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imovie exports are HUGE

I've been using imovie to upload iphone and camera footage for as long as it's been a thing; suddenly, even the shortest of movies, even with reducing the quality and compressing at a faster rate shows an under 10 min video as almost 600mb. What on earth? Is this a ploy to force me to buy more cloud space? How can reduce these without having to choose the worst quality and why is this suddenly happening. It seems since Catalina came out I've had nothing but problems. I even have a brand new Mac with a much better hard drive. HELP!

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.12

Posted on Apr 3, 2020 2:35 PM

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Posted on Apr 3, 2020 4:58 PM

You could reduce the bitrate by exporting at the Custom setting under Quality. There will be a slider where you can reduce the bitrate.


Regarding format, you could shoot the video in a more compressed format, or choose Mp4 rather than pro res for iMovie export (which you already have done). The problem with shooting in a more compressed format is that iMovie unpacks video clips for editing and could export the final movie in a less compressed (thus larger file size) format than you originally imported.


My comment on file size meant to record a shorter movie or trim the movie so that it is smaller. A movie can always be made smaller.


Regarding compression, as you probably know the higher the compression the lower the quality and the smaller the file size. So to lower file size you can choose low quality and faster compression from the share out box. As you have mentioned that would reduce the quality.


Reducing the resolution could lower the file size slightly. You can do that by importing your shared out movie into QuickTimePlayer and exporting at a lower resolution.


Another thing to do could be sharing to email rather than file, that would give you a box with options to share at Small, Medium, or Large size, and at a lower resolution as well. Then drag the movie out of your email onto your desktop.

You could also re-encode the exported video to a lower bitrate by using a video encoder like the free download, Handbrake.


-- Rich




5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 3, 2020 4:58 PM in response to jesgramenz

You could reduce the bitrate by exporting at the Custom setting under Quality. There will be a slider where you can reduce the bitrate.


Regarding format, you could shoot the video in a more compressed format, or choose Mp4 rather than pro res for iMovie export (which you already have done). The problem with shooting in a more compressed format is that iMovie unpacks video clips for editing and could export the final movie in a less compressed (thus larger file size) format than you originally imported.


My comment on file size meant to record a shorter movie or trim the movie so that it is smaller. A movie can always be made smaller.


Regarding compression, as you probably know the higher the compression the lower the quality and the smaller the file size. So to lower file size you can choose low quality and faster compression from the share out box. As you have mentioned that would reduce the quality.


Reducing the resolution could lower the file size slightly. You can do that by importing your shared out movie into QuickTimePlayer and exporting at a lower resolution.


Another thing to do could be sharing to email rather than file, that would give you a box with options to share at Small, Medium, or Large size, and at a lower resolution as well. Then drag the movie out of your email onto your desktop.

You could also re-encode the exported video to a lower bitrate by using a video encoder like the free download, Handbrake.


-- Rich




Apr 3, 2020 4:33 PM in response to jesgramenz

600MB for A 10 minute movie is not out of line.


It is not just duration that determines file size. File size is determined by how high the bitrate, the frame rate, the original size of the file, the format used for export, the compression, the complexity of the movie and its edits. You can vary any of the above to reduce file size, (lower the bitrate, original file size, frame rate, complexity, and/or increase the compression -- although I would not recommend fooling with the frame rate.


If you export at Best Quality (pro res) for example you will get a .mov file that is 4x file size than an Mp4 export due to the much higher bitrate with pro res and much less compression. Therefore if you export the same movie at any setting other than Best Quality (pro res) iMovie will render a an Mp4 file of much smaller file size.


-- Rich





imovie exports are HUGE

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