iMovie 1 and 2 were designed to work best in 1024- by 768-pixel resolution, in thousands or millions of colors.
iMovie 3 requires a 1024- by 768-pixel resolution, or higher, to open.
Most consumer Macintosh computers offer four monitor resolutions: 640 by 480, 800 by 600, 832 by 624 and 1024 by 768. iMovie will not open with the resolution set to 640 by 480 pixels.
When using iMovie 1 or 2 in 800 by 600 and 832 by 624 resolutions, the Shelf has nine Shelf Spaces. In 1024 by 768 resolution there are 12 Shelf Spaces.
When capturing clips from your camera onto the Shelf, iMovie will automatically create a separate clip and put it into a new Shelf Space every time a scene break is detected. In earlier versions of iMovie, these Shelf Spaces may fill up quickly depending on the number of times you stopped and started recording when you initially shot your source footage. In iMovie 2 and later, Shelf space will expand dynamically, allowing you to scroll through the shelf space as it fills. To avoid filling up all Shelf Space in iMovie 1, which disables further capturing until space is cleared, there are a few options:
- Open the application Preferences and click the Import Tab. Here you can select the destination of the imported clips. By selecting to import clips directly to the timeline, you can avoid filling the Shelf with newly captured clips.
- Deselect the checkbox "Automatically start new clip at scene break."