Poor Quality Stills on DVD

Forgive this old favourite. I've gone through lots of past threads and still would like some help please. I've also posted the same question on the FCP forum as I am not sure in which application the solution lies.
I am making a 04'00" film in FCP from jpeg stills alone. Some are in boxes, other have motion effects, all have lots of layers of text / text boxes on them. In short it's a real fiddle and render nightmare compared to good old DV!
Anyway, a couple of questions. My final delivery format is DVD to play on a flatscreen LCD or Plasma screen, so should I be proofing the quality of the image on my cathoid ray tube monitor or on the LCD monitor of my iMac? Does the final TV platform make a difference to workflow?
So far, following back thread advice, I have changed the Field Dominance button to None and dropped the Whites level to 90% which made the image on the LCD timeline fantastic (it had been aliasing massively before) but it still aliases on my CRT.
Also, when I export the rendered film as a Current Settings QT and then encode via Compressor and put it into DVD Studio Pro, the picture quality again looks fantastic on DVD Studio Pro Simulate but once encoded onto the final DVD, the shots with movement added are very poor, with lots of aliasing.
Forgive the long intro, but has anyone got a workflow I could try to reliably turn moving jpegs (big ones c12Megapixels) of houses (ie lots of straight lines which tend to flicker when moving) into a DVD to be played on LCD or Plasma in which the straight lines look straight and there is no aliasing or flicker on the pan /scans?
Thank you in advance.
Hamish
iMac 2Ghz intelduo FCP 5.5

Well, its obviously best to test your output on a source closet to your final display medium. You won't see the flickering of the thin lines on your monitor for several technical reasons, notwithstanding the fact hat simulator is not overly accurate (they even say that in the manual). Your monitor is not a substitute for how an image will look on an NTSC monitor, regardless of if its plasma, lcd, etc. Thin lines are usually killers, and taking time to thicken them in photoshop may not be your cup of tea. Jpegs are lesser quality picture format to begin with, but if thats the only way you have them, so be it. You usually run into a similar flicker problem when screen capturing websites to put on DVD. Webdesigners like to use thin, straight lines which flicker like crazy. Darkening and thickening can help, but again I don't know how much of a rush you are in.

Similar Messages

Poor quality still frames

Does anyone know why still frames are such poor quality?
I'm constructing a movie using stills, and if a Ken Burns effect is used, the picture changing to the next photo as soon as the effect finishes can be a little jarring on the eye.
To counteract this, I've been adding a still frame of 1-2 seconds either side of the main Ken Burns adjusted photo to act as a 'cushion' (like you can in Photo to Movie). You can see the difference in quaity in iMovie, so it does of course remain when you have exported to Quicktime.
Is there a better method of doing this than still frames? I notice that the overlap transition helps by hanging on to the end of the previous frame, but it's not ideal.
Any suggestions?
Quicksilver G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Programmes in regular use are Freehand, Photoshop, Freeway, Keynote, iMovie, iDV

Karl, I swear you live inside everyone's browser, with a manual the like of which the rest of us have never seen!
As usual, among the quickest to answer on these forums, and absolutely correct.
It worked like a dream - another major headache removed. Many thanks indeed.

Poor Quality Stills

Forgive this old favourite. I've gone through lots of past threads and still would like some help please.
I am making a 04'00" film in FCP from jpeg stills alone. Some are in boxes, other have motion effects, all have lots of layers of text / text boxes on them. In short it's a real fiddle and render nightmare compared to good old DV!
Anyway, a couple of questions. My final delivery format is DVD to play on a flatscreen LCD or Plasma screen, so should I be proofing the quality of the image on my cathoid ray tube monitor or on the LCD monitor of my iMac? Does the final TV platform make a difference to workflow?
So far, following back thread advice, I have changed the Field Dominance button to None and dropped the Whites level to 90% which made the image on the LCD timeline fantastic (it had been aliasing massively before) but it still aliases on my CRT.
Also, when I export the rendered film as a Current Settings QT and then encode via Compressor and put it into DVD Studio Pro, the picture quality again looks fantastic on DVD Studio Pro Simulate but once encoded onto the final DVD, the shots with movement added are very poor, with lots of aliasing.
Forgive the long intro, but has anyone got a workflow I could try to reliably turn moving jpegs (big ones c12Megapixels) of houses (ie lots of straight lines which tend to flicker when moving) into a DVD to be played on LCD or Plasma in which the straight lines look straight and there is no aliasing or flicker on the pan /scans?
Thank you in advance.
Hamish
iMac 2Ghz intelduo FCP 5.5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Over sizing your images beyond what you will use does nothing good and creates issues with how FCP dithers/downscales them.
As a format - get rid of JPEGs. It is a lossy format created to transmit crappy images over the internet on web pages. Use TIFF or PSD which are lossless formats.
The flickering is an artifact of the interlaced nature of video. It is a result of very thin (often horizontal) elements that exist on one scanline as is common in text or titling. This can also be the case in scanned images with a great deal of detail in high contrast. (Note: It does no good to import images hugely larger than the pixel dimensions of the video sequence. All it does is force FCP to work harder at interpolation.)
As the alternate fields play, the flashing element is essentially being turned on/off. The basic strategy is to get the element to exist over two scanlines so it is refreshed every time the field plays or to reduce the amount of contrast so the difference between ON and OFF is not noticeable.
Things to try (In increasing order of image degradation)
- (in FCP) field order>none
- (in FCP or Photoshop) reduce whites by 10% - reduces overly bright areas
- (in FCP) flicker filter - minimum
- (in Photoshop) motion blur>vertical> .2 - .5 pixels - blurs vertically only
- (In FCP or Photoshop) Gaussian blur> .2 - .5 pixels -blurs both horizontally as well as vertically
- (in FCP or Photoshop) deinterlace - throws away half the image and is generally not appropriate on scanned images
Remember: Unless you are viewing your work in the appropriate external NTSC/PAL monitor, you are playing blind. The computer monitor only shows you a proxy image.
good luck.
x

Poor quality from burned dvds

i'm having trouble with the burned dvds i get from this software. everything looks great when creating the project, but after it burns, the menu and slideshow photos look very fuzzy/out of focus. i have tried using professional quality and high quality, but neither look presentable on the dvd either on the computer or the tv.
is there anything else i can do to improve the quality?
thanks,
d

The pixel content of a DVD is about 640x480 (in still digital image square pixel terms). I'll let you in on a 'secret' - that's only about 0.3 megapixels. They were designed to be viewed on the old, conventional CRT TV sets. When viewed close-up on a large screen set they 'are what they are'.

Very poor quality when viewing DVD on TV

Hello,
I have searched this forum high and low, but every response I have tried to this issue does not seem to work. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated. I am using FCS2 on a new 8-core Intel Mac Pro desktop. All of the footage is shot on High Def AVCHD Cameras and ripped from Log and Transfer in FCP. My video is about 1 hour, 5 minutes. The problem I have is that the quality looks great in the MOV file export, but when I burn it to a DVD, it looks like garbage. It's all grainy and the quality a really poor. Here is my workflow:
1) Video is created in Final Cut Pro (no chapters at this point), its all 1 video
2) Video is exported using Quicktime. I use the selected settings, and uncheck Recompress All Frames, and select use chapter markers
3) I compress the video for SD DVD in Compressor, using 120min Best Quality DVD, default settings with this option.
4) I put the audio and video file in my assets for DVD Studio Pro, then Drag them onto the video. I removed the menu item, and changed the video to "play first". I then click Format/Burn.
The DVD formats and burns, and it plays fine. But the quality *****. The raw MOV file looks great. It's clearly interlaced yet at the time of export from FCP, but I am assuming that is normal. Any ideas, or am I doing anything wrong?
Thanks,
Brandon
Message was edited by: Brandon Rohde

Brandon,
I suspect we are missing a few factors in your situation. Let me ask a few questions and make a suggestion or two so we can figure this thing out.
1) What is the make and model of your TV?
2) Are you telling DVD Studio Pro that the movie you've converted to SD is anamorphic?
3) You did tell Compressor you wanted the SD movie to be 16:9, didn't you?
4) To help troubleshoot, try this: In FCP, mark In to Out around a ten second portion of the Timeline, and go to File > Export > QuickTime Movie. Make it self contained but do not re-compress all frames.
5) Quit FCP, open DVDSP and change the Preferences in DVDSP to create an HD DVD title. Import the QT Movie you exported from FCP, drop it into a vidoe track, make it a First Play on the disc and Format it onto your hard drive. Play it in DVD Player and tell us how it looks.
6) If it looks fine, burn it to a DVD disc and play it in your Apple computer. How does it look?
7) Now create a new project in DVDSP, make it a SD DVD project, import the same QT Movie you exported from FCP. Drop it into a video track, make it First Play on the disc, and Format it. Play it in DVD Player. How does it look?
8) Then burn it to a DVD and play it on your Apple computer. How does it look?
9) Now, play it in an external DVD player on am SD television. How does it look?
Please do all that, then reply back to this thread with the answers to all of these questions. I think we'll be closer to resolving the problem after that.
Do not reformat your hard drive or reinstall your OS yet. It is far too soon for that over-reaction. Maybe later, but I seriously doubt that will help anything.

Poor quality "still" photo

I'm using Premiere Elements 12. When I'm choose "Tools", "Movie Menu", Then choose from a "Menu Theme", I am given the option of inserting a still photo. However, the quality of the photo in my final product is reproduced with VERY POOR resolution. Is there a solution to this problem? Does Premiere Elements 13 correct this problem?
Joe Nunes
Turlock,CA

britt142012
Thanks for the follow up.
Have we ruled out whether or not the issue exists with and without the antivirus and firewall(s) disabled?
Back to the now....
When did you get the Error 16 - after naming just the SLStore Folder to SLStoreOLD? Or did you do the renaming of both the SLCache as well as SLStore Folders to get the Error 16? You should be able to convert back to the original by deleting the newly created SLStore or SLCache Folders and removing OLD from the renamed ones. Is Error 16 gone then?
After that, try just the renaming of the SLStore Folder again.
Before we give up on renaming SLStore and SLCache Folders, check the permissions for each so that they are set for write/read for Everyone.
Then the classical generic ways....
1. Delete the Adobe Premiere Elements Prefs file and, if that does not work, delete the whole 12.0 Folder in which the Adobe Premiere Elements Prefs file exists.
Local Disk C
Users
Owner
AppData
Roaming
Adobe
Premiere Elements
12.0
and in the 12.0 Folder is the Adobe Premiere Elements Prefs file that you delete. If that does not work, then you delete the whole 12.0 Folder in which the Adobe Premiere Elements Prefs file exists. Be sure to be working with Folder Option Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives active so that you can see the complete path cited.
2. If that does not work....
a. uninstall the usual Control Panel way
b. do a free ccleaner run through (regular clearner and registry cleaner parts) to get rid of any leftovers from incomplete uninstalls reinstalls
CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download
c. reinstall with antivirus and firewall(s) disabled.
We will be watching for the new developments.
Thank you.
ATR

NEED HELP! Poor quality stills and text

I'm finishing up a corporate video with lots of still pictures and text. Unfortunately, It's so bad I can't show it to the customer. As always, the video footage looks great but the still photos and the text looks very, very bad when played on a DVD. I compressed the MOV file with Compressor using the Apple-Best Quality DVD settings. I'm beginning to think stills and text will always look bad on TV. Is there a way to improve this? Is Compressor the best tool to compress my file?

Getting still images to look good at DV resolution and color depth can be a struggle.
A couple of tips.
1.Do not use images with more pixels than you absolutely need. If you are in the US (NTSC) and the images don't have any pan/zoom moves, size them to 720x480 (DV pixel ratio) in Photoshop before importing them into FCP. FCP is not a very elegant scaler.
2. Make sure the contrast in the images is under control. Keep the whites below 90.
3. It the images have a lot of high contract detail (think leaves in bright sunlight), sometimes a slight vertical gaussian blur of .3-.5 pixels can help.
4. If the total running time of the material is under 60 minutes, use a Constant Bit Rate of 6.5 or so in the Compressor settings.
If all of these don't really do it for you, and if the material is all stills, you might try to do the slide show in Fotomagico or Motion then output it as a video file for import into FCP.
Good luck,
x

Poor quality in QT/dvd

I use KN 08 very successfully displaying media ideas on TV's. I export to QT then burn a disc using toast. I need to use toast as i don't want a menu and it needs to play upon insertion.
the quality looks fine on TV's even HD. But, i cannot get one after creating the DVD to look good on a computer play back. the text and graphics appear soft or slightly out of focus. Is there another format I need to be using? is this a compression problem?

I was going to post the same (I think) question here, but I think you’ve answered it. Just to confirm we are talking about the same thing:
I have a KN '08 presentation that I exported to a QuickTime movie (at maximum quality).
When I play the resulting .mov file in QT it looks great (even full screen).
After taking that .mov and creating a autoplaying, DVD (in Toast Titanium 8.0-- again using maximum available quality), it looks blurry and slightly jerky.
Is this just an artifact of the conversion to DVD? Is there anything that can be done to improve this?

Poor quality text in DVD Studio Pro

Hi there,
I'm using DVD Studio Pro. I create menus in Photoshop and export flattened .psd files.
I work in PAL. This problem is worse in 16x9 (anamorphic).
I create the menus at the true original res of 1024x576. When the menus are imported into DVD Studio Pro the text becomes jagged and pixelated. I understand that non-square pixels are causing this, but I don't know of a solution.
What is the best way to bring menus and text into DVD Studio Pro?
I have searched a lot and noone has a great solution.
Thanks heaps,
Mike

You may find that Photoshop does a better job of resampling down to your SD PAL resolution. When DVDSP resamples down from your 1024x576 file, you are at the mercy of the hardware or software rendering in DVDSP, depending on your DVDSP prefs. Ideally, I'd work in Photoshop at 720x576, and use the pixel aspect ratio correction to correct the preview aspect ratio in Photoshop.

HELP! Video in canvas is tiny and poor quality

Help me! Im about to break something out of frustration and lack of knowledge.
I started a project in FCP . Im not exactly the most knowledgeable when it comes to final cut so I didnt bother to change any of the sequence setting etc. I had a group of files, shot on a 5D mkII, which I had converted to ProRes. Looking at the files themselves in Finder, the quality was perfect. I imported the prores files into final cut and began editing my video. The files were good quality in the viewer but awful quality in the canvas. I stupidly soldiered on, thinking it was because it was just a preview. However, when i came to export it, the final result was equally as bad as in the canvas.
I tried to find out what was wrong by looking around online and found I should have adjusted the sequence settings. I changed them to 1280x1080. However, now the video is still terrible quality and also much smaller in the canvas. Strangely enough, now that I have changed the sequence settings, everytime I drag one of the prores files onto my timeline, it appears full size and good quality on the canvas. All the stuff before it on the timeline is small and poor quality still. also, dragging prores files onto the timeline, it is now needing to render them before they will play.
Is there someway I can get everything I have edited up to full quality? Or am I going to have to start again?
Im not great at explaining myself i know. Any help would be massively appreciated

If this helps, this is a screenshot. You can see the clip in the viewer is full size but the canvas is showing a smaller, poorer quality clip.

DVD poor quality

I just created a DVD but the video quality is too poor to use. I get 'ghosting' or flicker with motion, which is 99% of the content.
A client gave me 14 home-made DVDs containing video of high school basketball games and asked me to create a highlight video. I edited the VOB files in Premiere CS4 (4.1.0) to pull highlights and compile them into a single highlight DVD.
I exported the video to Adobe Media Encoder (4.0.0.374) to create a F4V file to be used on websites. I used the standard preset. The quality of the F4V video is good.
I then used Adobe Dynamic Link to export to Encore CS4 (4.0.0.258). I burned a DVD and the result was a DVD with poor quality.
There is a brief clip in the highlight video that I recorded myself of the athlete providing a short introduction of himself. That clip and the still titles I made look good on the DVD, but the highlight clips from the client's DVDs are very poor.
From some of the discussions I've already read in this forum, I assume I need to change a field option or the Anti-flicker value under Effect Controls or something similar, but haven't figured out what yet. Also, when I make changes to values, do I have to burn a DVD to see the result of the change or is there a better way to preview?
Thanks for your help!
Dan

A client gave me 14 home-made DVDs containing video of high school basketball games and asked me to create a highlight video. I edited the VOB files in Premiere CS4 (4.1.0) to pull highlights and compile them into a single highlight DVD.
It is very likely that the double MPEG-2 encoding is degrading the material too much. Is it possible to get back to the client's original tapes? That would save one MPEG-2 compression. Otherwise, what you have is probably as good as it will get.
Good luck,
Hunt

PAL poor quality DVD

Have imported PAL video from HDV Sony camera in PAL format and burned DVD in PAL format too. Quality pretty poor on DVD. I imported in the format one below 1080 as the guide says little quality is lost. Does anyone import in full 1080 quality and does this improve quality of end DVD?
Also, how do I share finished project back to camera? I always did this on my old G4 with iMovie 6.

Try sharing to the Media Browser rather than using share to iDVD. Then, create a new iDVD project and drag the movie into the project from the Media pane in iDVD. This worked for me. I think you still need to use iMovie 6 to put the movie back on tape. Just export your movie from iMovie 09 using Quicktime (AIC codec) and import to iM 6.

Why are burned DVD's poor quality from the IDVD?

I made a slideshow in iphoto and exported to IDVD so I could burn copies. The show lloked great on screen but the first copies on dvd's were terrible. The quality of images are very poor and seem to be depixilated? Why would the copies be so poor? Does the widescreen or standard have something to do with it??
Help

Hi
There are levels in h*e*l*l*
iDVD - is same as DVD Standard - Interlaced SD-Video
Feeding iDVD progressive or HD material will not improve result but degrade this as from
- iMovie'08 to 11 - as they can not deliver - but only every second line of the picture
- iDVD downscaling from HD - is doing a bad job
So by using a program that can deliver - best possibly DVD is the result
- iMovie HD6
- FinalCut any version
- FotoMagico™ - (for SlideShows)
If this is not enough - then DVD is no option as HD-DVD is rare and needs special HD-DVD-players - alt
• Blu-Ray e.g. from Roxio Toast™ but still needs BD-Player as PlayStation3 etc
• out in high quality to USB-memory to be played on device that can do this
• Play via MacBook and out to a HD-projector/TV
DVD quality
1. iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (version 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1) and iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST (but not always for short movies e.g. up to 45 minutes in total)
• Best Performances
(movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6)
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
Menu can take 15 minutes or even more - I use a very simple one with no audio or animation like ”Brushed Metal” in old Themes.
About double on DL DVDs.
2. Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not self-containing, no conversion)
• iMovie x-6 - Don't use ”Share/Export to iDVD” = destructive even to movie project and especially so
when the movie includes photos and the Ken Burns effect NOT is used. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.
3. I use Roxio Toast™ to make an as slow burn as possibly e.g. x4 or x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with Apple’s Disk Utilities application when burning from a DiskImage.
4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't
use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc). For SD-Video - if HD-material is used I guess that 4 to 5 times more would do.
5. I use Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
6. I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW) - DVD-R play’s on more and older DVD-Players
7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD
(I use JES_Deinterlacer to keep frame per sec. same from editing to the Video-DVD result.)
8. Don’t burn more than three DVDs at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while before next batch.
iDVD quality also depends on.
• DVD is a standard in it self. It is Standard Definition Quality = Same as on old CRT-TV sets and can not
deliver anything better that this.
HD-DVD was a short-lived standard and it was only a few Toshiba DVD-players that could playback.
These DVDs could be made in DVD-Studio Pro. But they don’t playback on any other standard DVD-Player.
Blu-Ray / BD can be coded onto DVDs but limited in time to - about 20-30 minutes and then need
_ Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro incl. BD-component
_ BD disks and burner if full length movies are to be stored
_ BD-Player or PlayStation3 - to be able to playback
The BD-encoded DVDs can be play-backed IF Mac also have Roxio DVD-player tool. Not on any standard Mac or DVD-player
Full BD-disks needs a BD-player (in Mac) as they need blue-laser to be read. No red-laser can do this.
• HOW much free space is there on Your internal (start-up) hard disk. Go for approx. 25Gb.
less than 5Gb and Your result will most probably not play.
• How it was recorded - Tripod vs Handheld Camera. A stable picture will give a much higher quality
• Audio is most often more critical than picture. Bad audio and with dropouts usually results in a non-viewed movie.
• Use of Video-editor. iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not the tools for DVD-production. They discard every second line resulting in a close to VHS-tape quality.
iMovie 1 to HD6 and FinalCut any version delivers same quality as Camera record in = 100% to iDVD
• What kind of movie project You drop into it. MPEG4 seems to be a bad choice.
other strange formats are .avi, .wmv, .flash etc. Convert to streamingDV first
Also audio formats matters. I use only .aiff or from miniDV tape Camera 16-bit
strange formats often problematic are .avi, .wmv, audio from iTunes, .mp3 etc
Convert to .aiff first and use this in movie project
• What kind of standard - NTSC movie and NTSC DVD or PAL to PAL - no mix.
(If You need to change to do a NTSC DVD from PAL material let JES_Deinterlacer_3.2.2 do the conversion)
(Dropping a PAL movie into a NTSC iDVD project
(US) NTSC DVDs most often are playable in EU
(EU) PAL DVDs most often needs to be converted to play in US
UNLESS. They are play-backed by a Mac - then You need not to care
• What kind of DVDs You are using. I use Verbatim DVD-R (this brand AND no +R or +/-RW)
• How You encode and burn it. Two settings prior iDVD’08 or 09
Pro Quality (only in iDVD 08 & 09)
Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)
Best / High Performances (most often my choice before Pro Quality)
1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09
(x4 by some and may be even better)
2. Project info. Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD 08 & 09.
Region codes.
iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere
DVD Studio pro can set Region codes.
1 = US
2 = EU
unclemano wrote
What it turned out to be was the "quality" settings in iDVD. The total clip time was NOT over 2 hours or 4.7GB, yet iDVD created massive visual artifacts on the "professional quality" setting.
I switched the settings to "high quality" which solved the problem. According iDVD help, "high quality" determines the best bit rate for the clips you have.
I have NEVER seen iDVD do this before, especially when I was under the 2 hour and 4.7GB limits.
For anyone else, there seem to be 2 places in iDVD to set quality settings, the first is under "preferences" and the second under "project info." They do NOT seem to be linked (i.e. if you change one, the other is NOT changed). take care, Mario
to get this to work I
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk
• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)
• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices
• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc
• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use
• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project
• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it
• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !
Try to break the process up into two stages
• Save as a DiskImage (calculating part)
• Burn from this .img file (burning stage)
To isolate where the problem starts.
Another thing is - Playing it onto a Blu-Ray Player. My PlayStation3 can play BD-disks but not all of my home made DVDs so to get this to work I
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk
• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)
• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices
• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc
• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use
• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project
• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it
• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !
TO GET IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER
• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk
• No other programs running in BackGround e.g. Energy-Saver
• Don’t let HD spin down or be turned off (in Energy-Save)
• Move hard disks that are not to be used to Trash - To be disconnected/turned off
• Goto Spotlight and set the rest of them under Integrity (not to be scanned)
• Set screen-saver to a folder without any photo - then make an active corner (up right for me) and set
pointer to this - turns on screen saver - to show that it has nothing to show
• No File Vault on - Important
• NO - TimeMachine - during iMovie/iDVD work either ! IMPORTANT
• Lot's of icons on DeskTop/Finder also slows down the Mac noticeably
• Start a new User-Account and log into this and iMovie get's faster too - if a project is in a hurry
• And let Mac run on Mains - not just on battery
Yours Bengt W

I must be doing something stupid: Very poor quality DVD rendering!

I am new to Apple products and after trolling this forum, I was able to create a DVD using iDVD on my Mac mini Core Duo - 2Ghz model. But, the video is of very poor quality (compression artifacts). I am lookging for guidance to creating a better video quality. But first, let me give you some background...
I have created enough DVDs for my home videos captured both from my S-VHS camcorder and min-DV camcorders (both PAL and NTSC) using Pinnacle Studio (buggiest software in the world) and Adobe Premiere Elements under Windows. I have clear expectation of video quality and understand the quality differences between various standards.
I have a fairly new toy - Canon Powershot TX1 digital camera which is an amazing compact camera that shoots 720p video @ 30fps and stores them in MJPEG format. Very good optics (10x optical image stabilized zoom). The only con is that it has very poor low light shooting ability.
The steps I took to create this DVD...
1. Import the .avi and .jpeg files from my camera into iPhoto library.
2. Use iMovie (all part of iLife'08) to stitch the avi clips and also some of jpegs. Added transitions, titles and music in iMovie.
3. Also, added some of my old low resolution avi files (from my older Canon camera - probably in 640x480 resolution).
3. Exported it in the largest file mode (960x540) which created a 1.8GB file.
4. Opened this movie file in Garageband and added the Chapter markers.
5. Shared it with iDVD which automatically launched iDVD and showed the chapters in very nice scene selections menus.
6. Invoked the Burn menu to burn the movie into a DVD using iDVD.
Am I using the right methodology (I want the chapters)? I also observed that an earlier project which was pure 15 minutes of 720p content created a 4.7GB size exported file from iMovie whereas this current project has 51min of avi (of which about 10min is low res and the rest is in 720p format) and 12min of still photos produced a 1.8GB file when exported. This clearly tells me that the exported file is of poor quality. Why did that happen? Was it because I mixed the content and included low res videos?
I should probably try creating a DVD from the pure 720p content and see how that looks.
Any pointers would be a great help. BTW, the mac mini, iPhoto and iMovie forums are just awesome. The quality of posts and responses is very high.

Thanks a lot, F Shippey.
I exported it as a .dv file and then I was able to produce the DVD correctly with the Revolution theme and 11 chapters. I haven't done any editing any clips yet in iMovie. In most cases, I will not need to do that in most cases as the Canon TX1 creates individual avi clips every time I record and stop a recording. Having used a camcorder for over a decade now, I know how silly most of the recordings are.
I will be rendering most of my videos as h.264 so that I can use the mac mini as a media server instead of using DVDs. I have to rip my own DVDs as h.264 soon (back to handbrake).
PS: While creating my first DVD in OS X + iLife'08 tools, I noticed the following bugs:
1. The clips disappear from the display in the editing window when the project becomes large and I had to zoom in and out to make them reappear. I verified that I wasn't viewing past the end of the last clip. If I hover the mouse in the blank window, it will show the clip in the preview window on the right.
2. I had 11 chapters marked in Garageband and then I shared it with iDVD, it created two pages of scene selections with 6 chapters in each page. In the 2nd page, it added a random window (unconnected) for the 12th chapter that I didn't have. I didn't check for that and so my finished DVD has this weird 12th chapter with a copied moving clip in the window, but when selected, it doesn't do anything.
These two bugs are way few compared to what Pinnacle Studio threw at me.
Message was edited by: new2appletv

DOH! Poor quality output after 4 days trying to perfect the DVD

Hi guys
I have been trying to burn a 1hr 27min .avi file (700MB) for 4 days now. Ive tried a few ways but each time the DVD has poorer quality video than the original file.
I tried:
- opening .avi file in ImovieHD and then sharing it with iDVD (it refused to burn it, after going thru the whole rendering encoding process mind you)
- going straight to iDVD (definitely it would not burn)
- opening in QT Pro and then 'stream as DV'. which i opened in iDVD and saved as disc image with menus etc. burnt using toast titanium - probably the best result so far i think)
however the dv file was worse than an mp4 file i created using iSquint from the .avi.
- have also tried just opening the avi in toast and burning from there. worse product than the previous one.
So, any suggestions? The main problem is things look quite jagged and a bit pixelated if you know what i mean. Where as the mp4 file, which ive played using iTunes and VLC, is quite smooth (but you can see there's still a bit of quality loss when sharp movements are made by the actors.(expected).
So I've lost lots of time on this stupid thing, but I just really want to sort out how to do it well once and for all.
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks

G'day Looneysbin
Sounds like a hardware problem. Is your drive under warranty?
For a start, try rendering your iDVD project to a disk image, instead of burning straight to disk.
Then, create a new Burn Folder on your desktop, and drag the VIDEO.TS file from the opened disk image to the burn folder (note that only an alias actually gets put in the folder).
Next, use Control-click on the Burn Folder to get the contextual menu, and select 'Burn Disc'. Follow the prompts, but burn at the minimum speed available.
This way, your apparent hardware problem won't mean re-rendering the iDVD file each time you try and burn a disc.
You can also keep the .img file on your hard drive as a backup of the disc.
You might also be having a problem with quality of the actual discs themselves. What brand are you using?
Regards
Santa

Poor Quality Stills on DVD

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for