iMovie is basically unusable for me at this point. I've got over 1000 video clips (most of them around 6 seconds since they were taken in Vine) and any time I try and switch events or projects it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes (I've timed it).
I'm frustrated enough at this point to drop the $300 on Final Cut Pro X if that's what it takes to actually be able to do anything with my video files. Anyone know if this will actually address the issue? Is Final Cut Pro X going to be able to handle this amount of video files better than iMovie? I really don't want to spend the money and then have the same problems…
I have a Mac Mini purchased in 2011. 8G RAM. 750GM 7,200RPM HD.
Best Answer
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: