Organizing Movies The Mac Way

September 24, 2007 ·

I’m very meticulous on managing memories. I think it’s a very important thing to do. I guess my thought has always been “If you plan to live a life worth talking about then be sure the story can be told.”

Computers make organization much easier than it has been in the past. Right now on my computer I have 10 years and 2200 pages of journals, 9000 photos all carefully tagged with keywords and after this weekend I now have all home videos imported, organized and tagged. And of course I have everything backed up. Following is my experience with organizing movies with the new iMovie from Apple.

The new iMovie is radically different than the old iMovie. It still comes free with all new Macs and I like this one better. Before it was a tool focused mostly on the project. But the new iMovie does well the with project AND helps you organize all of your home video footage. It is almost like an iTunes for your home videos now. Watch any video any time. It’s quite fun.

Since we have a new HD camera coming this week, I thought it was time to have all of our current home videos imported so we could sell our current video camera. iMovie makes this incredibly easy. You just need to plug your camera in and hit the button for automatic import. This procedure rewinds the tape, imports everything on it, and then rewinds the tape again for you to eject and store somewhere safe. I especially like that iMovie makes each day a separate event. So, if you have a Christmas Eve dinner one night, and then record Christmas presents the next morning, iMovie already separates these as two different events. You can then name them and tag them with keywords so they are easy to find later. iMovie takes it even further by organizing them in chronological order by year.

Once you have all your clips imported, it is quite fun to work with them. iMovie makes it easy to highlight different parts of clips (much like highlighting text to copy and paste) and then you can drag it into a new project. Mix and match different clips. Add transitions, text, music, photos, etc. Then, when you get done it just takes one click to send it to iTunes for your iPod/iPhone/AppleTV or one click to send it to Youtube. And if you’re a .Mac member then you can send straight to your gallery. (See an example gallery here. They are nice.)

So if you’ve been waiting to preserve all your old home videos, Apple has made it quite easy. And don’t forget, tape based videos have a shelf life of 10 years before they start to degrade and turn dark. Get those memories from your childhood while you still can.

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Comments

8 Responses to “Organizing Movies The Mac Way”

Rachel on September 24th, 2007 6:27 pm

My problem is that all of my family videos are on those little CDs. How do I convert those?
Brian on September 25th, 2007 6:07 am

Rachel, Mini-DVDs are a little harder to work with because of two things. 1) The disc won’t load in your slot loading drive. Don’t stick it in there or it will be a heck of a job to get it out. 2) When a movie is written to a DVD it is already compressed so taking it off again is not great for the quality.

We may be able to get an external player or possibly play it from the camcorder, though I’m not sure if that will work. (But it will be fun to try.” Maybe a new mini-DV camera would be good from here on out so you can easily put the movies in iMovie. (You know, I just happen to have a high end one at a low, low price.)
Jayci on September 25th, 2007 9:08 am

Brian, I still have yet to back up my computer. I have CDs, but I really would like a system I can stick with. Also, I’m nervous that while I’m transporting the picture, it will jinx my luck and it’ll all be gone. I think you should hop the next flight out to the Sooner State and help me do this! \ i wish i could say i’m teasing. Mark is still bringing up macs all the time, I love the idea, but he’ll have to sacrifice his computer first (I’m still emotionally attached to mine!) haha Thanks for the link to your old post. I’m really going to have to get started on organizing everything!

PS – it looks like all the pictures I had have been pushed to the hard drive. I moved a newly made folder to the ‘soft drive?’ and it got deleted when my computer shut off due to lack of power. Goodness it sounds like I’m computer illiterate. I’ll keep you posted!
Brian on September 25th, 2007 9:58 am

Jayci, I’m not sure I know what a “soft drive” is so you know more than me.=)

I hope you’ll do it soon. Do you have an iPod? If so, at least throw your pictures on there in the mean time.
Jayci on September 25th, 2007 12:55 pm

done! I did it! I put all my pictures on CDs (I have to check them on mark’s comp. when he comes home, but I had to tell you I think I did it!).

Now what’s next is my music. Do you think I should use MUSIC cds rather than the cds I got for my pictures? the cds I got for my pictures are Maxell Photo CD-Rpro. I have about 14 left.

haha – I’m so hoping you saw the sarcasm in my “soft drive” comment! it was the only way i could think of how to explain it. I’ll keep updates coming.
Brian on September 25th, 2007 2:33 pm

Nice work.

Don’t worry, I caught the sarcasm.

I think you’d be fine using the same cd’s. No reason to spend more money if they work.
Rachel on September 25th, 2007 8:55 pm

Maybe I should check into the external thing. Will you email me the info/price of the one you are selling? I will check it out. Family videos are so important to me. Priceless.
Brian on September 26th, 2007 5:09 am

Rachel, I ended up selling my camera already but I can help you pick out a nice one if you’d want to get a new one.