How can I speed up iMovie?
Solution 1:
I think I've fixed my problem. I had 1000+ movies in iPhoto, and since iMovie just treats them as 1 huge "event" it was trying to open an event with 1000+ movies in it. My HD only had ~10GB empty. I exported them all out of iPhoto, moved them to an external HD, separated them out into individual folders and imported each folder 1 by 1 as a separate event, keeping the files stored on my external HD. I've now got my 3 years of video files all imported and have created 3 different projects which I've taken to completion and posted to Youtube. iMovie is lithe and snappy once again!
So, tips for speeding up iMovie:
- Free up HD space so you have >10~15% free
- Make sure your events don't have too many video files in them (anything over 50 is getting close to the upper limit it seems)
- Consider an external HD, preferably SSD (You can use multiple drives to hold your "events". You're not just limited to your primary HD)