Olympus E-PL5 and iMovie import issue – transcode E-PL5 MOV/AVI to AIC


Summary: What a hair pulling thing if you can not import and edit your Olympus E-PL5 footage in iMovie! Assuming you have Olympus E-PL5 and iMovie import issue, you may come to the right place. This post guides you through the process of converting E-PL5 MOV/AVI to AIC for smoothly editing in iMovie.
olympus epl5Unlike the E-PL3 shoots videos in AVCHD format, the Olympus E-PL5 records footage either in MOV (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264) or AVI (Motion JPEG) file type. In MOV movie mode, it is able to capture Full HD 1920×1080 in 30p (29.97fps), and HD 1280×720 in 30p (29.97fps). In AVI movie mode, it is capable of shooting HD 1280×720 in 30fps and SD 640×480 in 30fps.

No matter you recorded in H.264 MOV or Motion JPEG AVI, you may find it is problematic when importing Olympus E-PL5 footage to iMovie to create your own masterpiece. That’s because both the H.264 MOV and Motion JPEG AVI are not ideal formats for editing use. To be able to work Olympus E-PL5 video in iMovie smoothly, you are suggested to transcode Olympus E-PL5 MOV/AVI to Apple’s InterMediateCodec, iMovie’s most friendly editing format, which iMovie reads and handles well. To do format conversion, third party software is required, considering the ease of use and lossless output quality, we would recommend Video Converter for Mac, which works decently as an Olympus E-PL5 Video Converter. You can free download a trial to see if it is what you are looking for.
free trial

How to work Olympus E-PL5 video in iMovie smoothly?

To be able to make iMovie work well with Olympus E-PL5 MOV or AVI video files, you will need to convert Olympus E-PL5 footage to AIC in advance. To process format conversion, do as below:

Step 1: Run Video Converter for Mac as an Olympus E-PL5 Video Converter for Mac. When the main interface pops up, click ‘Add File’ button to import MOV/AVI shootings captured by a Olympus E-PL5 camera. You can load directly from a camera or from a card reader, or from a folder on your HDD that contains your media data.

Step 2: Select output format for iMovie
In order to edit Olympus E-PL5 MOV/AVI shootings in iMovie, from the Format bar, choose ‘Apple InterMediateCodec (AIC) (*.mov) as output format from ‘iMovie and Final Cut Express’ catalogue.

Step 3: Custom video and audio settings (optional)
If you want to adjust video and audio settings in your own way, you can click ‘Settings’ button and go to ‘Profile Settings’ panel to do so, if not, simply skip this step.

Step 4: When ready, click the ‘Convert’ button to start converting Olympus E-PL5 footage to AIC for using within iMovie’8/9/11.
Tips: You can tick off ‘Showdown computer when conversion completed’ checkbox, and go away to do other things instead of waiting around in front of the computer for the entire conversion process.

Step 5: When the conversion finished, click ‘Open Folder’ button to find the generated QuickTime AIC MOV files for using in iMovie.

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