Convert HDV (Mpeg-2) for imovie

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rrz_europe
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2022 7:45 am

Convert HDV (Mpeg-2) for imovie

Post by rrz_europe »

Hi,

I have 10h of old video which I want to edit with iMovie. The import did work fine using my old iMac with Firewire. The resulting Videos are MPEG-2 1440x1080

Then I moved the files over to my Mac Mini (i3), but when scrolling, the video is jerking, sometimes I get a spinning wheel ..

Export for 40min Video is in 20min done and the result is fine.

For checking if the codec is the problem I took a 8min file and exported it to mp4 and reimported it.
then I put the original and mp4 version in the same project - and the result is: mpeg2 = jerking, mp4 working fine, so it must be the codec

Now I thought about reencoding all files with handbrake, but my main question is:
- What is the best setting to use the files without too great loss in imovie?
Fast 1080p30 is OK or something else?
rollin_eng
Veteran User
Posts: 4840
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 11:06 pm

Re: Convert HDV (Mpeg-2) for imovie

Post by rollin_eng »

HQ or Super HQ presets will give you a pretty good quality encode.
mduell
Veteran User
Posts: 8187
Joined: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:54 pm

Re: Convert HDV (Mpeg-2) for imovie

Post by mduell »

For editing you really want to use the Production Standard preset. It's not just about quality, but ease of decode for editing/scrubbing.
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