iMovie 09 Project Lost

We went on a family trip to Las Vegas recently and shot some video and pics that I edited together into a nice piece to remember the trip. It even had a funny ending where it showed different people and made-up stories about their escapades in Sin City (yeah, I know whatever happens in Vegas, etc.).

After I had posted the video to YouTube, I wanted to export the project to iTunes so we could see it on our AppleTV. The project no longer showed up in iMovie. It was there in Finder, but even double clicking on it directly didn't help.

I wasn't able to recover the project, but since I had uploaded it to YouTube, the exported 720p file still existed. It wasn't a complete loss, and I reminded myself to back up more often.

To get to the exported file, I selected the project, right-clicked and picked 'Show Package Contents' (iMovie projects are actually special folders called 'packages'). Inside there's a folder called Movies which has the exported version(s).

FWIW, I checked out the project file itself, and it was full of the same character. The file appears to be a binary format, but normally there's something recognizable like a clip name. In this case it looks like iMovie decided to nuke the data. Too bad.

So, in addition to backing up I'm going through each of my projects and exporting the highest resolution possible to the Media Browser. That makes the files visible to other iLife programs and still gives me the option to export a separate file later.

How (not) to make a slideshow in iPhoto

As you can see in this tutorial on Apple's site, you can quickly view photos in a slide show with the button at the bottom of the window. You can set the order, pick a theme, add music, transitions, etc. But don't get too far because you can only play that slideshow on your computer, you can't publish or covert it to video (unless you use a screen recording program).

In the same tutorial, you can see there is also a Slideshow Project you can create which can be exported. The only downside is the way you have to arrange photos is a small strip at the top of the project window rather than a proper iPhoto album.

So the lesson learned is if you plan to publish a slideshow, make a project, don't do one on the fly.

People do funny things with Apple products

First there was this guy who turns an XBox into a killer MacOS video editing workstation.

Now this other guy has made a greeting card out of an iPhone.