I've used imovie for original projects for about a month now. But for the past few days, whenever I try to import a clip they stutter all the way through. There isn't anything wrong with the clips. I know this because they play perfectly in Quicktime and VLC Player.
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
Can anyone help me?
Some questions:
Did you wait for the clip to be transcoded? (The orange line above the clip in the timeline will go when this is complete). Stuttering during playing in the iMovie timeline might be due to insufficient disk space availability. How much do you have? Are movies high definition? Does a clip still stutter after it has been shared?
Geoff.
Yes, the clip is transcoded. How do I check for disc space? And the movies are high definition. And the clips only start to stutter when I upload them into imovie. When I play them in VLC Player or Quicktime, they don't skip.
To check for disk space open the disk directory in Finder. The total space available should appear at the bottom of the window. You should have at least 10-20 GB free.
I have 498.64 GB available.
Hello? Is anyone still there?
If you share one does it still stutter in the finished movie?
I'm not sure I understand your question. What do you mean?
I assume you have put some of the problem clips into a project timeline and they stutter when you play the video in the timeline. Now if you select Share and choose file or theatre the project will be rendered into a 'completed movie'. When you play that in Quicktime Player or in Theater does it now play smoothly or still stutter?
Geoff.
Ah. No, it still stutters. I'm trying to make gifs out of my clips and even when I import the finalized movies to Photoshop they stutter.
Hmm. I'm running out of ideas. Are the clips that stutter of exactly the format as previous ones that didn't? How many frames per second? Are you using iMovie 10 or 9?.
Geoff.
Well, all of the clips that I've ever used originated from AVI or MKV files. I converted them to MP4 files with SmartConverter. It always worked fine. I even uninstalled and reinstalled the program just in case there was something wrong with it. But it still converts files perfectly. For a while I just uploaded entire movie files to imovie, a feat which required up to an hour of processing time (and even then, there was only a 1 out of 3 chance that the file would successfully upload and not be rejected at the last second). So I started trimming the clips first with Avidemux2.6. This worked fine the first few times I used it. But now the clips skip. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling both imovie and Avidemux2.6, but the same thing keeps happening. I tried uploading the various clips at different frames per second: 24, 25, 30. But each time they skipped, too. I'm using imovie 9.0.9.
I guess I could try uploading an ENTIRE movie file again, but like I said, more often than not imovie rejects the movie file after 1-3 hours of processing time. If I try to upload the entire movie file again, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to upload it at all.
OK so the stuttering is real and not an artefact of insufficient resources during editing (my initial suspicion) or framerate conversions. Do any clips import now without stuttering? If yes then I guess the iMovie S/W is OK and the problem must be due to some recent change/update you have made on your machine or in the source of the clips. If no then iMovie may have got corrupted somehow and it might be worth resorting to the usual trashing preferences or reinstalling it. I'm not knowledgeable enough about all the file formats that iMovie imports and an internet search seems only to find lots of organisations trying to sell you their software converters.
Have you tried importing into iMovie 10? (You don't have to use the import function and can also drag and drop video files directly into an event pane).
You give the impression that you are importing big files into iMovie - usually one is importing lots of relatively short clips then 'gluing' them together in iMovie. If you want only to use small parts of an imported movie it is better to chop them into parts before import using Quicktime Player.
Geoff.
How would I install iMovie10?
Also, I upload large files into iMovie and then cut out smaller clips which I then stitch together. I started using Avidemux2.6 so that I wouldn't have to do this anymore.
How do I reset personal preferences in iMovie? Also, I've already tried uninstalling and reinstalling iMovie. It didn't work.
If I DO have to rely on importing gigantic movie files again, how do I make sure that they won't be rejected by iMovie? Like I said before, most of the time when I try and import large movie files, iMovie will take 1-3 hours and the movie file will disappear completely when the program should be creating screenshots for the timeline. Is there any way to make sure this doesn't happen? I don't mind being patient and waiting that long to upload files, but not if it's a gamble whether or not iMovie will actually import them or reject them after several hours of uploading.
If you have iMovie 9 registered under your apple ID, iMovie 10 should be offered as a free upgrade in the App Store. I would install any offered iMovie 9 upgrades first though and check for any changes in performance. Installing iMovie 10 will not delete iMovie 9 but will put it in a separate folder in your Applications folder and you will still be able to use it. You should however be aware that iMovie 10 does not allow deleting unwanted parts of imported clips in events (only in the timeline) so removing these before import is essential if you want to avoid eating up unnecessary storage space. It also has a considerably changed interface (it is a complete rewrite by Apple which should run much faster)
I don't have an answer for your last point - I have never had this problem and don't use (or even have installed) iMovie 9 any more. I don't think there is any limit to the size of movie that can be imported (provided there is sufficient storage space for the transcoded file) but importing such large files is not how iMovie is meant to be used.
Geoff.
Why won't the clips I import stop stuttering?
