Having troubles editing Sony a9 4K XAVC-S video in iMovie? If so, you may wish to read this post. It displays a workaround to help you smoothly edit Sony a9 4K footage in iMovie.
Sony a9 4K XAVC-S footage choppy in iMovie
“Hi there, I have a Sony a9 camera recording 4K XAVC S footage. I can import from that to iMovie 10.0.8 running on an iMac mid 2010 with 10GB of memory and Yosemite 10.10.3. But when editing or playing under iMovie, video is choppy. I’m guessing my iMac is out of date and it is not fast enough for 4K. I would like to know what I need to do to be able to smoothly edit Sony a9 4K footage in iMovie. Any suggestions gratefully received. Many thanks.”
If you are running an ageing Mac machine, you will probably have jerky issues working with Sony a9 4K XAVC-S video in iMovie. That’s because your old machine is unable to process the 4K data quickly enough. In that case, we would recommend converting the footage to iMovie preferred Apple InterMediate Codec prior. Here’s how.
How to transcode Sony a9 4K XAVC-S files for iMovie editing?
Software requirement
HD Converter for Mac
Follow these steps:
Step 1: Open up HD Converter for Mac as a Sony a9 Converter for iMovie. When its main interface comes up, click ‘Add File’ to load your source media.
Step 2: Select output format for iMovie
To convert Sony a9 4K XAVC-S video files for iMovie, from ‘Profile’ list, choose ‘Apple InterMediate Codec (AIC)(*.mov)’ as output format under ‘iMovie and Final Cut Express’ column.
Important: If you’ve loaded a number of video clips to do batch conversion, please do remember ticking off ‘Apply to All’ option before you start.
Step 3: Custom video and audio settings (optional)
If necessary, you can click ‘Settings’ button and go to ‘Profiles Settings’ panel to modify video and audio settings like video encoder, resolution, video bit rate, frame rate, aspect ratio, audio encoder, sample rate, audio bit rate, and audio channels. 3D settings are also available.
Step 4: Begin Sony a9 4K XAVC-S video files to AIC MOV Conversion on Mac
When ready, click ‘Convert’ to start format conversion. Once the conversion process is complete, you can click ‘Open Folder’ button to get the generated AIC MOV files for editing in iMovie with optimum performance.
Tips:
If you don’t want to wait for the entire conversion process, you can tick off ‘Shut down computer when conversion completed’ and go away to do other things.
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