funny that iMovie 10 can do 4K video but has issue with stills.  When I look at the settings for my project as I was testing, on the 2009 iMac it says 1080p 60.  On the newer Mac Mini it says 4K.  Same still photos for both.  Go figure.

As an IT engineer, shame on Apple for their silence and pretense. 

David

Geoff,

Just fyi my machine info.

iMac (24-inch, Early 2008)

OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.2

Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory: 6 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM    (2 slots, 1 x 4GB, 1 x 2GB)

Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2006 Pro 256 MB

Regards

Yes!

MBP 13" mid-2010 with NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB.

To the thread:

I'm suffering from all the same issues. I read through most of this thread and following a routine update tonight (from El Capitan v10.11.1 to v10.11.2, initiated manually), I coincidentally received a peculiar alert upon restart. It stated:

Quartz Extreme Required

iMovie requires a graphic card that is compatible

with Quartz extreme. One or more of your graphics

cards does not support Quartz Extreme.

Quit was the only option for the prompt. I have NEVER seen this before in the 5.5 years I've been using iMovie on this machine. I'm running:

Late 2009 iMac 27"

ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB graphics card

iMovie '09: v8.0.6 (821)

Just for the record...

Thanks for that solution - it worked like a charm for me. I'm on a Macbook Pro with El Capitan and iMovie 10.1.

Worked for me, too, but what a pain!

WHICH suggested solution worked?

Thanks.