ViddyUp!

Many digital cameras will also take video clips. When I am taking pictures of my nieces, I will often take a couple of short video clips as well. When I get back to the computer, iPhoto imports the video clips right along with the photos.

When you want to watch the video clip in iPhoto, all you have to do is double-click it and it opens in Quicktime. All is good in the world.

That is, until you try to use those video clips in iMovie '08 or iDVD '08. Both applications have a Source list that show video clips from iPhoto. Depending on the format that your digital camera records video clips, iMovie '08 and iDVD '08 might not show your clips in the iPhoto section of the Source list. In my limited testing, video clips from my Sony cameras aren't recognized, but video clips from the Nikon camera I tested show up just fine.

If your video clips show up in the Source list in iMovie '08 and iDVD '08, then you are good to go and you can stop reading right here.

The problem is that some digital cameras record their video in an older format that iMovie and iDVD don't recognize. The video must be converted to a newer format to be used. Over the years, I've seen several round about ways of doing this conversion, but recently I found some software that makes the conversion very painless.

The software is called ViddyUp! and it's actual job is to convert video for iPods and AppleTV. It just happens that once you get your video in a format the iPod likes, iMovie and iDVD like it as well.

Get ViddyUp! here.

ViddyUp! costs $10 to register, but it will convert 2 1/2 minutes worth of video without registration so you can try it out.

Here's how to make the video conversion:

1. Launch ViddyUp! and go to Preferences. On the Videos tab click on the "Save To" dropdown and choose "Specify Location..." You will get an Open dialog. Navigate to your Movies folder and click Open.
2. Drag your video clip from iPhoto to the ViddyUp! window. (You can also drag to the ViddyUp! Dock icon which I found easier to do.)
3. Once the video clip loads in ViddyUp!, you will see a drop down menu for Encoding. Choose iPod, 640 x 480, MPEG-4. Then click Process.
4. When the conversion ends, you will have a newly created video clip in your Movies folder with a .mp4 suffix.

To access your video clip in iDVD '08, click the Movies tab in the Source list and you will see a link to your Movies folder.

Related Items: iPhoto | Video | iMovie | iDVD