"Not enough disk space" when there seems to be (+ rapid memory consumption)

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"Not enough disk space" when there seems to be (+ rapid memory consumption)

[Note: I originally posted this in the iDVD section, but due to an answer I got there to another question and further conversations with my daughter, figured out this is probably an iMovie question?]

I'm a newbie to iDVD and iMovie and Forums (my last Mac was a Performa 6360--still using it for the family budget). I got my daughter a MacBook as a graduation gift. She is using it to combine movie inputs from a wedding/reception that come from digital camreas and a couple of video cameras. We went to Flip4Mac to get the necessary software/features to import .wmv files (only way we could download one of the video cameras was by going from PC to Mac--can't remember if it was a Sony or Canon).
Issue: When she tries to import vidoes into iMovie HD 6.0.3 which have already been transferred to her computer, she gets: "The file could not be imported: There is not enough disk space to import Macintosh HD/Users/julie/pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2007/Roll8/CIMG1442.AVI" [She says this is about a 4 min. clip.]

Basically the question is how to get more room on her disk to import and to save? She seems to only be able to Save--she can't Save Project as an option because it says she doesn't have enough disk space (she's already deleted the Trash). Help says you need to have more than 400mb of free space or it gets difficult but the indicator shows 28.8GB free space left...so there seems to be some kind of disconnect?? (Or maybe we're talking apples and oranges?)
[Even more disturbing, just in the last couple of days with only a little time spent on the computer, the 28.8 GB has dropped to 2.3GB--obviously there is something she is doing that she is not aware of or shouldn't be doing that is consuming memory at a rapid pace.] On top of that, she also gets the same error message when she tries to burn the project onto a disk using iDVD???
I went through the first 5 pages of the forum and couldn't see a similar problem, but then I may have not known what to look for?
Any help would be greatly appreciated...she's trying to give the DVD as a Wedding gift--somewhat belated.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.4.6), 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo

Posted on Sep 22, 2007 1:52 PM

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Answer 1

fmcranf Author

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Sep 22, 2007 1:56 PM in response to fmcranf

The bold statements above were supposed to be parentheticals--I obviously did something unknowingly that turned follow-on parentheticals into web addresses?? Sorry about that.

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Answer 2

Sep 22, 2007 9:30 PM in response to fmcranf

I'm not sure if this is even possible but, is your daughter trying to run iMovie from a dvd?, or is the application fully installed on the computer and being run from the hard drive? If it's somehow being opened from a dvd (which again I'm not sure can happen, haven't tried it), the dvd is locked/authored and no info would be able to go into it, thus not being able to import a movie or save anything into it.

Other than that, I can't really think of what the problem could be, 28Gb is plenty of space to do whatever she needs.
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Answer 3

Sep 22, 2007 9:34 PM in response to fmcranf

I just noticed that you did say your daughters harddrive space had gone down from 28gb to 2gb. Ask her if she's been trying to save files into a dv format. DV movies are VERY large and can take up a huge amount of space in no time. Whatever is using up all that disk space is most likely the source of your problem.

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Answer 4

Sep 22, 2007 11:26 PM in response to fmcranf

fm,

.. a bit complicated for me as non-native.english to get thru all this..

1- you try to import an .avi .. (CIMG1442.AVI) .. avi is an old PC-standard-container.. could contain almost anything of codecs.. example: an 400MB avi could contain a highly compressed divx, which will need after conversion some 2,5,8 GB of dv-encoded stuff ...

the process of conversion needs large amounts of disk space... plus, if the avi is 'exotic', the 'internal datas' could irritate a computer, a 4min clip 'looks like' a 140min opus..

2- is anything happening on your internal drive? or are there any external harddrives involved?

3- did you 'segment' the internal drive?

4- flip4mac is in use for wmv, not avi... ( ? ). and: obviously iPhoto does allready support the import of that avi file.. (Macintosh HD/Users/julie/pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2007/Roll8/CIMG1442.AVI) ... ?

5- emptying the trash in iM does NOT make the iM-project size smaller.. (in some cases, not allways...), due to the special handling of files within iMovie.. usual advice: forget that empty trash can feature.. usually creates more trouble than any use...

6- iMovie Rule No. 67: You Never Have Enough Disk Space 😉

7- summary: you try to import a 'moving image' from iPhoto to iMovie and it doesn't work, right?

8- ... and your Sony/Canon/wmv/flip4mac issue I don't understand... sorry, lost in translation.. 😟

hard to tell from remote, but try to answer 1 - 8 ..

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Answer 5

fmcranf Author

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Sep 25, 2007 12:47 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter

Hello Karstn Schluter,
This is fm's daughter who is havin ghte difficulites. at the end you tell me to try to answer 1-8 so i will try.

1- how can you tell if the avi is containing divx? or not?? do I need to just keep this in mind when importing these files

2- I have not brought in an external drive. I did try making my laptop computer a harddrive so I could import my imovie poject to my eMAC at one point, but it was not allowing me to do that either. Because I had to have it in DVD form or something

3- No I did not segment the internal drive....sorry How do you do that??? Right now I am trying to find out what is taking up all the memory and Hard Disk Drive space....i do not know how to do that either....Do you know how???

4-Yes I know flip4mac is for wmv....I guess what that question was emplying was that I also have wmv files that I am trying to import to imovieHD and that is not working either...I can get my avi to get into imovieHD, but not my wmv. files

5-THank you for the tip with the trash then another question to this one how do you delet projects that are taking up memory that are no longer in use?

6-Thank you for the tip...so then ignore the not enough disk space.....how can you alter the disk space so that you can save the project under save project as and not just save project?

7- Sorry my dad was miss informed I cannot import the wmv. files to imovie and I cannot import imovie to iDVD I only have transferred one and then all of the other files are not seen as movies so I can not import them?? Does that make since

8- When we were useing the Sony Camera originally we could not import the video to the MAC because it did not have the correct firewire cable and it would not been read onto the MAC computer. So, we have to buy the flip4mac equipment so that I would be able ot download the inoformation to the computer by a wmv.file dvd so we are having difficulites trying to import that file.

I hope these answers clear up the question a little bit more and sorry that your answers brought out more questions. Thank you very much for helping me. I was using a different program in my college class so changing to imovie and idvd has been a huge struggle for me. Thank you once again.

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Answer 6

fmcranf Author

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Sep 25, 2007 12:56 PM in response to Greg Garza

Thank you Greg Garza for responding so swiftly...sorry it has taken me time to respond. I am fm's daughter who is having the problem and I figured it would be eaiser for me to answer questions then him so that it does not get lost through translation. Anyways, the imovie and idvd are installed onto my hard drive to answer the first question and as for the saving the project as dvd...I looked to see if I was doing that and there were some .dv files but not in imovie in idvd. So, I tried to delete the ones that I were not using and all i could do was take the information from them.
So, I guess my next question is how do you know if you are saving it as a dv...there will be a .dv after the title of the project right?
And second, how do I know how much memory I have and how much space i have left on my hard drive disk...how do i check the size of my hard drive disk??
Thank you very much for your time.

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Answer 7

fmcranf Author

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Oct 10, 2007 4:59 PM in response to fmcranf

Earlier when I my dad asked the question i had 3 very quick responses and so I was wondering if you could also answer this quesiton it is an extention on the other question....some of you gave me things to do or check so that I could move on in my movie project, but I did not know how to do the following:
1. How can you look up on the Mac Book Pro and see what is taking up the disc space and what is taking up memory in general?
2. And is it possible to import avi files or are those always to much space for the disc?

Thank you very much for your time..... the sooner I figure out these simple but important steps the sooner I can fininsh the project for my friends wedding gift. Thank you once agian for you time:)

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