where are my videos stored

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Level 1

13 points

where are my videos stored

Hi - I've just started using iMovie with videos (I'd done a short one with stills before, but this is mp4 shot with my little point-&-shoot camera). I download them into iPhoto and up till now I've only had a few and just left them in iPhoto and played them there.

But one evening recently I took a lot of videos of a band playing a gig in a pub, and wanted to edit a bit and see what I could do with them.

It's all great fun but something happened just now - I haven't deleted those pub videos from my camera yet, and this morning I went to download some still photos I'd taken yesterday, and iPhoto is showing all my pub videos as not imported yet. So iPhoto isn't recognizing them as being there, but they're definitely there and they play normally.

My process for getting them into iMovie from iPhoto was, I dragged each one to my desktop, them imported them individually into iMovie. Then did some Projects.

They all show up in Finder under iMovie Events and Projects, and double-clicking on those opens up iMovie.

So - could anyone tell me where these videos reside now? In Finder? Am I doubled up on the space they're taking up? I can leave things as they are, everything's working fine, but I really should know what I'm doing 😕

Thanks,

Lynne

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Mar 25, 2014 10:13 AM

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Answer 1

GeeD

Level 6

9,173 points

Mar 25, 2014 12:42 PM in response to lynnefrombc

If you dragged the videos to your desktop from your iPhoto library you will have removed them from your iPhoto library. iMovie gives you direct access to your iPhoto library from within the application. This way your videos will remain in the iPhoto library and be referenced to from iMovie, avoiding duplicate copies. For more info see:

http://help.apple.com/imovie/#mov3a621a50

Geoff.

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Answer 2

lynnefrombc Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 25, 2014 1:34 PM in response to GeeD

Interesting. Then I don't understand why I can still see them and play them from within iPhoto. And I just looked at iMovie, and these videos still come up when I click on iPhoto videos.

By dragging and importing them the way I did, then where are they actually located now, do you know?

Yes I do know iPhoto puts them into the iMovie browser, and if I'd only had a couple of videos I would have tried that. It was my first attempt at this though, and I thought it was going a lot simpler to bring them in one at a time, since I had 14 that all looked the same in the thumbnails, and I couldn't see a way to number or name them there. I'm not techy, for sure, I'm an older person and I try to keep things simple till I get the hang of them - usually I get into less trouble that way lol.

Not this time, I guess 😐

Thanks, Geoff

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Answer 3

GeeD

Level 6

9,173 points

Mar 25, 2014 1:57 PM in response to lynnefrombc

OK, then I guess you now have copies in your iPhoto library and in iMovie Events folder.

Actually I don't use iPhoto at all so I'm not sure about how its library works it seems to me unnecessarily complicated - I threw out the app many years ago and keep all my photos and video clips in my own folder system and find this much simpler)

Sorry I can't help more

Geoff.

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Answer 4

lynnefrombc Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 25, 2014 3:36 PM in response to GeeD

Right, it looks like copies in both - however that doesn't explain the fact that iPhoto doesn't treat it as "already imported" and instead shows it under "new video" when I plug my camera in.

I used to use my own folder system years ago when I had a pc, but have been happy with iPhoto for the last 5 years I've had a mac. Its tools and editing are enough for me, and are simple to use. I've been scanning and organizing some very old photos I inherited, trying to preserve them - it's a big job and the photos vary greatly in quality, some badly deteriorated, damaged, faded black and whites, and shades of sepia. All very precious but there are a lot of them - I'm really happy with the results I'm getting with minimal time (and knowledge!) of editing.

It's iMovie that I find difficult - I tried to delete the video clips in the iPhoto section of Events and couldn't get that to work either, so enough is enough, lol. I'm going to "cheat" - and get my 15-yr-old granddaughter to do it.

Thanks for replying,

Lynne

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Answer 5

GeeD

Level 6

9,173 points

Mar 25, 2014 4:19 PM in response to lynnefrombc

Importing photos and videos directly from a camera into iMovie and iPhoto seems often to cause strange problems for people. IMHO the trouble is that there is no detailed documentation on exactly how it works.

I simply attach my camera or put the SD card in a reader so that the files appear in the Finder as in an external drive. It's then easy to copy them to my archive. I drag the files from there into iMovie (or FCP) as needed and if it doesn't handle them I know they need to go through a format conversion program.

Geoff. (65y young 😀).

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Answer 6

lynnefrombc Author

Level 1

13 points

Mar 25, 2014 5:16 PM in response to GeeD

Whatever works!

I like "We're not old, we've just been young a long time!" - it was on a bday card I received from a very long-time friend 🙂 I should get a bumper-sticker lol.

Thanks for the input, it's always helpful and interesting to talk about these glitches.

Best,

Lynne (72 and still learning... 😀 😀)

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