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Level 1

5 points

iMovie '11 Optimize on Import

When I was using iMovie '09, I made a habit of not optimizing (transcoding) events on import so that I could import a ton of stuff fast, take what I need and put together the final movie, and then do the transcoding during the rendering phase. This is absolutely essential for importing large events that I only want to use several clips out of, because it keeps me from wasting a ton of time upfront (what's the use of transcoding 4 hours worth of raw video for a 10 minute final render?) for all of my projects.

Now, with iMovie '11, even when I don't check the box for optimizing on import, it seems to do it anyway. What's going on here? Is there anything I can do about it, or will I just need to go back to iMovie '09?

Intel Macbook Pro 3rd Generation, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Nov 7, 2010 7:49 PM

32 replies

buknoy3

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2013 4:42 AM in response to Atrophius

I found this in Mac forums this works

Originally Posted by sorsor

I know this is old, but I ran into this earlier and came across this thread in a google search. As it turns out, it takes forever because it converts the video to .mov container (DV format). I found through further searching that you can instead just drop the videos into your imovie project data folder and it will use them without converting. It still takes a few minutes to process (1 hr .m4v 1920x1080 clip took 12 minutes on my new Air, instead of 9 hours as previously estimated through normal import), I suppose indexing or something, but much better.

Specifically, in your home folder, go to Movies -> iMovie Events -> (project name), and drop in your video there. When you start iMovie it should start processing the files, but it didn't actually convert the files. They just popped up in my event library ready to use.

This has to be the stupidest thing I've come across, as the forever conversion seems completely unnecessary for the application to function. perhaps it's a safety net for certain other formats.

jbpete87

Level 1

0 points

Oct 12, 2013 9:54 AM in response to buknoy3

Ingenious. It worked like a charm my 1 hour long Optimization was completely skipped and turned into a 5 minute processing event time. All I wanted to do was to combine two video clips together. Worked like a charm.

iMovie '11 Optimize on Import