iMovie using too much memory with dialogue

[imuneekru]

Anyone know a good way to keep iMovie from using up too much RAM? Short of getting more ram. I've made plenty of AMVs with it, even editing in HD, but now I'm trying to insert dialogue and sound effects and am finding my poor little video editor is maxing out its capacity to play video without stuttering and freezing.

I'm not terribly concerned about the soundtrack, as this is the "scratch track". Basically, I just want to roughly line up the video to match the length of my dialogue lines. Then I'm going to do a real soundtrack in Sound Studio and drop it back into iMovie to sync everything up. For the meantime, though, does anyone know any way to make iMovie work with a million little sound files scattered across the timeline?

[DJ_Izumi]

Exactly how many files are you playing back at once here? I mean, are you using a LOT? If so, this isn't so much a ram issue but a hard drive issue. A hard drive has plenty of bandwidth for reading data, but if you have a LOT of sound files, (I mean 20+ CD quality tracks playing back at once) it has to read those files from seperate locations on the hard drive, so if you have say 20 audio tracks, your hard drive has to read from 20 locations at once for playback which is likely what's stressing it out.

But I'm not entirely sure if you're using that many sound tracks or if you're just overemphasising...

[imuneekru]

I'll have, like, a line of dialogue, one track of background music or ambient noise, and occaisionally a sound effect such as a buzz or click overlapping with the dialogue. When I say multiple files, I mean, each line is a separate file so I can move them around on the timeline, as opposed to having the entire script fused together as one continuous file.

[Shazzy]

Are you using MP3s? If so, try lowering the bitrate on your files. 128 is too high. If that doesn't work, convert your file to AIFF (even Final Cut Pro gets crackle noises with some MP3s for no apparent reason).

If you have Quicktime Pro, just open your MP3 in QT and Export it to AIFF. If not, use iTunes:

1. Open iTunes.
2. From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
3. Click the Importing icon.
4. From the Import Using pop-up menu, choose AIFF Encoder instead of MP3 or AAC encoders.
5. From the Setting menu, choose Custom.
6. From the Sample Rate pop-up menu, choose 48.000 kHz. This is the standard sample rate for DV in iMovie.
7. From the Sample Size pop-up menu, choose 16 bit.
8. From the Channels pop-up menu choose Stereo (or Mono if your files are monaural).
9. Click OK.
10. Click OK again.
11. Select the song in your iTunes library. Choose Convert Selection to AIFF from the Advanced menu. The new AIFF file will appear in your library.

[Shazzy]

Also, download the combo Mac updater here: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ ... boppc.html

Reinstalling 10.4.7 using the combo (instead of Software Update) solves all sorts of problems.