Exporting to the Camera

There are two main advantages to exporting your footage back to your camcorder's DV tape. The camera stores the footage in digital format, so you'll have a copy saved off your computer that retains the same level of quality as what you edited. This is handy in case you need to make a backup of your work so far, or for when you want to hook your camcorder up to a television to show the movie. You can also export your completed movie which up until now existed as a collection of edited clips then re-import it into iMovie as one long unbroken clip (depending on length; see Chapter 7) to reclaim some disk space or merge the movie with new footage.

To export to the camera:

1. Switch your camcorder to Play/VCR/VTR mode.

2. Choose Export from iMovie's File menu, or press Command-Shift-E. iMovie displays the iMovie: Export dialog box, with To Camera selected in the Export popup menu (Figure 14.1).

   Figure 14.1. The iMovie: Export dialog box includes controls for setting up the camcorder and adding black frames.

   

3. Enter a number in the field marked Wait [number] seconds for camera to get ready. Your camcorder needs to spin up and get into position before recording, so iMovie will wait for this length of time. If your movies on tape are getting cut off at the beginning, increase this number.

   If you want some black frames before or after your movie, enter numbers in the two remaining fields. This gives you some extra time on the tape and tends to look more professional than just launching into the movie from the beginning.

4. Click the Export button to begin exporting (Figure 14.2). When it's finished, iMovie automatically stops the camera.

   Figure 14.2. Exporting to camera requires the same amount of time as your movie's length.

   

Tape Backup

Exporting your footage to tape serves another important function: providing a backup of your work. Even a modest iMovie project will swamp most backup capacities (such as DAT tape systems) due to the sheer number of gigabytes needing to be backed up. Instead, export your movie to DV tape. In the event that you suffer a hard disk crash (trust me, it's not a fun experience), you won't have your iMovie project, but you'll be able to re-import the edited footage and not lose all of your work.