Section B.8. Exporting Troubles

B.8. Exporting Troubles

Now suppose that you're able to edit the video successfully, and even edit it into a masterful work of art. The big moment arrives: You're ready to play the movie back onto the tape, or export it as a QuickTime movie, so that you can then play it for friends and venture capitalists. Here are a few things that can go wrong.

B.8.1. You Live in Europe

If you bought your DV camcorder in Europe, it has probably been, as the Internet punsters say, " nEUtered." That is, it's been electronically rigged so that it can't record video from a FireWire cable.

Your PAL-format camcorder isn't broken. In fact, it's simply the victim of a European law, enacted under pressure from the motion picture industry, that any camcorder that can accept a video input signal is, technically speaking, a video recorder , not a camera. Video recorders are subject to a huge additional tax. Camcorder manufacturers, in an attempt to keep their consumer product line inexpensive, responded by taking out the digital-input feature from the built-in software of inexpensive DV and Digital8 camcorders. (More expensive DV camcorders don't have this problem.)

If you're clever with electronics, you can surf the Web in a quest for black market Web sites that explain how to un -disable FireWire recordinga simple procedure involving a technician's remote-control unit. Video repair shops in many European cities will perform this task for a small fee, too (but don't expect to see ads for this service). Otherwise, you have no choice but to limit your iMovie productions to QuickTime movies (instead of videotape), or to upgrade to a more expensive camcorder.

B.8.2. Can't Export Selected Clips to Camera

In iMovie 6, you can no longer export only selected clips back to your camcorder (Chapter 11); the "Share selected clips only" checkbox is dimmed. You must export the entire movie.

Fortunately, there's a workaround. To export just a few clips, do this:

1. Turn on "Play DV project video through to DV camera."

   You'll find this option in iMovie Preferences General.

2. In iMovie, click (Play). Immediately press the Record button on the camera

   Stop recording when the last clip has been exported.