How to import HD footage into an existing SD iMovie project (version iMovie HD 6.04 (2674)

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How to import HD footage into an existing SD iMovie project (version iMovie HD 6.04 (2674)

I work with iMovie already a long time (couldn't find however time to change / to learn iMovie 11). I have a lot of projects with Standard Definition footage. Since I have a full HD camcorder I got stuck a little bit. I want to add some new, that means HD, footage into an existing SD project. I guess this cannot be done or you have to accept the new footage also in the lower SD quality.(I work still with iMovie HD 6.04 (2674)

Therefore I did start a new HD project and I tried to import the SD footage into this project (with copy paste). This is very time consuming and NOT succesfull. The first 8 or 10 clips were imported (copied) without a problem but with the second number of clips (I started with copy/paste only with a small number of clips to figure out if it works) I got the message that not every clip could be copied/imported (no reason given). So only a small nummer of clips were copied and some clips were completely black.

Who can make me happy with a good advise? Can it be done? Is it better first to remove all transitions ect or is there a better way. Or do I have to work with iMovie 11 (oh no ?)

thanks a lot.videomakker (NL)

Macbook Pro retina OSX 10.8.2

Posted on Jan 6, 2013 10:53 AM

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Answer 1

videomakker Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 8, 2013 12:39 PM in response to videomakker

I changed my approach instead of copy/paste I used drag and drop. This works (but takes a lot of time!), but I cannot understand why all the clips I import are double in size (to be exact: the original clip is for instance 100 MB in my 'Mother' SD project the imported clip in my HD project is at least 200 MB)

This is killing in respect to my disk space.

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Answer 2

videomakker Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 16, 2013 4:13 AM in response to videomakker

I asked a whiskid on my Mac club; he came with a clear answer: after importing the clips the HD project is making extra black inserts rigth and left (which takes space) because it was 3:4 movie and there is upscaling to fit into the HD project which is making the clip (data) of course also larger. (also he told me that the decoding in this way is probably not very efficient and makes the file also bigger). I am going to buy a huge external HD to make the transfer possible.

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