Question Relating to the Mac-made AMV

Sablia · Post by **Sablia** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:58 pm

OK, so I'm not really new but I've never posted before. I've made one AMV and want to make more, but I'd like some help polishing my first one, if I may be so bold. I have a question relating to the size (physical) of clips, before they've been ripped.

Now, I have a Mac computer, by the way. I've been working from THIS tutorial, which I was lucky enough to find on google, and when I tried to e-mail the maker, I got no response. So I joined, and attempted to PM the author. WHen I got no response I sort of forgot about my AMV. But recently I remembered, and decided-- what better place to ask than the forums?

OK, so here's my problem. When I ripped the footage from my video and eventually got it imported into iMovie, it still appeared as a widescreen clip. Did I miss a step in the walkthrough I've been using? Was it in the first stage (page 1 of the tutorial), perhaps in the OSex or DiVA part of the process?

Ok. My second question is-- in iMovie, I constructed my clips to form a movie, and got it uploaded to YouTube. However... by the end of the clips... there's still like an extra minute and fifteen seconds of black screen and silence. I have absolutely no idea why this is, unless I missed another step in the tutorial.

And finally, at the beginning of my video, the opening clip has a spray of random green and colors over it. I'd like to fix that too, if possible. However, my primary concern is the first 2 questions.

Thanks! ~Icy

Shazzy · Post by **Shazzy** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:41 am

Try ripping your DVDs again and then converting the VOBs to DV using MPEG Streamclip. Re-import into iMovie.

Sablia · Post by **Sablia** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:14 pm

iMovie won't accept the imports if they're in DV format, although I believe they were correctly cropped this time. I just need to actually get them /into/ iMovie now.

Minion · Post by **Minion** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:51 pm

doesn't imovie only accept DV footage?

Sablia · Post by **Sablia** » Wed May 02, 2007 5:49 pm

No, they have to be .mov because it'll accept those, but an error message pops up when I try to import the .dv file. Is there a DV->MOV mac-compatible free download, maybe?

obh04 · Post by **obh04** » Thu May 03, 2007 11:23 pm

What Shazzy was saying, turn your ripped footage in to DV in the MOV container. Also, check out Shazzy's guide. That iMovie guide you were looking at is outdated, there is nothing wrong but this one could help you much more.

Also, why are you trying to crop your footage? I am just wondering why.

Shazzy · Post by **Shazzy** » Mon May 07, 2007 1:26 pm

One of these days I'll make an iMovie-specific guide...if I can bear to open that program when FCP is sitting right next to it...

Sablia · Post by **Sablia** » Mon May 07, 2007 10:26 pm

But I can't import DV footage... so why would I want to turn it into DV format? I tried it on one, and it refused to import. It apparently wants a MOV format.

I was trying to crop it because when I rip it, it comes with the annoying black widescreen bars. I still can't fix that.

Shazzy · Post by **Shazzy** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:31 pm

Okay, this should make everything clear. You want to export DV in a MOV container.

Open up your VOB from the DVD in MPEG Streamclip, like so:

Select File > Export to Quicktime or hit CMD+E.

In the dialog that comes up, select Apple DV/DVCPRO - NTSC as your codec. Also select the correct aspect ratio for square pixels. This particular clip is 4:3. If yours is widescreen, try 16:9. I'm also choosing to deinterlace my video directly in the program.

There's more info about MPEG Streamclip's options in one of the tutorials on my site.