iMovie 8.0 Help
About importing video into iMovie
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 storing one hour of video can use many gigabytes (GB) of disk space, 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’ll use the video in the future.
Recording devices that connect using a USB cable
Camcorders that record to DVDs, hard disk drives (HDD), or memory cards generally connect to your computer using a USB cable. These devices work similarly when importing video into iMovie.
Warning:Do not attempt to insert mini DVDs or other nonstandard video discs into a slot-loading or tray-loading disc drive on your Mac. Doing so can damage your computer. Standard discs are circular with a diameter of 12 cm and are between 1.2 and 1.5 mm thick.
Camcorders that connect using a FireWire cable
FireWire camcorders use videotape in either DV (standard) or HDV (high-definition video) format.
Recording video directly into iMovie
You can record video directly onto your computer’s hard disk (or an attached external hard disk) using iMovie with your computer’s built-in iSight camera or a FireWire-equipped web camera or camcorder.
Importing from iMovie HD projects
If you want to import video that you’ve used in an iMovie HD project, you can do so directly into iMovie. However, iMovie brings only the raw video into the project. Video in the clip viewer is imported into a new iMovie Event, and any video in the timeline is imported into a new iMovie project.
Importing movie files on your hard disk
You can import video from any file in one of the following formats: MPEG-4, DV, or .mov files.