I've got some old movie projects saved from around 2003-2004 (iMovie 4 and iDVD 4 at the time) but the old format is not able to be opened in iMovie HD 6 which now runs perfectly on my new iMac.
Can anyone please tell me if there any way that I can convert the formats to open and run in iMovie HD 6 on my 2013 iMac?
Thanks.
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
Right click on the project file and "Show Contents"
Dig around in the Contents folder to find your original source files (probably blah.dv files).
Drag them to your Dekstop and you can use them in version 6. The "effects and transitions" you may have used in the original can't be imported but you may also find some stray audio clips which can be used again.
As well as the above, you could try this. I believe that the following will transfer all transitions and effects.
Double click on an iMovie 4 project file or click on drop-down folder arrow. Here you will see the original source files (.dv) that QuickTimeKirk mentioned and also a reference file. If your project was called Holiday then this reference file will be called Holiday.mov . This reference file represents your edited movie, complete with transitions etc. It will only be a small file (20KB ?? ) but don't worry.
Now open up iMovie HD 6 and in a new Project select the desired Video Format.You can select DV, DV widescreen, HDV 1080i etc. As your movie in iMovie 4 was probably DV then select DV in HD 6.
Now drag the Holiday.mov file mentioned above into the clips pane of the HD6 project that you have just set up. You will see the Holiday.mov being imported into your HD6 project.
You should now be able to edit in HD6 as you wish; the only downside to this method is that the import is one long clip. Nothing stopping you splitting this up though.
If you want to start all over again with different transitions and effects with your original clips then follow QuickTimeKirk.
Thanks for your reply,
I've tried your suggestion but I only get the result below and none of them accept the project file - also I don't have a drop-down folder arrow. As you see, all the expected items are there in the 'film No.1 folder, but the part 1.iMovieProject or the or the part 1.mov only give the results shown int the two lower screen shots.
Neither of the two options here above work.
Obviously .mov is no good - as QuickTimeKirk shows it should be a .dv file.
makey.
Open the part 1 .mov file (in your screen shot) as it should be the entire file with all of your effects, audio and edits.
Look in the "Media" folder for your .dv clips.
Obviously .mov is no good
Yes ,can be confusing.
Click on the .mov and go to File > Get Info. Codec wiil most likely be DV .
.mov is a container.
Just out of curiosity are you actually able to open your iMovie 4 projects in Mountain Lion.
Also the info you supplied above does not look familiar for iMovie 4.
The terms "Audio Waveforms,Cache and Shared Movies" are more akin to iMovie HD 6. I have never seen these terms in iMovie 4. Possibly iMovie 5 but I have never used it.
I have some very old iMovie 4 projects and they are identified by the blue clapper board and star. I don't see this in your post info.
Here's confirmation that all the "Media" folder clips (too long to show complete list) are in place, but the clips are not .dv format.
Here's the info. it does show for a clip.
And here's the .mov File > Get Info. result - just a few KB and not .dv. As you see from the shot in my earlier post, QTP doesn't recognize the movie format anyway.
The only iMovie 4 projects I've still got are these ones under discussion, which I retrieved using "Recovered Files" - via the 'Data Recovery' feature in TechTool Pro 7. Therefore I don't know if I can open iMovie 4 projects in Mountain Lion.
iMovie 4 was originally installed on my old eMac OS 10.3.4 (2004) and the projects saved onto an external HD, where they were "recovered" from. I then used the Apple downloads to get iMovie HD 6 installed on my first iMac (Leopard then Snow Leopard) which they also won't open with. Does this belated info. give you any clues to the problem?
Re your question about iMovie 4 in Mountain Lion. I transferred the original iMovie 4 application from my old eMac to my 2008 (Snow Leopard) iMac and it does open normally there (I haven't tried it in M.Lion).
However, the projects we're discussing won't open in it, so they must have got corrupted from the Data Recovery process.
Hello again,
Sorry for no recent reply, been away and don't have access to my Mac in order to experiment/test.
Yes, you may be right, something may have been corrupted. The .mov does not seem to be able to see the original project.
I think you said you tried this but can you just confirm? Did you try to drag the Molly part 1.mov into iMovie HD6?
If you go into Finder, then Applications and double click on the Application iMovie 4, does it open?
Wont be back on the Mac for experimenting til early next week but replies to the above would be useful in the mean time.
Hello,
I've tried dragging the .mov file into iMovie HD 6 and into iMovie 4 but neither could recognize it. I did this on my older 2008 (Snow Leopard) iMac because Mountain Lion won't accept the older version as shown here:-
The only responses I got from all attempts at .mov retrieval on both iMovie versions are these:-
I know the 'QuickTime couldn't parse it' problem is due to the wrong format i.e. not a .dv file.
Hello again.
I believe that the iMovie 4 projects that you have are infact now iMovie 6 projects.
I mentioned above that the structure of your projects resembled that of iMovie HD 6 projects not iMovie 4 .
iMovie 4 projects do not contain folders called Cache or Shared Movies, but HD 6 do.
Is it possible that after you installed iMovie 4 and iMovie HD 6 onto your Snow Leopard Mac that you opened up the iMovie 4 projects and selected to have them converted to HD 6 projects.You do get a warning when this happens to say that they cannot go back to an older version.
Today I created a test project in iMovie 4 and saved to desktop.
I then opened up this project and it asked me if I wanted to open it in iMovie HD 6 which will make it unreadable by older versions.
By selecting OK it makes it an iMovie HD 6 project with the stucture that you have for yours above.
You said:
" I then used the Apple downloads to get iMovie HD 6 installed on my first iMac (Leopard then Snow Leopard) which they also won't open with. "
So not sure why they won't open with iMovie HD 6 on your Snow Leopard Mac.
"The only iMovie 4 projects I've still got are these ones under discussion, which Iretrieved using "Recovered Files" - via the 'Data Recovery' feature in TechTool Pro 7. "
Have you got the original iMovie 4 projects on a Hard Drive somewhere.What was the reason for using Data Recovery?
Were the video clips from a DV camcorder? If so then they will be .dv
If you double click on ,say,Clip 01 does it play in QuickTime Player ? If so go up to window and select
Show Movie Inspector and see what the Format is.
I have Snow Leopard, iMovie 4 and HD 6 and can perform the task as posted in my original post above.
Some sort of corruption seems to have taken place, possibly in the data recovery??
Post back with info as all may not be lost.
Hello again,
I had to use Data Recovery because I'd stupidly erased the whole drive without thinking of saving the files elsewhere first. I did this because the drive was getting full and, after deleting some unwanted files, then using 'Erase Free Space', the drive's capacity didn't increase (it never does with this Disk Utility option).
Meanwhile, I've been looking at ways round the problem and remembered that, although the clips within the Media folder show as Kind Document, the actual Sizes are XXMB according to the clip time length, as here.
I then realized that amount of MB would mean the whole clip is there but must need converting to an iMovie readable format. I tried this out with a Video Converter program and - it worked!
It takes a very long time to do the conversions of so many clips and even longer to import them into an iMovie project but I got a complete original.
Convert iMovie 4 projects to run on iMovie HD 6 (in Mountain Lion)?
