Photos with ken burns effect do not render?

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Photos with ken burns effect do not render?

Hi, I just wanted to use iMovie on my machine to make a DVD with photo slideshow, but the photos do not render if they are set to use ken burns effect. I have read a lot of posts on this forum about it but did not find any solution, only speculations. I follow all the advices just to check - no luck, so here I give you the full explanation of the problem with as much details as possible:

Computer: 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo 1GB RAM DDR2
Software: iMovie 6.0.3 (267.2)

After opening the iMovie application I create new project on the internal drive of my Mac (there is about 16GB free space). All my photos are in the iPhoto library in the resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. Here is what happens:

- After adding 2 photos to the iMovie as clips and adding transition effect - everything renders fine, even the soundtrack renders.After adding AVI clip and applying video effects, it also renders prette quick.

- If I add a photo with ken burns effect, a red progress bar shows up at the bottom of clip and it stands still - no progress after 30 minutes.

I already tried to:

- Restart my Mac, clean the PRAM and close all other applications that could use up memory.

- I tried creating the movie on my external drive FREECOM formatted with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) filsesystem with 60 GB of free memory, connected with USB 2.0

- I tried emptying the trash (as it helped someone to resolve similar problem)

- I have checked that my graphic card has 64 MB of shared memory (GMA 950) with Quartz Extreme supported.

- I have tried changing the formats of the movie like DV, HDV, DV Widescreen and MPEG-4

As you can see, I have tried my best to solve the problem but it is just not happening. And just to mention - it is a fresh installation of the system completely up to date with all the patches. Please help!

Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.10) 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo 1GB RAM DDR2

Posted on Jul 5, 2007 8:50 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 5, 2007 9:19 AM in response to Marcin Gaik

..that is a pretty big photo...
--although it really shouldn't take that long...

how long is the clip you are trying to make?

the only other thing i would try would be to import the photo as a clip, and then 'update' it with a ken burns effect afterwards...

-Nate

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Answer 2

Jul 5, 2007 9:30 AM in response to Marcin Gaik

Welcome to the iMovie Discussion.

First, thanks for the detailed description of the problem. That helps a lot.

My guess is there's something about those photos that iMovie doesn't like. They are large, which may be an important contributing factor.

To test that, try exporting a few photos from iPhoto to a smaller size, then import THOSE to iMovie. Select a few photos in the iPhoto window, then for a DV-type iMovie project use the File > Export command to export to 640x480 JPEGs. (This size also delivers the best image quality in iMovie, so it's a good thing to do anyway.)

You didn't mention whether you've ruled out QuickTime add-ons and iMovie plug-ins that may cause trouble for iMovie. You should check for those too and disable any you have, at least temporarily. They can mess up QuickTime, which in turn messes up iMovie.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4030731#4030731

If still no luck, please say more about the photos. They are photos, right, not scans? They are JPEGs? Shot with what camera?

Have you tried shooting smaller photos? If it's a size issue, my guess is the next smaller size might work just fine.

Karl

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Answer 3

Jul 5, 2007 10:24 AM in response to Karl Petersen

i agree,
however, when using ken burns... you may want a little more than 640x480...

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Answer 4

Marcin Gaik Author

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Jul 5, 2007 2:16 PM in response to Marcin Gaik

Thanks for your effort, here is an update:

- I did not install any plugins to iMovie or Quicktime as I am aware of. Just to make sure, here is the list of items in Library/Quicktime: AppleIntermediate.component, DivX Decoder.component, DivX Encoder.component, FLV.component. Taking out DivX components and FLV component does not help.

- I have tried reducing the size of the photos to 640 x 480 pixels but it does not help - the results are the same - photos were shot with Canon PowerShot A630 at 8MP at average size per photo 3MB. I also tried importing random photos from google picture search - they behave the same - just a red progress bar. (I repeat that the standard sized photos are rendered no problem without ken burns effect)

- I have checked and repaired disk permissions and that did not work either.

- Pasting the photo and then updating with ken burns effect does not change the situation - it is still rendering with no progress. It does not even start - the progress bar is completely dark red. Does not matter if the clip is 30 sec. or 4 minutes - same effect.

I have noticed that there is a lot of people with similar problems when using ken burns effect. Strange that the videos with effects applied and photos with transitions work perfectly fine - it all comes down to ken burns effect.
Any other ideas?

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Answer 5

Jul 5, 2007 9:03 PM in response to Marcin Gaik

Some background: Importing photos with the Ken Burns checkbox ON causes iMovie to render a video clip from the photo. That's an entirely different process than importing the photo as a "still" image. Unfortunately, Ken Burns and several other rendering routines are vulnerable to factors that sometimes cause them to fail. The disk format can cause failure, third-party software, inadequate video cards and the like. The factors often have nothing to do with iMovie itself.

The same problems can occur when rendering other kinds of clips too, such as themes and special effects. (Ken Burn gets the bad rep because it's where the problems usually occur for users.)

Some of the items you listed in your Library/QuickTime folder are third-party products. There may be others too in the other folders mentioned in the link I posted earlier, so be sure to look in those too. And in iMovie plug-in folders.

Sometimes necessary items are missing that should exist. One I've seen mentioned here occasionally is the QuartzComposer.component, which should reside in your System/Library/QuickTime folder. If it's not there that might cause the problems you see.

Installing/reinstalling the QuickTime 7.1.6 might help. I've seen reports of problems going away after that update. Repeating the update won't hurt.

Have you tried creating a new user account and running iMovie as that user? If iMovie runs okay as that user that suggests a software conflict when you are the user. Unfortunately, if the software is installed in places where it applies to all users it will cause problems for the new user too.

I'd keep trying to find some software component causing trouble for QuickTime/iMovie. It's clear some third-party components have been installed; there might be others. Perhaps stuff related to AVI?

Karl

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Answer 6

Marcin Gaik Author

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Jul 6, 2007 1:09 AM in response to Marcin Gaik

Thanks a lot guys. The problem is resolved! Yesterday just for pure curiosity, I started QuickTime and checked for updates and baaang - here is an update along with Java update, so... did it and it works perfectly fine now. I have checked if update changed anything in the Library/Quicktime components - not at all, everything is still there.

Just for other people with similar problem - creating new user account unfortunately does not work - not for me. But the update sorted the problem out. Again - thank you very much for all your help, you have been great!!!

Just of pure curiosity - after playing slideshow DVD on my TV (not HD - just plain old standart res TV), the photos are kinda flickering on the edges when ken burns effect zooms them, but as soon as they are zoomed, this flickering disappears - I bet it has something to do with the resolution of my photos. What would be the best choice for the old fashioned TV resolution wise? 640x480 or 800x600? Does NTSC or PAL plays any role in this? Thanks!

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Answer 7

Jul 6, 2007 1:28 AM in response to Marcin Gaik

in Poland, your TV system standard is PAL/25fps ... stay with that ...

that flickering...
well known issue, you'll find hundreds of threads on that topic...
mainly, the rendering within iM with KB is of less quality...
if you need/want higher quality, you should use 3rd party apps as Photo2Movie or PhotoMagico, and import the resulting files into your iM project...

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