I like to import my home movies to iTunes after I have edited them in iMovie HD. One thing that drives me crazy is the small square movie poster frame that shows up in my iTunes movie poster list for the imported or ripped movie. The small square poster doesn’t match the size and shape of the other movie posters that come with downloaded movies and it makes the coverflow feature of browsing movies look awkard.
Changing the movie frame to use as the movie poster frame is easy enough. In iTunes play the movie and stop at the frame you want to use as the movie poster. Right click the movie and choose “Set Poster Frame”. The movie poster is now changed to the frame you selected but it is a square image and not the same size as the other movie posters in your library. Without cover art that is the standard movie poster size, coverflow feels clunky.
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| Clunky Coverflow | Good Coverflow |
To resize the image to the standard movie poster size of 20 x 30, open the movie in iMovie HD and move to the frame you want to use as the movie poster. Choose Edit > Create Still Frame. iMovie HD creates a still frame image of your frame in a .dv format that shows in your Clips pane. Drag the .dv clip to your desktop.
Click the .dv file on your desktop and the file opens in Quicktime. Chose File > Export and in the Export dropdown menu, choose “Movie to Picture” as your export setting. The .dv file is now exported in a .pct format that iPhoto can open. So open it.
In iPhoto, choose File > Import to Library and browse to the .pct file you exported from Quicktime. Choose the imported .pct file in your library. From the “Constrain” drop down in the lower left corner of iPhoto, choose “20 x 30 (Poster)” and then in that same dropdown (very bottom choice), choose “Constrain as portrait”. Export the result to your desktop using File > Export and you now have 20 x 30 movie poster image from a .dv still frame. The same technique to constrain the image works with any photo in your iPhoto library.
To get the 20 x 30 movie poster .pct file to show as your movie poster in iTunes, highlight the movie in your library, right click Get Info > Artwork. Delete the old image by select it and choosing delete and now drag your 20 x 30 movie poster .pct file from your desktop into the Artwork box.
You now have your home movie or ripped movie poster matching the other poster sizes in your iTunes movie library.
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