# iMovie '11 question...



## BigmountainVMD (Oct 9, 2011)

So I have been editing a short video on iMovie for a "skit night" at my grad school. I've been using my GoPro to get some wide angle shots, as well as some 60 and 120 fps shots on 720p. 

I have the intro of the video linked up to some music, and have been using the high fps shots with some clip splitting to match up peoples movements to the music, by both speeding up and slowing down individual clips.

I've been having two problems:

1. Only in some clips, when I alter the speed in either direction, iMovie playback is super glitchy and stuttering. Almost like my 60 or 120 fps clip was reduced to 2 fps. I'm not slowing these down by much. Maximum 30% but usually around 50%. It is also happening on some sped up clips, which makes NO sense at all. It's like the computer can't handle the editing, but many of the clips work fine, not to mention it's a top tier Macbook Pro with a 2.3 GHz intel i7, 512 GB SSD, and 8 GB DDR3 RAM... so no issues in the hardware dept on my 3 minute long video. When I scroll over the clip with the mouse, it shows the whole clip fine, but if I actually hit the preview button to view the whole video or a section in the window or fullscreen with the music, some random parts (always the same parts) are glitchy.

2. When I finalize the video, the music track is not present, and the audio from the GoPro is played (even though I have it on 0 in the timeline). When I preview the video or certain clips, the music I want is there.


Any advice would be greatly appreciated!


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## BigmountainVMD (Oct 9, 2011)

No iMovie gurus on here?


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## TheNorminator (Jan 6, 2013)

BigmountainVMD said:


> 2. When I finalize the video, the music track is not present, and the audio from the GoPro is played (even though I have it on 0 in the timeline). When I preview the video or certain clips, the music I want is there.
> 
> 
> Any advice would be greatly appreciated!


\

When you finalize the video, do you mean export? If yes, then I can't help you. If no, then try exporting the file through quicktime. Do you have the right codec (h.264)?

IMovie playback is glitchy for everyone (I think) because it stutters on my friend's computer (2009 MBP 2.66ghz Core 2 duo) and mine (2003 Macbook) to the same extent. The more info you add to the movie, the more stutter you get because Imovie is making all those adjustments on the fly. After you export, all the edits are part of the movie itself, and not individually rendered.

And about the audio, I have no idea, sorry.

EDIT: Try this link. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2289 I know it's from 2008, but Imovie hasn't changed too drastically.


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## edlo (Jan 24, 2011)

BigmountainVMD said:


> No iMovie gurus on here?


Audio - right click on the clip select detach audio right click on the purple part which is the audio track and delete selected. 

I use an 3 year old Mac book air with a fraction of the processing and memory to make the last couple of videos I posted here. The long part is the exporting it to a file , which took 10 minutes for 2 minutes. 

As far as the choppiness are you doing anything in the background like listening to music or downloading? 

My process goes like this but there should be an easier way: iPhone to iPhoto then exports from iPhoto to a file ,import that file into iMovie , edit , share export


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## BigmountainVMD (Oct 9, 2011)

TheNorminator said:


> \
> 
> When you finalize the video, do you mean export? If yes, then I can't help you. If no, then try exporting the file through quicktime. Do you have the right codec (h.264)?
> 
> IMovie playback is glitchy for everyone (I think) because it stutters on my friend's computer (2009 MBP 2.66ghz Core 2 duo) and mine (2003 Macbook) to the same extent. The more info you add to the movie, the more stutter you get because Imovie is making all those adjustments on the fly. After you export, all the edits are part of the movie itself, and not individually rendered.


I think I mean export... It is compiling the movie and all the edits/music into a .mp4 to watch on quicktime.

As for the stutter, I can't imagine it is supposed to behave like this, as I can't even preview the video to make sure the music and clip is aligned correctly. It defeats the entire purpose of having a movie editor if you can't preview the clip to make sure you edited it correctly... might have to call apple on this one.



edlo said:


> Audio - right click on the clip select detach audio right click on the purple part which is the audio track and delete selected.
> 
> I use an 3 year old Mac book air with a fraction of the processing and memory to make the last couple of videos I posted here. The long part is the exporting it to a file , which took 10 minutes for 2 minutes.
> 
> As far as the choppiness are you doing anything in the background like listening to music or downloading?


So I have to delete the audio that is connected to the gopro clip to get the music to play when exporting? OK then, I do know how to do that.

I've tried closing down all programs, plugging in the computer, updating iMovie and even installing Mountain Lion, which I had no reason to do... nothing has worked for the stutter!


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## TheNorminator (Jan 6, 2013)

BigmountainVMD said:


> I think I mean export... It is compiling the movie and all the edits/music into a .mp4 to watch on quicktime.
> 
> As for the stutter, I can't imagine it is supposed to behave like this, as I can't even preview the video to make sure the music and clip is aligned correctly. It defeats the entire purpose of having a movie editor if you can't preview the clip to make sure you edited it correctly... might have to call apple on this one.
> 
> I've tried closing down all programs, plugging in the computer, updating iMovie and even installing Mountain Lion, which I had no reason to do... nothing has worked for the stutter!


Damn. That's really annoying. Looks like you've tried EVERYTHING. 

I wasn't clear on exporting on my last post. If you're not sure how to export or whether you have, go to Share-->Export Using Quicktime. 

Do you have any friends with a mac? Maybe you could try it out on their computer. Definitely call apple, their tech support usually helps...


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## edlo (Jan 24, 2011)

BigmountainVMD said:


> I think I mean export... It is compiling the movie and all the edits/music into a .mp4 to watch on quicktime.
> 
> As for the stutter, I can't imagine it is supposed to behave like this, as I can't even preview the video to make sure the music and clip is aligned correctly. It defeats the entire purpose of having a movie editor if you can't preview the clip to make sure you edited it correctly... might have to call apple on this one.
> 
> ...


You shouldn't have to delete it, I thought you didn't want the go pro audio which you turned down to zero. Why it works for you in preview but not afterwards is beyond me. My preview works with sound but mine are simple iPhone videos. How large is the go pro video that you are importing and what file format is it in?


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## BigmountainVMD (Oct 9, 2011)

edlo said:


> You shouldn't have to delete it, I thought you didn't want the go pro audio which you turned down to zero. Why it works for you in preview but not afterwards is beyond me. My preview works with sound but mine are simple iPhone videos. How large is the go pro video that you are importing and what file format is it in?


The gopro audio works fine, it's the mp3 music that I have in the background that doesn't work when I export the file. So the audio attached to the clip is all good, it's the added music track that doesn't play when the video is finalized and turned into an MP4.


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## edlo (Jan 24, 2011)

BigmountainVMD said:


> The gopro audio works fine, it's the mp3 music that I have in the background that doesn't work when I export the file. So the audio attached to the clip is all good, it's the added music track that doesn't play when the video is finalized and turned into an MP4.


So you turned down the gopro audio track volume, turned up the background MP3 volume. Did you try to click normalize volume on the background mp3 track? I did a quick test and added an mp3 to my video. Exported it once with normalized and once without. The MP3 background was louder when it was normalized. Hope it works for you.


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