Clip duration less than 0.1s?

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Clip duration less than 0.1s?

Hi, I've searched and seen a couple of posts about this but no satisfactory reply...

I'm trying to make a movie out of 300 jpg images, and want to use 24fps. By my calcs this is 0.04 seconds per frame.

I can set the clip duration to 0.04 seconds for all clips, but then it jumps back to 0.1 seconds which is obviously not fast enough for a movie. This seems to be a serious flaw in the software for anyone who wants to make animations or cartoons.

Is there anyway to set the clip duration to 0.04 seconds, or the overall duration (in my case) to 12 seconds, rather than the 48 seconds that it is stuck on currently?

Many thanks
Peter

Posted on Apr 7, 2009 1:12 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 7, 2009 1:47 AM in response to pmbrooks

iM vers6 allows 'duration' of stills down to 00:00:01
QuicktimePro allows conversion of stills sequence into a 'video'
Mpeg Streamclip too ...
for animation consider usage of 'meant apps', as Boinx' istopmotion ...

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Answer 2

pmbrooks Author

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Apr 7, 2009 2:06 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

Thanks for the reply and for the suggestions of alternative software.

To confirm though, is it impossible to set a clip duration shorter than 0.1s in iMovie 09?

Thanks
Peter

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Answer 3

Apr 7, 2009 3:37 AM in response to pmbrooks

Open iMovie Preferences and put a check next to "Display Time as hh:mm:ss:frames.

This will let you edit to the frame level.

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Answer 4

pmbrooks Author

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Apr 7, 2009 4:17 AM in response to AppleMan1958

Hi, thanks for that. The Clip duration is now 0.04s, but the Transition duration is 0.13 seconds (in Preferences, Timings) which kind of defeats the object 🙂

Any idea how to fix this as well??

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Answer 5

Apr 7, 2009 7:56 AM in response to pmbrooks

Not .13 seconds. 13 frames.

13 frames = 13/30 = .43 seconds in NTSC or 13/25 = .5 seconds in PAL.

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Answer 6

pmbrooks Author

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Apr 9, 2009 12:19 AM in response to AppleMan1958

Thanks... I'm not sure I understand your answer - I have 300 frames (images)...

In any case, having any sort of transition duration is going to ruin an animation that is meant to be running at 25fps, so how can I get rid of ANY transition duration? (in other words how to set the transition duration to 0 seconds or frames or whatever).

Many thanks
Peter

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Answer 7

Apr 9, 2009 4:05 AM in response to pmbrooks

Just select the transistion and delete it. You can do fine with no transition. If you watch TV or movies, over 90% of transitions are cuts that go directly from clip to clip with no transition. The other 10% are cross fade or fade through black.

A "frame" refers to the 25 frames per second (fps) that you mentioned in your question. One of these 25 frames is a frame. 13 of them takes just over 1/2 second. With iMovie, you can edit to any of these 25 frames by selecting the hh:mm:ss:frames option in Preferences.

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Answer 8

pmbrooks Author

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Apr 9, 2009 4:58 AM in response to AppleMan1958

It's already set to Transitions = None but the total length is still 48s. It should be 12s (300 photos x .04s duration).

Could someone else try this out to make sure I'm not going mad??

Thanks
Peter

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Answer 9

Apr 9, 2009 5:46 AM in response to pmbrooks

OK Now I understand your question.

What you really want is for a photo to last for a single frame, like you were doing stop motion animation? Is that it?

There is a trick to this, and I will see if I can find it. Esteemed Forum member Jon Walker did a video on this a while back.

[Here is Jon Walker's video|http://web.me.com/jrwalker4/QuickNotes/iMovie 08-09/Entries/2008/4/25_Tutorial024.html]

In imovie you can do 30 frames per second (for US) or 25 frames per second (for Europe).

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Answer 10

pmbrooks Author

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Apr 9, 2009 7:31 AM in response to AppleMan1958

Yep, I saw that tutorial in my initial search, however that is just one photo / frame... how do I that with 300 photos / frames??

Thanks
Peter

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Answer 11

Apr 9, 2009 12:26 PM in response to pmbrooks

You do it one at a time!

There is an alternate way if you buy QuickTime Pro ($30). QuickTIme Pro lets you build a still frame sequence. I am not the expert on that.

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Answer 12

pmbrooks Author

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8 points

Apr 9, 2009 12:53 PM in response to AppleMan1958

Thanks, that seems conclusive then...

Shame iMovie can't do this, it would seem to me that Apple are missing a trick here.. maybe they could add an easy way to do this in an update or later version...

Thanks AppleMan1958 for following my query to the end 🙂

Cheers
Peter

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