Working with Video

If you're new to working with digital video on your Mac, all you really need to keep in mind is that you're using your camera and your computer like they were a TV and a VCR.

In essence, iMovie becomes your computer VCR, but instead of recording a program from the television, iMovie records video from your camcorder, and that's what capturing video is all about.

Understanding Cueing: Play, Stop, Fast Forward, Rewind

When working with video on your Mac, you use familiar controls to capture and access your video, such as play, stop, fast forward, and rewind.

When you want to capture video, one of the things that you need to do is find a spot in your video where you want to start capturing, and that's where cueing comes into play. Depending on where you left off in the tape, when you use your camcorder to record your video, you might need to play, rewind, and so on to position and review your footage.

This positioning can be done with the camera itself, by looking at its miniature screen. But one of the most enjoyable things about working with digital video through FireWire is that you can control your camera using buttons in the iMovie screen. So, when you connect your camera, you don't necessarily have to use the buttons on the camera itself. When connected through FireWire, iMovie can actually control the camera, so you can use the Play/Fast Forward/Rewind buttons (see Figure 14.6) right in iMovie to go through your tape.

Figure 14.6. The play controls in iMovie.

Task: Finding a Spot on Your Videotape Using iMovie

Assuming that you performed the task "Connecting Your Camcorder" earlier, follow these steps:

1. Click the Rewind button to rewind the tape (see Figure 14.7).

   Figure 14.7. The Rewind button.

   

2. Click the Play button (see Figure 14.8) to begin playing your video.

   Figure 14.8. The Play button.

   

   

   You might need to adjust the sound on your computer.

   
   

3. While the video is playing, try clicking the Fast Forward button (see Figure 14.9) to fast forward through the video while you're watching it. Click again to stop the tape.

   Figure 14.9. The Fast Forward button.

   

4. If your video is still playing, click the Stop button (see Figure 14.10), and then click either the Fast Forward or Rewind button. This method of moving through a tape is faster, but you can't see the video moving by.

   Figure 14.10. The Stop button.

   

5. Using the play controls, find a spot in your videotape that you want to start capturing at.

There's no official term for fast-forwarding or rewinding from a complete stop. But if you're new to video, you could think of it as step starting , where the tape isn't moving and you have to take a step in a particular direction (backward or forward) to get things going. Step starting is the fastest way to get to a certain point on your tape. In contrast, watching footage going by when you're fast-forwarding or rewinding could be thought of as play previewing . In other words, you press the Play button, and then press Fast Forward or Rewind. The disadvantage is that things go slower, but you can see exactly what's going on.

It can sometimes be helpful to start just a little before where you want to start capturing video so that you can make a fine adjustment to the starting point of your video clip in iMovie. For example, if you have footage of a short clip and you want to capture the entire thing, you can start a little bit before the action in your short scene begins. Perhaps the footage includes someone jumping off a diving boardyou could position the tape a second or two before the jump so that when you capture the video, you can fine-tune exactly when the clip starts so that you don't miss anything.