20 minutes of video and used over 4 G of storage...?

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Level 1

5 points

20 minutes of video and used over 4 G of storage...?

Pls help.

I am trying to capture vhs (ntsc) video with iMovie 4.0.1. I have set preferences for Playback Quality on 'High Quality' or 'Standard' and I only get about 5 - 5.5 minutes, respectively, of video per GB on my drive, which tells me that I will only be getting 20 - 25 minutes per (4.7 GB) DVD. It does not appear that I can change the file format).

My hardware is a PBook G4 and an ADS Pyro A/V Link (RCA to Firewire 400).

My software is iMovie (4.0.1) and 10.4.2.

What am I missing do I need a different application...imovie 5? a different DV encoder? other?

I have a total of 4 hours of video. What file format should I be saving this in for best performance - quality / file size?

Also, I plan to be using iDVD to burn the DVD. Any comments or other recommendations

Thanks!

Posted on Oct 27, 2005 12:00 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Oct 27, 2005 12:03 PM in response to Peter Sipos

Peter,

DV stream video runs about 13 GB per hour, so 20 minutes should require a little over 4 GB (as you have noted).

When you send you movie to iDVD, iDVD will apply MPG-2 compression to fit the video on a DVD.

Working with video requires LOTS of HD space. That's why most of us use external Firewire drives to store our video clips.

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Answer 2

PT

Level 7

20,894 points

Oct 27, 2005 1:46 PM in response to Peter Sipos

Peter,
As Shippey already pointed out, iDVD will apply compression to your movie to get it to fit onto a DVD. When going to iDVD get in the habit of thinking in terms of length rather than size. iDVD4 can put up to an hour onto a DVD-R blank when in Best Performance mode and up to two-hours if you switch over to Best Quality. It doesn't matter how much storage space your original DV, audio, & other media files are taking up on your hard drive. As long as your movie is under the time limit, iDVD will take care of squeezing it onto a DVD for you.
Patrick

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Answer 3

F Shippey

Level 7

21,500 points

Oct 27, 2005 2:17 PM in response to PT

It doesn't matter how much storage space your original DV, audio, & other media files are taking up on your hard drive.

... as long as you have that much space plus 5 or 6 GB (to store the compressed video) on your hard drive. A 1 hr movie to go to DVD will need close to 20 GB free on a hard drive!

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Answer 4

Oct 28, 2005 5:43 AM in response to Peter Sipos

I'm also new to iMovie/iDVD. Does that 20 GB needed for an hour's worth to go to iDVD remain on my hard drive after the burning process?

I was trying to burn just over an hour's worth on a G5 (for the first time) and iDVD was eating up so much of my available storage memory on my internal drive while encoding, after 2 hours, I canceled the process, but I couldn't find on my hard disk where iDVD was storing a file that's mentioned earlier to be 20GB needed for an hour's worth of footage going to iDVD.
Thanks
Todd

... as long as you have that much space plus 5 or 6 GB (to store the compressed video) on your hard drive. A 1 hr movie to go to DVD will need close to 20 GB free on a hard drive!

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Answer 5

David Bale

Level 5

5,675 points

Oct 28, 2005 4:31 PM in response to Italo.nyc

I'm also new to iMovie/iDVD. Does that 20 GB needed for an hour's worth to go to iDVD remain on my hard drive after the burning process?

No, it is purely workspace

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