Managing videos in Aperture

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Level 1

58 points

Managing videos in Aperture

I've been importing videos from my PAS's and iPhone into Aperture. I'm looking for some feedback as to the benefits of allowing Aperture to manage those videos. It seems as though when I try to upload a video from Aperture to my MobileMe Gallery, the video doesn't work. I have to export it first and then upload the video via QuickTime in order to get it to work.

Also, if videos don't support IPTC metadata, why are the fields eligible? Is it worth adding metadata to video files in Aperture?

As as side question, if I were to continue managing video within Aperture, does it make sense in anyone's opinion to keep those videos in the same projects, etc as my image files? I have a smart album that holds just video, but it gets confusing (aside from the little video icon) when viewing images in the different views as to what is video and what is a photo.

Thanks

Macbook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.6.6), 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Posted on Jan 8, 2011 6:20 AM

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Answer 1

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Kirby Krieger

Level 6

12,542 points

Jan 8, 2011 12:40 PM in response to macorin

macorin wrote:
I'm looking for some feedback as to the benefits of allowing Aperture to manage those videos.

Aperture was not designed as, and does not excel as, a video storage, editing, and publishing workshop. My guess is that video was added in because it could be, not because users wanted it. My experience was that video tended to mung-up the works with 3.0. One of the upgrades has resolved those issues, but video remains nothing more than a limp tangent away from Aperture's core.

As as side question, if I were to continue managing video within Aperture, does it make sense in anyone's opinion to keep those videos in the same projects, etc as my image files?

Absolutely. Set one of each view's metadata overlays to show badges. Video has its own badge. Also, you might set the Poster Frame of each clip to show some text (the title, for instance) as a visual indication that the Preview is a video.

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Answer 2

Jan 8, 2011 12:54 PM in response to macorin

One of the benefits of storing video in Aperture is that it automatically shows up in the iMovie events under Aperture Video. You can create iMovie projects without importing into iMovie. Normally importing into iMovie causes iMovie to recompress the video but not if it's already in Aperture.

One limitation though is that the video has to be inside the Aperture library file (i.e. managed). If the video is stored outside Aperture's library (i.e. by reference), it doesn't show up in iMovie.

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