This is a simple program to reduce the size of your iMovie 08 library.
I love iMovie ‘08. I know, I know, it has less whizzy features than iMovie '06 does, but darn it, it’s so darn fast and easy to build videos. I can create a whole hour-long movie in about ten minutes! (Not a very good one, of course – but none of my movies are very good.)
Part of why it’s fast is that it keeps all my clips on hand, ready and willing to be part of my latest (crappy) movie. Unfortunately, all those barely-compressed DV clips take up A LOT of space. (About 10 GB/hour of video!) This application will compress all the DV files in your iMovie library to save huge amounts of disk space! Using Apple’s H.264 compression technology, you can shave 70% off your library space with *minimal* loss of quality.
**UPDATE:** v1.2 works with SetFile installed in /usr/bin as well as in the default /Developer/Tools directory.
This is a simple applet, just double click it, select your chosen compression settings (from a pristine copy that shaves off 10% of the file size to a clip that’s 93% smaller than the original, and only suitable for posting on YouTube), and let it work its magic. Your library will sweat off the pounds, and your original raw DV files will be set aside to be archived, thrown away, or whatever you want to do with them.
Note that any projects which use your DV-formatted clips will need to be rebuilt pretty much from scratch, as the clips they reference will no longer be in your library. You may want to export those projects before compressing your library.
This does not work with iMovie '06, which can only use DV/HDV formatted video for its projects.
This applet is released free of charge, and you’re welcome to modify it and do what you wish with it, provided you give me credit if you release a version with modifications.
### System Requirements
* A Mac capable of running iMovie '08 with at least some DV videos in your events library.
* [Quicktime Pro](http://apple.com/quicktime/). The standard version can’t export video. Sorry.
* [Apple Developer Tools](http://developer.apple.com/). In order to set the creation date of the exported file, you need the SetFile command-line utility that’s installed with the developer tools.