Relinking resources in iMovie 09
Sat, 2009-03-28 12:18 — chris
During a disk tidy I moved a whole load of iMovie Events from one disk to another (from within iMovie). This worked fine.
However - I had some external media (mp3 file, couple of stills) which I'd just dragged in from the Downloads folder - and having moved these I found that iMovie no longer could find them (yellow warning triangle on the audio media and black video where the stills were used).
To reattach these takes a little fiddling.
The information is in the imovie project file in the file called Project. This is a binary plist file.
Make sure that iMovie isn't running and you'll probably want to backup the Project file.
So at the command line I did:
cd Movies/iMovie Projects.localized/<ProjectName>.rcproject
plutil -convert xml1 ProjectProject is now an xml plist and you can edit it. I opened it in textmate and then searched for the old path (in my case Downloads) and then replaced with the new one (it didn't like spaces in the path - but - instead of trying different escape syntaxes etc I just used a path with no spaces). I expect you can edit it with the standard plist editor too - but I didn't try.
Then once complete:
cd Movies/iMovie Projects.localized/<ProjectName>.rcproject
plutil -convert binary1 ProjectThis should now allow iMovie when next opened to find the missing resources. At least it did for me.
Technorati Tags: Bookmark/Search this post with:
Comments
Cool! Thanks for the tips. I
Cool! Thanks for the tips. I believe very soon everybody will need to move the info. Not long ago I read a book about the future tandencies in IT (found this book at the book search engine http://pdf.rapid4me.com ) . It was said that soon the information will be in larger formats then it is now. The dics will not be used anymore. As for me, I didn't like that news at all. Will, have to re-recorder everything once again though there is no necessity.
Got It :-)
Hi Chris
I understand where I went wrong: I tried to drag the whole iMovie project into TextMate and it didn't work (nor did it work in TextEdit - for obvious reasons)
Then it dawned on me to use the Show Package Content command and there was the Project file! And it does open in TextEdit as you said :-)
I'll work on it and see if it works!
Thanks
Numbnut Needs More Detailed Info
Hi Chris
I stumbled onto your blog entry and thought it would be exactly what I need but unfortunately, I've encountered a few problems... mostly due to my lack of experience.
I duplicated the project I'm having problems with and placed it on the Desktop.
I then typed in the two command lines you gave (altering the path to redirect to the Desktop instead). All seems well so far.
However, after having downloaded TextMate, I found myself unable to open the file... or even control the application... could it be because it's a Classic app and I'm running on an Intel Mac?
Is there another app I could use to help me alter my project file?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
I look forward to hearing from you...
Steve
Not sure I fully understand what the issue is
Is it that textmate won't run?
Not sure about the classic app - textmate I have here is version 1.5.8 and is an intel not a classic app.
However - it's not that important which app we use for editing the plist file.
First of all - plists can be edited in both xml and binary form using Apple's plist editor. That is part of the developer tools - so you may not have it. (Macintosh HD > Developer > Applications > Utilities > Property List Editor).
The reason I converted to XML form was to be able to search/replace easier.
I use textmate but any text editor should be able to read the xml format file. TextEdit for example.
Post new comment