Does iMovie properly handle 60fps(60p) video now? If you are currently having 60fps and iMovie import issue, you may find an answer to the question in this post.
Why shot in 60fps?
If you are trying to do a lot of slow motion, you may use a camera like Sony Handycam HDR-XR160 or Panasonic TM700 to shot in 60fps. That is the main reason you would want to shot at that frame rate. Plus, the HD 60fps option makes the video quality looks a lot better than 30fps, especially when you watch it in QuickTime or VLC you can totally tell the difference. That’s the other reason you would like to record at 60 frames per second.
Does iMovie 11 properly handle 60fps video now?
Copying 1080p60 camera footage to your computer is not a problem, but opening and editing in iMovie might be. The most recent version of iMovie’11 can import HD but for some reason it will not accept 1920X1080 at 60p. In other words, iMovie’11 doesn’t support 60p video well. In order to make iMovie recognize 60p video, you can convert the 1080/60p to Apple IntermediateCodec (AIC) yourself at 60p, and iMovie will let you edit a 24p or 30p project. Note that even if you shift your footage to AIC at 60p, iMovie will downgrade it to 24fps or 30fps on export (depending on what you chose), but it still doesn’t look bad at all. It will just use the extra frames to make it smoother. If you shoot in 60fps and slow it down to 30fps, you are still using 30 frames to fill 30 frames. It will be much smoother.
Can you recommend a reliable 60fps video to AIC converter?
If you attempt to transcode 60p video to AIC for using with iMovie, we would recommend Video Converter for Mac. It features optimal format presets for Mac NLEs, including iMovie, FCE, FCP, Avid, Premiere Pro, etc. and enables users to custom video and audio settings like frame rate, bit rate, resolution, sample rate and audio channel at will.
How to wrap 60fps footage to 60p/30p AIC for iMovie?
Follow these steps:
1. Install and run Video Converter for Mac as a 60p video to iMovie Converter. The main interface appears as below:
2. Click on ‘Add File’ to add your 60p footage from your camera or from a card reader, or from an archived folder that contains your source media.
3. From the Format bar, choose ‘Apple InterMediateCodec (AIC) (*.mov) as output format from ‘iMovie and Final Cut Express’ column. Note that the AIC codec is also accepted by Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro.
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.
4. Click ‘Settings’ button and go to ‘Profile Settings’ window to custom video and audio settings. To export 60p video, simply set the video frame rate at 60p; to export 30p video, simply set the video frame rate at 30p.
5. When ready, click ‘Convert’ to start transcoding 1080p60 footage to AIC – the best suited editing format for using within Apple iMovie Version 11, 8, or 9.
6. When the conversion process is complete, click on ‘Open Folder’ button to get the generated AIC QuickTime files and open them in iMovie for further editing.
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