[eleazar]

Hi all,

I am new to iMovie HD and I have a quick question. When I imported one of my miniDV tapes, the program would start recording one clip and then at certain times while the tape was playing, it would start a new clip in the clips area. After importing the tape, I ended with 26 clips.

My question is how do I know when it is going to start a new clip? I originally thought it was whenever I stopped recording and started again, but some of my clips have multiple scenes recorded and others don't. Then I thought it was when I paused and then hit record again but judging by the clips, that isn't correct either. So anyone know what makes iMovie determine when to start a new clip?

Using a Panasonic PV-GS15 DV camera

[admactanium]

i believe it has a file size limitation on one clip. afaik it was 4 gig per clip. check to see if they're all the same filesize and i guess that would answer the question.

[cutman]

I'm pretty sure iMovie starts a new clip when:

a) it detects a scene change (when you stop the camera then start recording somewhere else)

b) after a certain amount of time (I think the longest a clip can be is 9:02 or something).

[scratt]

Yep that all sounds about right to me... Can't think of any other reasons.
Sometimes some corruption on a frame can cause the importing code to think a clip has a break in it as it sorts out the data coming in. This happens to me sometimes when editting skydiving footage as the engine on the plane or some other interference has caused a glitch in the recording.