Just bought a new 20" iMac this weekend. Been a PC as well as Unix user for the last 16 years. Now I'm struggling with some of the basic interface differences. I'll throw some starter questions I have from playing around this weekend out. Appreciate any help.
1. How do I get at the underlying files iMovie imported so I can save them on a data DVD? I don't want to save everything to the hard drive, or even an external hard drive due to the number of miniDV tapes I have. I also don;t want to wait to import the video every time I want to access it. I'm guessing iMovie stores the individual clips it imports as individual movie files (.mov's maybe?) somewhere on the hard drive, but that all seems to be hidden from me. I'd like to have some data DVD's with all the original uncompressed video that I could bring into iMovie whenever I wanted without waiting to read it from the camcorder in real time.
2. If I have files like .mov files (or whatever we find the originals were) on a data DVD, how do I bring those clips into a new Movie project.
3. How do I determine how big my iMovie project is? I see it by name in the Movies folder but the size column shows "---".
4. How do I get the finder window to show file extensions. Right now I see "My Great Movie" but I'm guessing it has a file extension that I'm not seeing. Sort of like the preferences in Windows explorer.
5. Any idea how to get to a Unix shell (command prompt)?
6. How do I share a folder between users. I'd like my iPhoto and iMovie stuff to be shared between my account and my wife's account.
7. How do I see what the hard drive really looks like? For example, on my PC I can go to Documents and Settings and see all users, their "My Documents", etc. On the Mac, I'm only seeing things in my account. The Finder appears to hide all the "complication" from me.
I'm sure I'll have more questions, but this would be a great starter.
1. How do I get at the underlying files iMovie imported so I can save them on a data DVD? I don't want to save everything to the hard drive, or even an external hard drive due to the number of miniDV tapes I have. I also don;t want to wait to import the video every time I want to access it. I'm guessing iMovie stores the individual clips it imports as individual movie files (.mov's maybe?) somewhere on the hard drive, but that all seems to be hidden from me. I'd like to have some data DVD's with all the original uncompressed video that I could bring into iMovie whenever I wanted without waiting to read it from the camcorder in real time.
2. If I have files like .mov files (or whatever we find the originals were) on a data DVD, how do I bring those clips into a new Movie project.
3. How do I determine how big my iMovie project is? I see it by name in the Movies folder but the size column shows "---".
4. How do I get the finder window to show file extensions. Right now I see "My Great Movie" but I'm guessing it has a file extension that I'm not seeing. Sort of like the preferences in Windows explorer.
5. Any idea how to get to a Unix shell (command prompt)?
6. How do I share a folder between users. I'd like my iPhoto and iMovie stuff to be shared between my account and my wife's account.
7. How do I see what the hard drive really looks like? For example, on my PC I can go to Documents and Settings and see all users, their "My Documents", etc. On the Mac, I'm only seeing things in my account. The Finder appears to hide all the "complication" from me.
I'm sure I'll have more questions, but this would be a great starter.