New to HD assistance needed

I have been posting SD video on Pond5 for some time now and have decided to give HD a shot.

I have a MacBook pro, FCP5 iMovie8 and Quicktime Pro. I have been able to get the AVCHD video off my Canon camera, then trim it in iMovie8. Now I get lost. What would be the best settings to use when exporting to Quicktime from iMovie, or is that even the way to go? Also thought about getting FCE 4 and eliminate the iMovie8 part since FCP5 cannot handle AVCHD footage, but not too sure at this point.

So far I haven't figured out how to eliminate the audio track in iMovie8 so I just have to reduce the volume to 0

I tried using Photo JPEG as the codec Best quality setting but a 30 second clip was over 1gb in size.

Big difference in video clarity and sharpness with HD, just having issues processing it.

Thanks in advance for any assistance or suggestions.

not sure how much you know, so after importing

highlight the portion you'd like to make a movie, (yellow box forms around it), click button that has a star and arrow on a page. You should see the selection you made appear in the top middle section. Everything in this area will be exported, so remove any extra clips you might have up there. (under edit, then delete selection, do not delete entire clip or you will lose it all) . Now you can remove the sound, change colours, etc. by clicking on the little icons in the top left corner of your clip, if you can't see them, just scroll over and click.

To save, go share( at the top) -export using quicktime-enter your file name-then near the bottom of that box, there is an option button, click it and set your output settings, file size, motion jpeg A, file dimensions frame rate, etc.

hope this helps pm me if you're still having troubles

Kim

Thanks for the quick response.

The audio icon will only allow the volume to be set to zero. Is there a way to delete the audio track?

I don't seem to have Motion JPEG A codec so I guess I will have to see if I can download it somewhere. Seems I was on the right track just missed some of the finer points.

Thanks Again.

I haven't found a way to delete the whole track, I just set both boxes to 0. It does reduce the file size, so it helps

weird that you don't have motion jpeg, thought it was standard, have you looked under the compression pull down?

You have been a great help. Found the codec. Had to go to the Quicktime settings panel and enable "Show Legacy Encoders".

Thanks

glad I could help.

Kim

I Premier Pro CS3 unlink the audio from the video. Select the audio track and hit delete ... it's gone completely. Then when ya'll export to M JPEG uncheck the save audio. Nothing else needed, there is not audio track at all then.

Don

Don, I don't think he has premier, think he just has iMovie, which I've never been able to find a way to complete remove audio

lgunderson,
How about when you import video to your Macbook is there anything in the setup that will allow you import video only?

If you want to delete the audio track in premiere I think you have to unlink the audio and video first, then you can get rid of it. If I don't want audio I will usually just uncheck the audio in the export options.