Use your movie in iWeb, GarageBand, or other Apple applications

If you want to use a finished iMovie project in another Apple application, you can send your movie to the Media Browser, which is accessible from many Apple applications, such as iWeb, GarageBand, iDVD, Pages, and Keynote.

Sending a movie to the Media Browser for use in iDVD is useful if you want to add the movie to an iDVD project already in progress. Otherwise, it’s quicker and easier to send your movie to iDVD from within iMovie. When you do so, your movie opens in iDVD, ready to burn to a DVD disc.

To share your project with other applications through the Media Browser:

  1. In iMovie, open the project or select it in the Project Library, and then choose Share > Media Browser.

    The Share menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.

  2. Select one or more movie sizes to render from the table of options.

    The table shows which sizes are best for each viewing device or location, and the resolution of each size (how many pixels it contains).

    The resolution of the exported movie for each size depends on the aspect ratio (standard or widescreen) you chose when you created the project. This topic explains resolution in more detail: About image resolution of shared projects.

    If you’re unable to select the larger sizes, the original project media isn’t large enough to render in that size. The size of the largest media used in the project determines the final movie sizes you can render.

    Holding the pointer over the “i” next to the movie dimensions displays the following information for the rendered movies:

    • H.264 or 3GP:  The video compression that’s used in the movie.

    • fps:  The frame rate of the movie in frames per second.

    • Kbps or Mbps:  The data rate of the movie in kilobits per second or megabits per second.

    • MB:  The size of the movie file in megabytes.

  3. Click Share.

    Rendering can take up to several minutes depending on the size of your movie and whether you render more than one movie size at once.

  4. Open one of your Apple applications, and then look for the rendered movies in the Movies pane of the Media Browser.

In iMovie, an icon appears next to the project’s name in the Project Library to indicate it has been rendered, and in which sizes.

If you make further edits to your project in iMovie after you’ve rendered it, the title bar (which is visible when the project is open) indicates that your project is out of date and needs to be rendered again. The previously rendered versions of the movie are deleted and replaced by new versions when you render it again.