Help me understand what video formats makes iMovie happy

Video Formats:

H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format.

Audio Formats:

AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.

http://www.macxdvd.com/mac-dvd-video-converter-how-to/iphone-video-format-suppor ted.htm

I'm sorry that didn't help. I think these may be some formats that are compatible:

DV

HDV

AVCHD

Apple Intermediate Codec

Apple Animation Codec

Motion JPEG/A

iFrame

h.264

And again, please forgive me if this isn't useful.

zayedkhan2003

Ziatron wrote:

....

…AVCHD

…

These work with iMovie 06 ? aka iMovie HD.

definitively not! 😀

iMHD6 was meant by concept for tape-based devices; therefor it is still matchless in how it is handling dv. Since vers5, HDV was supported, 1440 from miniDV; to handle it, an automatic process converted such material into AppleIntermediateCodec (AIC). So, these were the two 'native' formats of iMovie-a: DV and AIC.

The underlying Quicktime-engine (which is meanwhile obsolete too) allowed to import 'other' formats, BUT did not support muxed (a +v 'woven' together into a single stream of data) formats, such as mp2 (from videoDVD, or some professional tape corders).....

mov (or avi, or mp4, or mkv, or ...) are just wrappers - "a box of chocolate", you never know what's inside. There ARE exotic combos of audio- and video-codecs combined inside a mov/mp4 which are NOT supported by iMovie.

You're on the safe side, if you converter supports .DV (for StandardDef) and AIC, which comes out as a .mov (for HighDef).

Any other in trial'n error.

.. but AVCHD for sure not... 😁

Ziatron wrote:

.. using an HDMI video capture device, "Elgato Game Capture HD" (I don't use it for games). ...

My son has the same device 🙂

It delivers 720 ... but as h.264. So, iMovie06 HAS to convert it on import... into its own intermediate format.

Or, you do it, manually, all'mighty Mpeg Streamclip opens your capture.mov and can export it as a aic.mov....

<wiseguy mode ON >

'iMHD' was in Apple-lingo vers5.

'iMHD06' is vers.6

.. best-of-all, next version was iMovie08 (which is a completely diff. product, why I refer to iMovie-a, iMovie-b) .. but version# is 7 ... and the follower of iM11 is .. iM10! "Mr. Schiller, Mr. Phil Schiller, please to the kindergarden!" 😝😁

<wiseguy mode OFF>

Ziatron wrote:

... "Executive Vice President in charge of Strategic Long-range Planning".

... Because only you can bring balance to the Apple force. Bringing peace to those who love optical media and those who can do without it.

LOL, very charming offer, Zi! Thank you! 😉

No, I'm biased:

For quiet a while I'm a huge fan of FCPX (and Motion5) - iMovie is just a hobby, mostly fed by memories... I do know, SDef media is around in petabytes, and DVDs are still a common distribution way. Plus, I'm no engineer, 'marketing' is my professional heritage, "the worm has to savor the fish, not the fisherman"-like ... you know.

Plus, I'm no engineer - iMovie-a (= up to vers. ≤6) was some kind of front-end of Quicktime (anybody remembering QuicktimePlayer.app v6 pro? With its phantastic 'handles' for resizing etc.??), iMovie/iDVD were originally PPC software!; etc ; the new AV-foundation asked for a complete re-write of software. I assume, swapping the underlying, fundamental system parts is no job done on a weekend.

What we don't know: e.g. any crash reports get back to Apple => they do have the hard facts, wether a product pays off or not.

In my judgement and 30y of experience with the brand  - they never look back.

(The only 'jubilee product' was the 20th AniMac… but by timeline, I'd say, that was a J.Sculley product..)

.... and to give you somethiing to bite:

If a native-DV-editor is a market, if a iDVD-clone is a market - why doesn't a company jump into the gap? 😉

Ziatron you asked

Is there some other video format that can be moved directly into iMovie 06 where it will not go through any conversion process ? I am starting with mp4 video.

I know this is a few months old now, and have probably solved your issue, but thought you might find this interesting.

I believe there is a way of " Importing" ProRes 422 into iMovie HD 6 without going through a conversion process.

As you are probably aware ProRes 422 can be imported into iMovie '09 and '11 if you have the ProRess 422 codec installed on your Mac.

This is usually achieved by having Final Cut Studio 2 or 3 installed.There are other ways of having these codecs installed , but am not sure of the details.

As I have FC Studio 2, then I have the ProRes 422 codec along with others.

This is how you get the ProRes 422 clips into iMovie HD6, without conversion.

Create a new iMovie 6 project.Choose a video format,DV,DV widescreen,HDV 1080i,HDV 720p, etc.

I chose HDV 1080i, as my ProRes files were 1080i.Save to desk-top,select create, then close and quit iMovie 6.

Now control click on the project on the desk-top and Show Package Contents.

Now drag the ProRess files into the Media Folder.Close

Now double click on the iMovie 6 project to open it and select View Trash.

You will see the ProRes files here which you should now drag into the import windows to the right.

Thats it. The ProRes are not converted into AIC.Now you can edit.

I am not sure what would happen if you try this with the mp4 video you had.

I have done a simple test with ProRes as above with a few transitions and titles and it seems OK, then exported as ProRes.

You can then use this ProRes export in iDVD.

Of course people would say that if you have got FCP 6 or 7 then why would you use iMovie HD6.It's down to choice I guess.

The choice of video format when creating the iMovie 6 project may depend on the files being used, but I haven't experimented much with this.

Thought you might like to experiment.