I am a video production teacher. I received 8 brand new still-in-the-box G4 computers that I suppose had been sitting in storage for a couple years (public school bureaucracy). I loaded OSX 10.2.8 and ilife on them so my students could use imovie. The computers are not being used for anything else. They have 400MHz procesors and I added more memory (taken from departing G3's) so they all have either 448 or 512 Mgs RAM. When my students use imovie, they FREQUENTLY get the little spinning wheel of doom and have to force quit. I have not "run permissions" and do not even know what that means (yes, I am a bit clueless) nor do I have Disk Utility on a CD to run. The only devices connected to the computers are the occasional digital video camera when my students import their footage. I need help!
imovie problems in the classroom
- Thread starter buzz66
- Start date
If you have the installation medium, you also have Disk Utility (although it was called differently in Jaguar. Just boot from the CD and look under the Apple menu in the installer.
I guess 512 MB (or even lower) are not ideal for iMovie use. The 400 MHz G4s also aren't exactly cutting edge anymore. Maybe you can try and take the RAM out of one, put it into another and check if that helps performance?
I guess 512 MB (or even lower) are not ideal for iMovie use. The 400 MHz G4s also aren't exactly cutting edge anymore. Maybe you can try and take the RAM out of one, put it into another and check if that helps performance?
Thanks for your response. However, I really don't think the RAM or processor speeds are the problem. I have been using imovie in my classes for five years. Have never had such severe and frequent problems. I started with imovie 2 on OS 9 with G3's and it ran great. I've slowly switched to OS 10 and imovie 3 & 4 because it is superior in many ways. I ran imovie 3 on an emac with 700 MHz and less than 256 RAM with no problems. Of course, my student's videos are short (2-4 minutes) and when they got longer, we did have problems. I added some RAM and it's absolutely fine with 448. I had one G4 last year that ran imovie 3 with 350 MHz and 256 RAM with no problems. The new G4's have a faster processor and have more RAM. Some of them are only having occasional problems, while one cannot be used without force quitting imovie several times in a 45 minute sitting. I found disk utility (I kinda knew where that was, so I felt a bit foolish) and ran repair permissions. Didn't help. Since it is new and doesn't have much on it, I copied files and am trying an erase and reinstall on that one. Does anyone have any other ideas? Thanks!