dvd content to imovie help

[janetv]

i have converted home movies from vhs to dvd and would like to edit with imovie & idvd. mac tech recommended that i download popcorn. i have tried saving as a disc image from popcorn but imovie will not recognize the saved file.

can anyone give me directions on how to import my dvd movie to imovie??

 

[tsantee]

Unfortunately Popcorn places a text track on its MPEG 4 conversions that prevent it from being read by the iMovie in iLife 09 or 09 without doing an additional step with QuickTime Pro. The extra step is easy although you'll have to purchase a QuickTime Pro registration key from Apple if you don't already have it.

 

Open the Popcorn converted video in QuickTime Pro. Choose Show Movie Properties from the Window menu. Scroll so you see the Text track. Select it and click Delete. Now choose Save As in the File menu and save it as a Reference Movie. The reference movie file can now be opened in iMovie.

 

While in QuickTime Pro you also can trim out any segments of the video you know you don't want to import to iMovie.

 

You refer to making a disc image in Popcorn. That isn't the way to convert video from a DVD to MPEG 4. Make sure you're in the Player section at the lower part of the Popcorn window and choose DVD Disc to select the video on your DVD. Now when you click the red button you can choose MPEG-4 as the conversion option.

[jmod1978]

Unfortunately Popcorn places a text track on its MPEG 4 conversions that prevent it from being read by the iMovie in iLife 09 or 09 without doing an additional step with QuickTime Pro. The extra step is easy although you'll have to purchase a QuickTime Pro registration key from Apple if you don't already have it.

 

Open the Popcorn converted video in QuickTime Pro. Choose Show Movie Properties from the Window menu. Scroll so you see the Text track. Select it and click Delete. Now choose Save As in the File menu and save it as a Reference Movie. The reference movie file can now be opened in iMovie.

 

While in QuickTime Pro you also can trim out any segments of the video you know you don't want to import to iMovie.

 

You refer to making a disc image in Popcorn. That isn't the way to convert video from a DVD to MPEG 4. Make sure you're in the Player section at the lower part of the Popcorn window and choose DVD Disc to select the video on your DVD. Now when you click the red button you can choose MPEG-4 as the conversion option.

 

Can you use Quick Time 7 or only Quick Time Pro for an extra $30?

In other words, you're saying, Popcorn actually isn't Mac compatible, so my Mac store should never have sold it to me?

 

[tsantee]

Can you use Quick Time 7 or only Quick Time Pro for an extra $30?

In other words, you're saying, Popcorn actually isn't Mac compatible, so my Mac store should never have sold it to me?

Popcorn 3 was created when iMovie was different than it is today. The version known as iMovie HD can import the MPEG-4 video from Popcorn but the iMovie that's part of iLife 08 or 09 doesn't accept the files that have the text track. It would be nice if Roxio fixed this issue in a Popcorn update, but I don't know if that is in their plans.

 

There may be other ways to remove the text track other than QuickTime Pro but I haven't tried them. One you might try is the freeware application MPEG Streamclip. You could open the Popcorn-created MPEG-4 video in MPEG Streamclip and then choose Export to save it as a new MPEG 4 file. It's possible that MPEG Streamclip will save without the text track. It also can convert to DV which iMovie can open and that doesn't have a text track.

 

MPEG Streamclip will tell you to get Apple's QuickTime MPEG 2 Playback Component ($20) but you don't need that when using it with MPEG 4 video files.