Recording in mp4 and using iMovie

[Louise Roy]

I can't understand what happened to video recording with my Ativ S. I've had it for a few months and I've been able to transfer video files using the Windows Phone App to iPhoto on my Macbook, then export them to the desktop and use the videos with iMovie. Now suddenly (maybe since the latest phone update?) the files are all in mp4 which isn't recognised by iMovie. Is there anything I can do about this?

 

[Laura Knotek]

Moved to Mac OS X forum, since this topic is something that Mac OS X users would be familiar with, but Windows PC users would not.

 

[Faitharehere]

iMovie only supports importing MP4 formats with MPEG4/AAC or H.264/AAC data, not all kinds of MP4 formats. Some MP4 files from like Sony, Hybrid camcorders and other devices cannot be accepted by iMovie.

Beside,iMovie contains all the essential codecs to read MP4 files. Any different codecs included in audio and subtitle will cause the issue.

If you want to import all kinds of MP4 files into iMovie, you'd better to convert them to iMovie compatible formats.

 

[lazling198810]

Some people including you may be confused: iMovie says it supports MP4, but why I can't import MP4 to iMovie? Well, that's because iMovie prefers MPEG-4 and H.264 codecs instead of others while MP4 can contain various video codecs. So if you MP4 files are not accepted by iMovie, it's probably because of the video codec incompatibility.

Since Apple InterMediate Codec(AIC) is the the most compatible codec introduced by Apple which ensures maximum editing quality and efficiency when working with iMovie, the easy option to get iMovie accept MP4 files is to rewrap and convert MP4 to AIC encoded MOV. This will help you import the file correctly and saving the rendering time. BTW, the video app I'm using is Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac.