[pattirea]

Is there a utility that will index individual clips within iMovies files? My files often have more than one subject in each movie and it is incredibly time consuming to locate specific clips.
Thanks,
Patti Rea

[Daft&Dewey-eyed]

It's not quite clear what you are asking. Are you capturing long clips in iMovie so that you end up with on file with many video clips in it? If this is the case, the program you seek is called iMovie.
The most dreaded chore in motion picture editing is called "logging the footage." This is the process of taking all the footage you've shot and logging each shot so you know what it is and where it is. This process used to be done with notebooks and index cards in the old days of cutting film, but is much easier now with the non-linear editing systems we have. Admittedly, iMovie's logging functions do not approach the capabilities of Final Cut Pro, but they're not bad considering what you paid for them.
To log footage in iMovie, do this:
1. Select the first captured clip on your shelf, and play through it until you reach the end of the first take.
2. With the playhead positioned at the beginning of take/scene 2, press command-t, or select "Split Video Clip at Playhead" from the edit menu. This will split your clip into two pieces.
3. Proceed in this fashion until you have separated the mass captured clips into individual scenes or takes. You can rename these clips to something more descriptive by clicking on the clip title in the shelf window.
This should make your clips easier to find than shuttling through long sections of video looking for a particular shot. If you want more robust logging features, upgrade to a more robust editing system, like FCE or FCP.
This may sound tedious and boring, but that's what assistant editors are for. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[pattirea]

Thanks so much for the info. I am interested now in
FCE or FCP
that you mention.
What I have: 60 gb of edited imovies. Each saved imovie file has numerous named clips. So say I have 40 saved movies files on 60 gb drive. In each of the 40 movies, I might have 30 short clips that I have named. They are all different subjects! This is the problem. When I want one particular movie the name of my 40 different imovie files does not tell me its contents because the file contains many different subjects. Does this make more sense?
Now I am wondering if FCE of FCP would do what I need.
ex to know that in imovie file "pasture" there are these clips: cows, horse running, car, dinner table, entering school, shopping etc. NO rhyme or reason to contents!

Thanks again for your time.
Patti Rea

[Daft&Dewey-eyed]

Whatever program you use, you will need to break down your movie files into individual clips before they can be indexed.
Final Cut Pro will allow you to set markers in a long file to log various clips, but the process is still the same. You have to go into each file and break it down into individually named clips.