Before you can begin working in iMovie, you need to bring in some video from a video recording device and store the video on your computer (or an external hard disk). This process of copying video from the recording device onto your computer is called “importing,” and iMovie makes it easy to import video from almost any digital recording device.

Keep in mind that it can take up many gigabytes (GB) of disk space to store one hour of video, depending on the video file format. Make sure your disk has enough available storage space for the video you’re importing.

To learn about the different video recording devices and formats that you can use with iMovie, first determine whether your device connects to your computer using a USB cable or a FireWire cable.

You can also import video from files that already exist on your hard disk, including iMovie projects from iMovie HD.

If you’ll be importing 1080i-format video, iMovie offers a choice of sizes in which to import it; you should make a choice based on how you will be using the video in the future.