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F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Lousy iMovie HD 6.0.2 playback -- stuttering video and audio

I've spent several weeks now working on a movie which I'm aiming to be about an hour long. Using iMovie HD 6.0.2, QuickTime Player 7.1, OSX 10.4.6 ...all the latest versions, it seems, on a G5 1.8GHz SP, with 1 GB of RAM and two internal drives (System on 80G, movie project on 300G Maxtor drive with lots of room to spare). Before starting iMovie, I close all other applications and relaunch the Finder to have things "clean" as possible. All external drives are shut off. Still....

...the playback quality is becoming so bad, I'm concerned that I won't be able to continue this project using iMovie. The sound is poor, the moving slider is jerky, the image is skippy as is the sound. Mouse actions are slow to respond, and I'm sick of seeing the rotating beachball.

What is wrong with this software??? _ I never had this problem with older versions of iMovie (e.g. version 3), with equally-large projects, on a slower machine (G4/450 with less memory and smaller drives).

If I complete it, will it still stutter once it's burned onto DVD using iDVD 6.0.2? __

Is this a plot to coerce users to buy the pricier Final Cut Pro Express? ____ (is FCPE immune from this problem? _)

The current situation is very bad. Is there a fix? ___

G5/1.8GHz SP 80GB Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1GB RAM, +300G internal, 4 external FW HD's

Posted on May 25, 2006 12:15 AM

151 replies

Jun 1, 2006 5:08 AM in response to F. Farmer

Hi F. Farmer,

In case I've missed this in the thread, could I ask - is the 300MB Maxtor drive (on which your project resides) formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus)?

My understanding is that iMovie requires this formatting, as distinct from a Windows type format (FAT32 or similar). I've read in other posts that iMovie performs erratically if the project is stored on an incorrectly formatted disk.

Just thought this was worth a try!

To check the format - open Finder, control click on the Disk, then click on Get Info. The box that appears will show the format of the disk (you probably know all this).

John

Jun 1, 2006 7:17 AM in response to animal

All I know is that I solved similar problems with:

enough free space on my (ext/int) HD
put the processor of my Mac on maximum capacity
choosing the right configuration of my ext. HD
select in iMovie preferences -->playback-->the right playback option (experiment I think I did put it on lower picture qaulity/fluent)

succes, Gerard.

Jun 1, 2006 8:08 AM in response to John Cogdell

John makes a very good point.

Even if the drive has the Mac OS Extended disk format, it may be worth copying the project to a freshly reformatted external drive. If that doesn't help, try setting the drive to ignore permissions. (In the drive's Get Info window.)

We've seen evidence in the past that iMovie gets confused about permissions, and that certain drives are improved by reformatting. There might be a connection.

Karl

jacqo

Level 1

0 points

Jun 1, 2006 11:05 AM in response to Karl Petersen

Hi.
I'm trying this now,curious if this helps.
In the meantime I have another problem.
Importing into iM from my Canon MV 700 was also a problem with the 400Gb LaCie external hd.When connected with firewire I couldn't import at all,iM kept telling me that there was no camera connected.When I connected the hd with USB2 iM did see the camera,but I could only import 1 or 2 seconds and then it quit.As soon as the hd was disconnected there was no problem.
I've just purchased en new Freecom 400gb hd,and that gives the same problem.
I've also a LaCie 80Gb hd and that gives no problems.
Any suggestions?

Jacqo

F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Jun 1, 2006 11:43 PM in response to John Cogdell

Hi John,

It is Mac OS Extended. Thanks anyway!

F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Jun 1, 2006 11:49 PM in response to Karl Petersen

Hi Karl,

The drive already ignores Permissions.

I've had the same iMovie problem on brand new formatted external drives, FW400 & 800. (I thought the problem was because they were external but now I feel it's just an iMovie problem -- external FW800 or FW400 should work fine with iMovie). I had another thread going, in this forum, on this issue a few months ago. Afterwards, I decided to just concentrate on using an internal drive for iMovie projects. Sadly, the problem continues!

F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Jun 2, 2006 12:03 AM in response to videomakker

Hi Videomakker,

The internal 300G drive where my project (36G) is, has 145G of free space, which should be more than adequate. It used to have 180G of free space and I was still having the stuttering problem. It's not the drive, because the problem went away when I deleted several extracted audio clips, and returned when I re-imported them.

Mac processor at maximum capacity..... I'm not sure what you mean by this. I have 1G of RAM, and I don't run any other applications while using iMovie. I also always relaunch Finder before launching iMovie.

Right config of external drive.....? I'm not using an external drive. I have five of them, but they've been all shut OFF while I'm working on this project. The externals are for backup and I only turn them on when I'm ready to create a backup. So while on this project, I'm using only two INTERNAL drives, one 80G (only half full) for OSX & applications, the other 300G (about half full) for the project files. Both drives are Mac OS Extended.

My iMovie preferences are set for playback at the lowest quality. Made no difference to the problem.

Thanks for your thoughts. Keep 'em coming!! I'm open to all suggestions!

I'm beginning to wonder if re-installing iMovie would help. What do you think? ____

jacqo

Level 1

0 points

Jun 2, 2006 3:07 AM in response to F. Farmer

Hi Frank.
I've already tried if re-installing iMovie helps,but it didn't.
I even did a "clean install" and re-installed everything on my Mac,but that didn't help either.
I also tried to go back to iMovie 5,but even then I kept having the same problems.

Jacqo

Jun 2, 2006 4:54 AM in response to F. Farmer

Hi Farmer,

Free space and configuration HD is in your case of course not apllicable (I was answering somebody else I thougt (-:

I managed to improve playback performance by putting the processor on maximum performance. You can do this with systempreferences.

Hopefully you can solve your problem I am "out of ammunition".

videomakker

jacqo

Level 1

0 points

Jun 2, 2006 2:28 PM in response to F. Farmer

Yo guys.
I've just downloaded the update for QT and guess what????
Now my project suddenly runs fine,I hope it works for all of you!

Remains however the problem with the external hd and recognising the camera.

Happy editing.

Jacqo

gnoe

Level 1

0 points

Jun 2, 2006 3:29 PM in response to F. Farmer

Hello I'm new here, my first discussion.

I was helping a friend, who had the same problem (stuttering, ...). I resolved the the problem in the audio. How? NO overlapping! Never! Not a bit! It help on his imac G4 800Mhz.

I hope it will help some of you guys?!

F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Jun 2, 2006 4:54 PM in response to gnoe

Gnoe,

Thanks for your tip. I have some overlapping audio clips. I'll change them so they don't overlap. Sounds promising! (But I do like overlapped audio sometimes -- especially when one scene is dissolving into another; I don't like the way the dissolve transition handles audio). I also overlap a music soundtrack when I want to extend (make it longer).

I'll let you know what happens.....

Frank
====

F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Jun 2, 2006 5:12 PM in response to jacqo

Jacqo,

You're the man! (person!)....

I downloaded QT 7.1.1 following your tip, and at first pass, looks like iMovie is now working OK. I just tested a few minutes of playback and it was fine. Gotta run now, so I'll do more testing later.

Thanks for sharing your finding. This should make a lot of people happy.

P.S. I haven't yet changed my overlapping audio clips as suggested in another message in this forum. Hopefully, I won't have to.

Frank

F. Farmer Author

Level 2

216 points

Jun 2, 2006 11:51 PM in response to jacqo

A few hours later, I'm back testing the results of updating to QT 7.1.1.

Sad to report the stutter has returned. It seemed fine for a while, but it has reared its ugly head again. I noted that the update info for QT 7.1.1 made no mention of fixing this particular problem, but then I thought maybe Apple didn't want to admit this problem existed. Hmmmmmmm.... I'm looking forward to an update for iMovie.

Hang in there. We'll beat this thing yet.

gnoe

Level 1

0 points

Jun 3, 2006 12:01 AM in response to F. Farmer

Hello Farmer,

Try to use the TWO audio channels to make a transition, don't overlap them in the same layer. Also, when you extract audio from the video, imovie places this audio in the first channel, if you had placed some music or other audio there already, just move it to the other channel.
The best thing is to keep the audio clean, not too difficult and no overlapping in the same channel. ... If you're not fatisfided with it, maybe start thinking about FinalCutExpress? There you can add channels by your needs.
Sorry for my bad english, but hope it helped you guys?
Good luck!

Lousy iMovie HD 6.0.2 playback -- stuttering video and audio