Picture in Picture Not Working in iMovie 10.1.16

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mtbikexcski Author

Level 1

13 points

Picture in Picture Not Working in iMovie 10.1.16

With the latest release of iMovie, I am no longer seeing the Video Overlay box.

When it does show up, I can't resize or move the overlayed video.

See: https://youtu.be/AMlHXvz5Sew

This Apple Article is no help:

https://support.apple.com/guide/imovie/create-a-picture-in-picture-effect-mova1aaa682b/mac

Step 2 - I don't see the Video Overlay Settings button most of the time.

Step 3 - I can't drag or resize the clip

Please tell me how to fix this... :-)

Thanks!

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 24, 2020 1:02 PM

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Answer 1

mtbikexcski Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 24, 2020 4:25 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

Hi Ian - I needed transparency.. I tried a JPG and the Ken Burns effect and although I could get a Ken Burns effect like I could get a picture in picture effect, I couldn't change the Ken Burns start and finish panning on the picture just like I couldn't move or resize the pic in pic.

I tried Option - Command - iMovie and it asked me if I wanted to delete my preferences, I said yes and everything's gone. My media and projects.

Okay - that was scary... I found I had a iMovie.Library 1.imovielibrary file and an iMovie.Library.imovielibrary file with an earlier date. I double-clicked on the iMovie.Library.imovielibrary file and my projects and events are back (although no longer organized by year for some reason).

Anyway, I re-tried to edit and everything's working fine again!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! You solved my problem!!!

Thanks!

Brad

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Answer 2

Oct 25, 2020 2:36 AM in response to mtbikexcski

When you trash the preferences, iMovie opens in its "as new" state with no projects.

The Libraries and projects etc. are perfectly safe in the place where they were saved.

By default that will be in your Movies folder unless you have specified somewhere else.

You can simply double-click the Library and it will open in iMovie as it was originally.

Here's the complete information I should have posted.

If iMovie starts behaving unexpectedly in any way for no apparent reason, the problem could be caused by corrupt preference files.

The cure for this is to delete the preferences.

Hold down the Cmd and Option keys as you launch iMovie and a window will appear asking if you wish to delete the preferences.

Click “Delete Preferences” and iMovie will open in the default (as-new) mode with no projects etc. on the interface.

You will have to navigate to any project you were working on and reopen it.

Deleting preferences is completely safe and because of its simplicity it should be the first thing you do when troubleshooting.

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Answer 3

Oct 25, 2020 9:03 AM in response to mtbikexcski

Fame at last! Mentioned in despatches! 😇

Your comments in the video were quite surprising because you said you went to the home Library>Preferences and deleted the iMovie.plist file.

That file is the preference file which is deleted when you get iMovie to trash the preferences by holding down the option and command keys!

So why didn't it work when you deleted the .plist file originally?

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Answer 4

Oct 25, 2020 9:26 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

I may have found an answer to my last problem.

I went into the preference folder and there was no com.apple.iMovie.plist file.

Instead there was only a com.apple.iLife.plist file.

Reading between the lines I am guessing that the latest versions of iMovie use the iLIfe.plist and the iMovie one you deleted was probably left over from a previous version.

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Answer 5

mtbikexcski Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 26, 2020 8:57 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Ah - that makes sense. I was kind of concerned the file didn't re-appear after restarting iMovie using Option + Command. Glad it's not there for you either. :-) Thanks again for your help! I could not find the answer anywhere and I did a lot of searching.

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