Mac problems

[Scott]

I am borrowing a Mac Powerbook G4 with OS X so that I can use iMovie to create some home videos. I like iMovie quite a bit, but I am a bit disappointed in the Mac quality. In only a few days of use, the iMovie program has frozen on me at least twice and I had to "force quit." I thought Macs were not supposed to have these kinds of problems, especially with their own software. Anyone have similar problems?

 

[Casey]

I've never used iMovie, so I can't help you with that. I have a PowerBook G4, too, and it doesn't freeze like what you're describing. Perhaps the problem is a lack of memory, and iMovie freezes/crashes because what you're doing is too memory-intensive for how much memory you have? I have had iPhoto crash and work slow because of having far too many images kept in it. Now I save them outside of iPhoto and just use it for importing. Click the Apple in the upper left corner, then "About This Mac," to see how much memory you have.

 

[Scott]

It only has 512MB.

 

[Casey]

It only has 512MB.

That's not very much, especially for working with movies (I have the same amount, but don't work with movies!). I have a feeling that that might be your problem. When you load iMovie and start working, and things start slowing down, load the Activity Monitor (in Applications/Utilities). At the bottom, click the "System Memory" tab. If it's all red (wired) and yellow (active), with little/no green (free) and blue (inactive), then it's probably a matter of memory.

When your computer runs out of RAM (the 512MBs, which is very fast), it'll start using the hard drive (ROM, which is very slow). When it uses the hard drive, it's called "virtual memory" (VM) . . because it's getting extra memory to make up for your lack of RAM from the hard drive . . it's "virtual."

If a program is using a lot of VM, it may give the illusion of freezing (while really running slow), or may even actually freeze . . often your hard drive will be going crazy during this time, as it moves data back and forth from your real memory (RAM) to your hard drive.

There are two fixes:

1. Buy more memory

2. Try to work with smaller movies, or smaller files -- only combining them all in the end to make the final movie (which may take a while)

Hope this helps!

 

[tdowns]

I use Imovie.....

all the time, for my own fun videos, and at school for my students, animation, and live action projects....it's an awesome and fun tool....but you def. need the memory....

That used to happen to me all the time, now the school gives me huge memory, and I also, have an external hard drive, so I can save all but the current project, on that.....but some tricks I've learned.....

Don't use any special affects, don't put any titles, don't add music......do your cutting, empty trash, and save and restart on occasion....and then, once the footage is where you want it...save it as a high quality quick time, it will not lose any quality, then you can dump the imovie file, (which will now be using a lot of memory, because of all the cuts) and restart a new file....bring in the Quicktime file that you made, this way, you'll have same footage, with less than 2/3 the memory used, and now, you can add music....but still, unless you have the big memory, and can save and delete all other movies that are on there, you have to keep it simple. Cuts, SFX, AND MUSIC ALL ADD TO THE FILE.

 

[jfschultz]

It only has 512MB.

I have not had any problems with a MacBook, but then I have 1 Gig of ram. So I second the suggestion to add memory.

Also how is the free space on the hard drive. The iMovie file can be huge! On one project with about an hour of video it was over 19 Gig. I can understand the Mac crashing if it ran out of space for the memory management.

 

[Scott]

The hard drive is fine, with 30 GB of space free. It is probably a memory issue.

 

[Scott]

I have been using iMovie and have not had any more problems like that. It is a good program that is easy to use. I am convertiing a bunch of digital video tapes to DVD. It is a slow process and takes a lot of hard disk space, but worth it.