iMovie Tutorial: Import Window Detail

Video Transcript

"iMovie is a registered trademark of Apple. I am in way affiliated with Apple. In this clip, we're going to be looking at this import window a little bit more closely, and then we'll actually import some footage. First thing to notice is when you see this blue screen; the word stopped, you can also see up here in the top of the import window it says Import from DV VCR DR, and down here in the lower left where it says Camera it shows DV VCR. These are all really good indications that your camera is hooked up to your computer properly and iMovie is recognizing it. Also, you notice this switch over here to the left where it says Automatic and Manual. IMovie defaults to the automatic setting. What this means is that when you hit import over here to your right, iMovie will automatically rewind the tape that's in your camera to the beginning, import all of the footage on that tape, and then rewind the tape again when it's finished. This can be nice if you have a lot of tapes you need to digitize quickly, but I usually prefer to use the manual setting. Many times, you won't want to record all of the footage on a tape and you'll want to be able to scan through it and choose just the footage you want to import into a project, and that's what the manual setting will do for you. You see here, these VCR style controls will pop up, Rewind, Fast Forward, Play. It allows you to scan through the tape. Also, you have this little timer here. When you start importing, this timer will tick off the minutes and seconds of the actual imported footage. It's not the time code of the tape, that; you can see up here and to the top right. We're at twelve minutes and fifty seven seconds into this tape. Now, I've already queued the tape up to where I want to start importing from, so I'm just going to go right down here and hit Import. Now, before the import process begins this window will open. It allows you to set the hard disk where you want the imported footage to be stored, and it allows you to create an event or add to an existing event. Since this is our first iMovie project we don't have any events, so we're going to create a new event. Now, it usually defaults to the date, but I'm going to change this and just call it Weddings, fix that typo. You can leave this selected. Now you can either hit OK to begin the import process, or Return on your keyboard. Let's hit OK. See, it starts importing, it says import; the tape begins. You'll see the time code of the tape clicking off, and you'll see the Record button lit at the bottom and the time will start clicking. One thing you'll notice is that you won't be able to monitor the audio of the tape through your computer. You can only monitor the audio during the import process through your camera, so if this is something that you want to do make sure the volume on your camera is up. Okay, this is going to go for a little while. Okay, we're just about at the point in the tape where we want to stop the import process. To do that, you simply go to the lower right where it says Stop, hit Stop. This window will open up, telling you that it's generating thumbnails. Now, that could take some time, especially if you've digitized an entire tape. Since we've only digitized a few minutes here it was very quick. Okay, we want to hit Done to close our import window. You can see your thumbnails down here at the bottom. This is your source video now, and you can scroll through it by putting your cursor inside it and moving back and forth."