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What Does Finalize Project Do? iMovie 11

Does anyone know what the "Finalize Project" option in the file menu of iMovie 11 does? Is it different than Export?
Thanks.

Macbook 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 4 GB RAM

Posted on Oct 20, 2010 4:28 PM

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Posted on Oct 21, 2010 12:42 PM

Finalize Project will render your project in all sizes available. This may take some time, so you may want to do it overnight or while you are away from the computer. Once you have done it, you can share to iTunes, MobileMe, FaceBook, YouTube, etc, and you only have to worry about the network time. It does not have to render again.
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Oct 21, 2010 12:42 PM in response to newmanjg

Finalize Project will render your project in all sizes available. This may take some time, so you may want to do it overnight or while you are away from the computer. Once you have done it, you can share to iTunes, MobileMe, FaceBook, YouTube, etc, and you only have to worry about the network time. It does not have to render again.

Nov 4, 2010 7:44 PM in response to Michele Gardner

When you share directly to YouTube (for example) on a big movie, it might take an hour to render and an hour to upload. If it fails, it can be hard to know if the failure was in the render or in the connection to YouTube. This let's you render, make sure all is well, watch it, and then send to YouTube.

With 1080P, the render can take a lot longer than before, so you can let it render while you are away, or overnight, and then send various sizes where they need to go. For example you might send 1080P to YouTube or to Toast, but you would never need to send 1080P to iTunes, so 1080P is not even an option there.

But you are right, it is the same thing as sharing to Media Browser in all sizes.

Dec 15, 2010 1:45 AM in response to glegrowis

Can anyone tell me where imovie saves the small, medium and large files it produces when you click Finalize Project under File?


As Tom states, they are embedded in the project file package. To access this, right-click (or Control-click) on the project name in the iMovie Projects folder (on your internal drive, this is in your User>Movies folder). Select "Show Package Contents" from the pop-up menu. In the Movies folder you will see the various exported movies.

John

What Does Finalize Project Do? iMovie 11

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