Problems with iMovie

[alhuang1]

I'm new at video editing. Tried creating a home movie using imovie. Was able to download clips and started placing them in the timeline and created a simple movie which was created by imovie into a ".mov" file. I can watch the .mov file on my pbook without problems so i tried sending it to my friends but they couldn't open it on their pc's even after downloading quicktime. an error message saying that there was some kind of title missing. can anyone help? thanks

[opd]

did you reach the point of "sharing" or exporting your iMovie into a separate .mov file?

If not, perhaps you sent a *.mov "pointer" file, the one inside your project folder of a smaller size but it does not contain your whole movie? if you sent it via email to your friends, it was only a small file size? if so, then because you sent a .mov file that only "points to" your whole movie (but doesn't contain it), my five centavo theory is that is why the error message said your movie file was missing.

does this make sense to you?

[alhuang1]

yes it was a small file now that you mentioned it. still not sure what i do next to complete my project then

[opd]

two choices:

1. using quicktime (pro version may be required): open your small .mov file and you can play your movie. Go to File>Save As>Make movie self-contained /Estimated File Size xxxMB. The first choice is "save normally (allowing dependencies)" but you don't want that; this was your problem in the first place!

2. from imovie: open up your edited movie project. Go to File>Export or Share>choose format you need .mov for (emailing? cdrom movie? etc)

[opd]

forgot pala for choice #1 above: within quicktime, you can also choose File>Export>various choices like "movie to .avi" or "movie to quicktime movie" or "movie to Toast Video CD" (if you have Toast)

[alhuang1]

opd, thanks for the lesson! i was able to do a share to quicktime and was able create a quicktime movie that is now a fairly large file and the actual video. I also tried to share to idvd but not sure how to use the whole software and still have to figure it out. I suppose that's my next project. Question on the idvd. when you save the project, would you know if it saves in region 1 or do you have a choice? I have already seen another thread talking about flashing the dvd superdrive to be able to convert to rpc 1, something where you have the choice of regions indefinitely, but the question is, when you create a dvd, do you also have a choice?

[marvinp]

iDVD creates region-free DVDs.

[opd]

congratulations, alhuang1 --- your first iMovie output! you're most welcome. the other options may take longer to compress to smaller files, but it's just a click (and tick tocks) away.

[alhuang1]

thanks to marvinp for the info