Mixing Video Formats


One of iMovie HD's signature features is its capability to handle different video formats, but what's especially cool is that you can mix and match different formats within the same project. However, keep a few things in mind.

Importing from the camcorder:

  • In an HDV project, you can't import footage from a DV camera (and vice-versa). The Camera Mode popup menu reads "[Camera] Incompatible With Project".

  • If you import DV Widescreen footage into a DV project, the clips are letterboxed (black bars above and below the image, Figure 7.15).

    Figure 7.15. This widescreen footage was imported into a standard DV project and letterboxed.

  • Similarly, in a DV Widescreen project, standard DV clips are pillarboxed (black bars to the left and right of the image, Figure 7.16).

    Figure 7.16. This standard DV footage was pillarboxed after being imported into a DV Widescreen project.

  • You can import iSight footage into a project of any format.

Importing individual clips:

  • When importing clips by dragging them in from the Finder or using the Import dialog, iMovie converts them to the project's format (for example, an HDV 1080i clip brought into a DV project is sampled down to 720 x 480 pixels and letterboxed).

Tip

  • To prevent iMovie from adding black bars to your footage, open the program's preferences, click the Import icon, and turn off Automatic DV Pillarboxing & Letterboxing (Figure 7.17).

    Figure 7.17. Turning off Automatic DV Pillarboxing & Letterboxing let me import widescreen footage into a standard-definition project without conversion.





iMovie HD 6 & iDVD 6 for Mac OS X (Visual QuickStart Guide Series)
iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6 for Mac OS X
ISBN: 0321423275
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 197
Authors: Jeff Carlson

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