[MacDV] Problems with iMovie HD 5.0.2

[Karl Hayden]

Hello Everyone.... First off, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday  
and all the best in 2006.

I am just wondering if my experience with iMovie HD 5.0.2 are the  
same for others....

The problem:
I am trying to edit a wedding video for my sister which is running at  
1hour 50mins. When I get to a certain stage of editing the playback  
starts to go all crazy. The picture freezes, but the sound keeps  
running, eventually the picture catches up. This causes problems for  
me finding edit points. It has to be something to do with the number  
of edits I make.... because when the raw footage (unedited) is loaded  
up there is no playback problem. It only starts when I reach a  
certain number of edits.

What I have to done to try get around the problem:
First, I have made edits then stopped and saved the movie. Closed  
iMovie and restarted... still a problem with playback.
Second, I have edited a section and saved it as a QuickTime movie  
(saved at Full Quality) then trashed the iMovie footage and imported  
the QT movie. But the edit points/transitions look bad.

What am I working on?
iMac 2 GHz Power PC G5
2 GB DDR SDRAM
240GB Hard drive
iMovie HD 5.0.2

Is it just that Apple have made it impossible to work on projects  
over a certain size, duration, limited number of edit points/ 
transitions???

Is there anything I can do to improve the performance of iMovie  
5.0.2 ???

I really have lost faith in iMovie... it used to be such a good  
little application back in OS9 days with iMovie 1 and 2. I still have  
my old iMac G4 15" which I may clear to install OS9 with iMovie 2....  
never had these problems with iMove in those days.

Many Thanks.

Karl