MPEG-1 Movies Import without Audio

Following my review of iMovie HD in Macworld, a reader wrote to say, “While you stated that iMovie can now import MPEG-4 video, you didn’t mention that it can import ONLY video. There is no sound. One of the main reasons I got iMovie was so I could use it to create a video using footage captured from my digital [still] camera.”

That seemed odd, since playing the video in QuickTime Player works fine. Further Q&A revealed that his camera, a Sony DSC-P2, creates movies in MPEG-1 format. A search through Apple’s QuickTime support pages reveals “iMovie: No Audio With MPEG-1 Clips.

The workaround? Use a utility such as DropDV to demux (separate the audio from the video) the clip and then import the result into iMovie.

Published by Jeff Carlson

Author, photographer, and late-nighter Jeff Carlson writes for outlets such as Popular Photography, DPReview, Creative Pro, and others, and is a contributing editor for TidBITS. He is the author of Take Control of Your Digital Photos; The Photographer's Guide to Luminar AI, Take Control of Apple Watch, and Take Control of Your Digital Storage, among many other titles. View all posts by Jeff Carlson