iMovie files or recapture 7 hrs in FCP?

[Steve Eisen]

It all depends on how organized you want your project to be. If you want custom names with exact timecode, then spend the day logging and capturing in FCP.

If clip names are not important, import your media in FCP and render away.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Michael Sacci]

If your footage was DV and you captured DV in iMovie, just bring the clips straight into FCP. You have what you need.

[Rebecca Carroll]

Oh, nice. Thanks for the responses.

Here’s the thing. There are numerous threads about iMovie captures in FCP and how terrible an idea it is. Stubborn people might go ahead and continue capturing in iMovie and working in FCP because you only ever hear about the need to audio render everything. No biggie, right?

But with more complicated projects, it gets much worse. Frames are dropped. FCP lags and then freezes. A game of lexulous in the multitasking background (while waiting for a render, say) requires a reboot. All very unbearable. But then it gets worse. The audio renders start to take even longer. Any little thing you do (like add a track or even a transition) requires a rerender.

I was new enough to FCP to think this was just how it is or my computer’s not up to it or something. But then I started capturing in FCP and it all worked perfectly. Sure I have to render video I get from other sources (some free b-roll, some Snapz capture), but that’s a minuscule task compared with even a simple 3 minute project with iMovie files.

So really, if there’s not a better (or, ideally, a perfect) format that I could convert these files into, I think I better just recapture.

I don’t need any of that precision stuff — time stamp and all. Just need to make a little video without it driving me nuts!

Thanks, RC

[Tom Wolsky]

If ever in the life of this project you think timecode might be useful you should recapture using FCP to QuickTime in the correct settings and not to DV Stream.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Zane Barker]

[Michael Sacci] “If your footage was DV and you captured DV in iMovie, just bring the clips straight into FCP. You have what you need. “

If I remember correctly iMovie captures audio differently so you will have to render the audio.

And like the others say if you need time code then you will need to recapture.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Joey Burnham]

Well if you don’t need TC you could just throw all the files that iMovie made into compressor and batch encode them to whatever codec you need. Those new files shouldn’t give you any grief in FCP.
Joey