New Media Station Documentation - Importing from VHS

Using the Samsung VCR and the Miglia Director's Cut Take2 analog to digital converter, you can import video from VHS tape into iMovie for editing. Remember that digital video files are big and that importing video takes as long as the duration of the video itself. If you have to capture a half-hour long video, it will take 30 minutes to play the tape from start to end and import it.

Import Process

Open iMovie. You will be automatically asked if you want to create a new project or open an existing one.

If you are continuing work on a project, select Open Existing Project and use the file dialog to locate your saved project.

If you are starting a new project, click Create Project and proceed through the following steps to save your project to the local computer. Important: Do not just accept the defaults and click Save or press Return. The default choice will save your project to your network home directory which will not have enough space to create an iMovie project. iMovie will crash, and you will have problems with your e-mail and other uses of your account!
1. Click the down arrow to the right of the Save As: field in the Save sheet that appears. This will expand the Save sheet to give more options.
2. Navigate to the /Temporary Storage folder on the hard drive. To do so, select the local hard drive named System in the column at the far left. Then, select the Temporary Storage folder.
3. At this point, enter the name of your project in the Save As: field and click the Save button.
Your project is now saved on the local hard drive of the computer you are using. Note that you will have to return to this specific computer if you stop work on your project and wish to resume at a later date. Only this one machine has your files!
Put iMovie into Camera Mode using the Camera mode/Edit mode toggle switch below the iMovie monitor.
You should see a blue screen with the message Camera Detected. If not, make sure that the Director's Cut box is powered on and connected to the computer via the Firewire cord.
Insert your video tape into the VCR.
Make sure that the VCR's Output System is set to NTSC using the stack of 6 buttons to the right of the VCR's tape slot. The Director's Cut box should also be set to NTSC. You can set the Director's Cut box to NTSC or PAL using the NTSC/PAL button on the front panel of the box. (Note: You can also work in PAL format within iMovie, if that is what you want for your final product, but for projects intended for use in this country, NTSC is the right choice.) If you have a video tape that is not recorded in NTSC standard, the VCR will automatically convert the signal to NTSC.
Click the Play button in iMovie. You should see the display from the VCR in the iMovie monitor.
iMovie cannot control the VCR so you must use the VCR's Fast Forward, Rewind, and Play buttons to cue the tape to the beginning of your material using the iMovie monitor as a display.
When the tape is cued properly, click the Import button below the iMovie monitor in iMovie and then press the Play button on the VCR. This may capture some noise or unwanted blue screen at the start of your click, but you can edit that our later. It is best to actually start capturing 5 to 10 second before the actual beginning of your clip for the best quality.

Control the importing process using the Import button. Click it again to stop importing. Note that your tape will keep playing. If you click Import again, it will create a new clip in the Clips pane at the right. You can create multiple clips, pressing import to begin and clicking import again to stop. In the picture below, there are five clips in the Clips pane.
You may need to rewind or fast forward your tape using the VCR controls, if you do not have pauses between your separate clips. You can also choose to capture your entire video at once and plan to cut it into sections later.
When finished, stop the playback on the VCR, and switch iMovie to Edit mode from camera mode.