Trying to Transfer iMovie Projects from Mac OS X (10.6.8) to Big Sur. Help!

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Level 1

4 points

Trying to Transfer iMovie Projects from Mac OS X (10.6.8) to Big Sur. Help!

According to Apple Support, this can only be done with a video file converter--because:

iMovie projects cannot be transferred to OS Catalina or after from such an old OS or version of iMovie. The iMovie versions are 9.0.4 going to 10.3.5.

Questions:

1) Can you recommend a video file converter?

2) Any advice as to how to use it? (I've never used one)

3) Any other advice as to what I can try to transfer the projects? I tried moving them to an external drive first (didn't work) and using Bluetooth to transfer (didn't work). The newer version of iMovie won't accept them. The older computer predates iCloud. I tried to figure out a way to change the format first (before transferring) but nothing has worked.

The newer version of iMovie has a feature that would really be helpful in editing; the older version doesn't have it.

Thank you. (Apologies if this question is on twice.)

MacBook Air 11″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Dec 29, 2022 12:09 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MartinR

Level 7

21,697 points

Dec 29, 2022 1:42 PM in response to comfortfood

iMovie 9.x projects should be able to be opened & converted in iMovie 10.

Here are Apple's instructions on how to update old projects into iMovie 10: Update projects from earlier versions of iMovie - Apple Support

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Answer 2

comfortfood Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 31, 2022 12:43 PM in response to MartinR

The original source was a Sony Hi8 movie camera. I digitized the film.

Ideally, I'm trying to import iMovie projects. I'd like to transfer the events, too, if possible.

Here are the CODECS from a small sampling of the clips used in projects or events (under the "More Info" tab as per your example):

DV/DVCPRO - NTSC, LINEAR PCM (clip from an event) The clip ended in .mov (another clip had the same CODEC; also ended in .mov)
Under "More Info," a different clip only had "Last opened July, 2012 4:40 p.m. This clip ended in .DV. It was from the same event as one of the clips above.
I tried More Info on a small project just to see what would happen. The project ended in .rcproject. "More Info" only showed when it was last opened.
An .m4v had the CODEC: H.264, AAC

Thanks for staying with me. Happy New Year and best wishes for 2023.

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Answer 3

MartinR

Level 7

21,697 points

Dec 29, 2022 4:00 PM in response to comfortfood

What was the original source of the video you edited in iMovie 9? And are you trying to import/convert an iMovie project, or just specific clips directly from disk?

If it's clips, select one of those clips in the Finder and do GetInfo (File>GetInfo or CMD-I) and let us know what it says for codecs. Here's a sample of what you should see in the GetInfo window:

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Answer 4

comfortfood Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 29, 2022 3:15 PM in response to MartinR

Thank you for responding. I think the problem may be the operating system on the "newer" computer, Big Sur (which came after Catalina) and not the version of iMovie. I'm not very technical, but this article may explain it, https://www.macworld.com/article/234292/your-old-videos-may-not-play-in-macos-catalina-heres-why.html

I hope there's a way to transfer the files.

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Trying to Transfer iMovie Projects from Mac OS X (10.6.8) to Big Sur. Help!

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