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Can't see iPhoto movies from the iMovie Event Browser

Has anyone figured this out yet? In iMovie (iLife 09), clicking on "iPhoto Videos" in the event browser gives me the "No matching video" message. All my video clips in iPhoto are .avi files from digital cameras.

The iMovie documentation says that it may not see movie file formats unless they are compatible, and does not list avi as a compatible format.

Can anyone please confirm that iMovie does or does not "see" avi clips from iPhoto? Do I need to convert all the avi clips to .mov files to get iMovie to see them properly?

Dual G5 2GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Sep 26, 2009 1:37 PM

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30 replies

Sep 26, 2009 9:19 PM in response to Wayne Henderson

I too have this issue with iMovie and iPhoto not cooperating like they once did. I don't think that it is an issue with format but rather something with the interface between the two applications. I can import my videos from iPhoto into iMovie by other means and the videos work fine, it is just that I can't do the same by clicking the iPhoto Video icon in the Event Library of iMovie. I first notice this in the spring or early summer of '09. I tried format conversion and had no luck. My Apple Care expired so I don't have them to call on for help.

Andy

Sep 27, 2009 11:13 AM in response to Wayne Henderson

Some other test results:
1) I tried throwing out the iMovie preferences file - no help.
2) I've just tried tossing the iApps preferences file. This actually caused the "iMovie videos" icon to disappear from the Event Browser altogether.
3) I made a smart album in iPhoto to collect all the movie files. The icon for this album appears in iMovie, but none of the avi clips in the album show up in the lower right hand window (where pictures normally are shown for browsing).
4) Rebuilding the iPhoto library - which took an hour or so - had no effect.

Sep 27, 2009 5:15 PM in response to Wayne Henderson

Another test to add to the list:
5) I took a couple clips (avi files) outside of iPhoto and re-imported them with new names. This did not help them show up in iMovie.

This is really aggravating.

Workaround: Take all the clips relating to a project and re-import them directly into iMovie. My 46 clips occupy 1.6 Gb, so it's not a huge waste of space - just my time.

Nov 13, 2009 9:28 PM in response to Wayne Henderson

I spend a few hours on the phone with apple today. I worked my way up to an expert who was a wizard. A few things: 1) he knew about the work-around (turning off the sound in your slideshows), however it does not seem to work for everybody. 2) I had the same problem as reported on this original post, but my problem worsened and iMovie was unable to completely start up. I wont explain all the details here, but there is a known limitation with the conduit between iPhoto and iMovie 09: if you have a great number of movie files in iPhoto, when you try to pull these movies up in iMovie from the Event Library, there is a major bottle neck. iMovie tries to source these files via iPhoto and if you have too many movies in iPhoto (I had 1,595) or the individual movie files are very large, iMovie will stall, unexpectedly quit, or as in my case, completely fail to start. The remedy: export all your movie out of iPhoto to a folder on your desktop and then import them directly into iMovie. (as stated a few other times above). Yes, this is a limitation, however, it's actually faster and you will be less likely to have a issue of a broken video link in the future. Good Luck.

Nov 14, 2009 11:34 AM in response to asheri

I was doing exactly this as a fix until I solved my problem. I made a smart album in iPhoto that included every movie clip, and exported all of them to another folder, which I then imported into iMovie.

The advantage of having it work as intended, in addition to avoiding duplication of all the clips, is the organization into events provided by communication with iPhoto.

Nov 17, 2009 7:52 AM in response to Wayne Henderson

Folks, this is NOT answered. There is a workaround, OK, but it's not answered. Having 1500 or so videos in iPhoto is not an unreasonable amount for the iMovie/iPhoto conduit to deal with. Come on, let's not give up so easily. Apple, can you please fix this bug? Just do a google for "imovie 09 iphoto videos quits" and see just how many people are having this issue.

Any real fixes, keep them coming....

Alan

Nov 17, 2009 10:24 AM in response to dowdellea

Alan, you know what's interesting, my sister-in-law bought a 17 macbook pro a few months ago and she has the same problem: none of her iphoto movie show up in imovie. She only has a few movies, maybe 20.

She does not Snow loaded so it's not that... maybe a iLife update that accomidates 10.6? Not sure, anyhow, she is taking her MacBook to the apple store today to fix this problem and also the fact her wireless card is intermitten.

I'll post what apple did to correct the problems asap.

Can't see iPhoto movies from the iMovie Event Browser

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