iMovie is giving me a message that my segment is too long to import. What should I do?
iMovie seems to have trouble importing longer MPEG-2 movies, even though you can play those movies just fine in QuickTime. This import limitation is not present in other Apple video programs such as Final Cut Express or Pro. To get your segment into iMovie, you have several choices. • Extract as several smaller chunks, then import those one by one into iMovie. With Cinematize 1, this is only possible if your original segment spanned multiple chapters. With Cinematize 2, however, this can be easily done even if the segment consists of only one long chapter, since it allows you to select any points within a chapter as start and end points. See Cinematize 2 FAQ as well as Cinematize 2 what’s new for more details. • Use QuickTime Pro to export the segment into a format iMovie likes better, such as one of the DV formats or “None”. • Chop the exported MPEG-2 video into smaller pieces using a shareware program such as JAW MPEG2Splitter. You will most likely lose some frames around the chop po
iMovie 3 and iMovie 4 seem to have trouble importing longer movies, even though you can play those movies just fine in QuickTime. This import limitation has been removed in iMovie HD (iLife 5), and it is not present in other Apple video programs such as Final Cut Express or Pro. Here are some ways to get a longer segment into iMovie 3 or iMovie 4: • Extract a single longer segment and save in DV Stream format. Drag the resulting DV file into your iMovie project Media folder and launch iMovie (see above). • Use Cinematize’s batch extract mode to automatically extract each chapter as a separate clip. Each of these can then be imported into iMovie. • Extract your segment in several smaller chunks, then import those one by one into iMovie.
