Level 1

14 points

Artifacts in iMovie

Hello all,

I have macbook pro 2017 base model with the latest Catalina MacOS and latest iMovie. I have created iMovie project on my iPhone 11 pro with latest osX and all the clips were recorded with this phone.

I wanted to finish my project on Macbook pro, so I airdroped project from phone to the macbook.

Now during editing in iMovie I can see some ugly artifacts during crossfade transition (or just after transition) from one shot to another one. This artifacts are visible in iMovie and also in exported video. Strange thing is, that after few plays of the shot in iMovie, artifacts disappeared. However, then they again appear after some time.

I've tried to delete transition and also shot and import it once again, however artifacts appeared again. I am not able to export video without visible artifacts. I can also see that in some artifacts I can see shot from another part of the project, upside down.

It's very strange, don't know if it is related to fact that project was airdropped from iphone or not. On the iPhone I can't see any artifact. I didn't do any video on the macbook directly so can't tell what's wrong, where is the issue, but for sure somewhere is pretty ugly bug - looks like graphic driver doesn't work properly. The strangest thing is that after few play of the part of the project, artifacts disappear for some time.

Posted on Oct 16, 2019 9:22 AM

Top-ranking reply

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Posted on Oct 16, 2019 10:13 AM

Hi, geniusweb,

I don't think that Air Dropping the project caused this. Possibly a corrupt preference is causing it.

Try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if the artifacts are gone.

Another thing you can try is to copy your media into a newly created project and see if that cures the problem. To do that, do an Edit/Select All, Edit/Copy, of the media in your project and then Edit/Paste it into the newly created project.

You could also try booting up in Safe Mode and, after everything loads, immediately shut down and reboot in normal mode. Then see if iMovie works properly.

-- Rich

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84 replies

Jan 29, 2020 9:46 AM in response to timoytes

I ve got this problem too! Here is my extra question: does the video quality change if I change from high efficiency format to mp4 and jpg?

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Jan 31, 2020 10:44 AM in response to timoytes

Thanks, that is helpful. I suppose that it is in the eye of the beholder in the last analysis.

-- Rich

Alvy

Level 1

4 points

Jan 31, 2020 12:43 PM in response to Alvy

… I'm using dissolve between transitions. Only frame 1 and frame 5 are OK here. The transitions are 'dissolved' with artifacts and fragments of other clips in the project.

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Feb 7, 2020 8:00 AM in response to Rome@home

Perplexing problem, for sure. There seems to be no reliable global fix or workaround so far.

-- Rich

geniusweb Author

Level 1

14 points

Oct 17, 2019 12:15 AM in response to Rich839

Hello Rich,

thank you for the tips, however don't want to use "workarounds". It won't look exactly as good as by using original cross disolve transition and the reason why I switch to iMovie is the simplicity and the quick editing options with superb quality.

Yesterday I've observed that it happen sometimes even without transition effects.

So, it's either iMovie bug or Catalina/graphic driver issue. I've spent so many hours by trying to do it without the artifacts. In the same time I normally could cut and export 5 another videos :/ Very annoying.

Regarding update of Catalina - I've installed latest patch already and switch to "light" theme to ensure it's not related to that.

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Oct 17, 2019 1:13 AM in response to geniusweb

Of course it’s your call as to whether to try a workaround. I understand completely. I just didn’t want to leave you with no place to go.

At the moment it appears that there is nothing to do but wait until the kinks get worked out with the new software updates.

— Rich

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

Oct 17, 2019 7:50 AM in response to Rich839

As a longshot, you might look at System Preferences/Accessibility/Display and see if either or both of the boxes "Increase Contrast" and "Reduce Transparency" are checked. If they are, uncheck them and see if that helps. If no luck you can always re-check the boxes if you want.

-- Rich

geniusweb Author

Level 1

14 points

Oct 17, 2019 1:23 PM in response to Rich839

OK today I am sure the issue is either in iMovie itself or in MacOS Catalina. I've copied the files from iphone to the macbook by many different ways and created a new project each time using those clips without any editing and the artifacts are still present there. How can I address this to someone from apple to seriously have a look and note the bug to fix it in the next release? Macbook's iMovie is for today unusable for me. I believe there are so many users who shot their videos with their iphones and want to edit it in the iMovie on the mac.

dpar4272

Level 1

8 points

Oct 20, 2019 4:55 AM in response to geniusweb

Im having this issue as well - iMovie 10.1.13 on MacBook Pro 2019 15" running Mohave 10.14.6. Very annoying!

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Artifacts in iMovie