Quality loss in iDVD

Hi there
I've made a slideshow in FCE 3.5.1 (made it in FCE to have full control over the length of each photo to time with the music)
The photos started out as really big jpegs - 3016x5041, but I didn't want to make smaller versions in case I wanted to zoom in on any.
When I export a Quicktime the quality looks perfect on screen - but it's big, about 15 gig.
I made the movie in 1080i 50, and exported a reference movie to import into iDVD.
Unfortunately the final DVD is terrible quality on screen.
Does anyone know where my problem is stemming from? Is the slideshow too big or have I just got the settings wrong?
I have iDVD 6.0.4.
Thanks in advance
Helen

Hi
copy of an answer on a similar question - may be of help
the iMovie 08 & 09 don't apply
*There are two problems in this question.*
• iDVD
• iMovie'08 or 09
iDVD - can only handle Standard definition TV quality - NO version can handle HD !
SD-TV
EU - PAL system = 625 lines analog display (no pixles) 25fps
US - NTSC system = 520 lines and 29.97 fps
That's the best iDVD can do.
iMovie up to version HD 6 - could handle interlaced video (displaying every second line
first then start over with the rest - 25fps = 50 frames of interlaced video
less flickering.
iMovie'08 and 09 has destroyed this by deleting every second line
Result a resolution of
PAL 312 lines
NTSC 260 lines
So photos displayed this way will look crappy.
Improvment
Use iMovie HD 6 or FinalCut Express or Pro
Else only way I know of to get "full" quality is by using other tools all together.
Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro (incl BR-component) and here the included FotoMagico™ for SlideShows.
Toast™ also can burn Blue-Ray - even on standard DVD (but much less eg 20 min movie)
These BR-DVDs Can only be playbacked on a Blue-Ray Player (eg PlayStation 3)
But they look super.
A more specific part reg. FinalCut
I do in FC-Express or Pro
• Export out as a QuickTime .mov file
• Not selfcontained (not important but saves time and spaces)
• NO QUICKTIME CONVERSION (Important)
I use
• Verbatim DVD-R disks
• Burn at a reduced speed x1 or x4 recommended by many)
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk for 4x3 SD video
and my guess is that I would secure 5 - 6 times more for 16x9 HD
(Still no version of iDVD can do HD)
Yours Bengt W

Similar Messages

Heavy quality loss in iDVD 6

Hi,
I made movies in HD standard (1440 x 1080i) comprising HD material (1280 x 720) and stills (1920 x 1080) and included slide shows (jpg´s 1920 x 1080 px, 180 dpi).
The movies and slide shows look fine on the screen (crisp & sharp).
After including the material in iDVD6 an rederering the stuff in "best quality" the result is absolutely disappointing: movies and fotos have lost a great deal of the sharp original resolution and look "muddy".
Is iDVD not capable to render HD material in an adequate way?

Hi
And there are two small points more.
• iDVD - update function = lot's of problems
• Photos in iMovie - then Send/Export to iDVD - gives a really bad result
First iDVD - When You done Your layout and assembled the DVDs content - DON't
go back to eg iMovie and change ANYTHING.
If You do - iDVD will notice and ask to update - THIS has a severe BUG that results in
a. All chapters will point to same place
b. Most probably quality issues too (my guess)
iMovie. When I include photos and are done with ediiting I
• Close iMovie
• Open iDVD and start a new project
• Import from within iDVD - so that iMovie can't do any rendering. iDVD does this so much better.
One more quality factor is
• low free space on internal boot hard disk - NEVER under 25Gb on my Mac
Yours Bengt W

Video quality loss

I am importing video from a DVD using "Mac the Ripper", then converting the VOB files using "Video converter for mac 3.2.6".
Making up the my movie in Imovie 06 sending it to Idvd 08, and then burning a disc image using the best performance setting.
This all works fine except the quality from the original DVD is much better than the final result, being digital I thought there would not be much quality loss.
Is there a better way to achieve this without losing video quality. Or should I use different settings in any of the programs, (I have not changed settings from default setting in "Mac the Ripper" or "Video Converter".
Any advice appreciated, I am new to this process, but apart from quality loss I am having success.

Noted Bazmond, but we have to be careful!
You need to convert the VOB files back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.

Exporting a movie on a G4 without quality loss

I do not have idvd on my PowerMac G4. Can someone explain how to export a movie without quality loss? I tried the various options in the dropdown menu but they seem to cause distortion.
~Thanks

Without quality loss ... what format did you start with? What format or delivery media do you need to output? If you're going to DVD-Video, there will be a quality loss due to the amount of compression needed.
You can output a QT movie (self-contained, using current settings, do NOT recompress!) that should be an exact duplicate of your sequence.
-DH

Display size query, + quality loss from iMovie originals

Learning to work the iDVD process, but what is the word on a foolproof sizing method, such that the thing will display OK on any TV? I don't see any way to restrict display size in iMovie, and what good is the TV Safe check, if you can't control the display size?? Also is quality loss inevitable? I'm compiling the DVD from separate files, less than 1 gb ea. I used "full quality" Quicktime compressed versions from the original iMovie file (which look fine in QT); then pulled those back in to iMovie, then shared to iDVD. One of the files looks fine encoded, but the other has weird sizzling-oil standing wave artifacts, even on still scenes from jpegs. Looking for help/comment/expressions of sympathy
Thanks,
John
Houston TX

Hi v
Quality of the DVD-disc depends on several things.
• Highes Quality isn't Top - better is Best Performances (up to 60 min movie)
confused naming - in iDVD'08 there is Pro Quality AND I like it.
• Media brand - I use Verbatim
• Type: DVD-R my choise no DVD+R or +/-RW
• I save a Disc-Image and burn this at an as SLOW speed as possibly (eg x1) with Toast™
(Disc Util tool can also do this)
• I DON'T USE the function Share/Export to iDVD from within iMovie - IT IS DESTRUCTIVE !!
Just drop the movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window - then iDVD do the
rendering and so much better. Especially if there is photos in the movie.
• Free space on internal (start-up) hard disc - should be about 25Gb when all material is imported
and structured. This for iDVD to work with - iDVD can't use an extern hard disc as scratch.
(less than 5Gb - result is most probably of no use at all)
This is what come's first to my mind.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie HD6: HDV to AIC to HDV... quality loss?

Hi All,
I'm curious, when I use my normal workflow (HDV to AIC (imovie 6) to HDV), does it lose quality?
If so:
* Is there a way to avoid this?
* How much quality is lost? Is there a visual comparison available?
Thanks for any input!

Dear catspaw,
Here are my thoughts, based on my experiences, and what I think I understand of all this..
1. Standard-definition DV (those little tapes, or the larger 'broadcast' tapes) is pretty much compression-free ..we-ell, strictly speaking there's some, but relatively little, compression used in DV. It looks perfect, although it is slightly compressed. The material recorded onto tape - and imported into iMovie - contains every frame which the camcorder optics see. So editing it is simple: all the frames get copied into iMovie, and you can chop out, or insert, anything you want. Using iMovie HD 6, or earlier, you can then copy the edited material back to a DV camcorder ..all the frames get shuffled out of the computer and back onto tape again. (You can't do that with iMovie '08, as it has no option to Export to Camcorder.) What you see in iMovie - after importing from a DV camcorder - isn't exactly the same as what you've imported, because iMovie runs on a computer, and uses a computer display, and that generally shows complete "progressive" frames of video, whereas a TV ..or TVs with cathode ray tubes; precursors to the latest LCD or DLP or plasma TVs.. will generally show interlaced 'half-frames' one after the other, each comprising half the TV picture, but shown in such rapid succession that they blur into each other, and our brains see a succession of complete frames.
(..Here's a good visual representation from one of Adam Wilt's pages:
..There are two 'fields' of video, each made of half the entire number of lines down the screen, superimposed on each other, and blending into a full frame of video comprised of all the lines. That's what happens on a TV screen when the interlaced 'fields' of video blend together..)
So standard-def DV is really plain and simple, and there should be no quality loss after shooting, importing, editing, exporting.
2. Hi-def. A can of worms. There are several different varieties of "hi-def". What we're working with in our 'amateur' movie program, iMovie, is generally the HDV version of hi-def, or the AVCHD version. (And a few people may be working with JVC's version of 'progressive' frames, but with a lower total number of lines down the screen: 720p, instead of 1080i. 720p has 720 pixels down the screen, and records and presents an entire 'progressive' ..one-line-after-the-other.. frame of video at a time, whereas 1080i shows 1080 pixels down the screen, consisting of half that number, 540; all the 'odd-numbered' lines.. at a time, immediately followed by the other half ..the even-numbered lines.. slotting in-between the previous lot. That repeating pair of 540 'interleaved' lines gives a total of 1080 interlaced lines in every frame. Movement appears smoother using 1080i (..after all, the picture is refreshed twice as often as with single-complete-frame 'progessive' video..) but may not look as super-sharp as progressive video, because at any moment there's only half the total information of a frame onscreen. 'Interlaced' video is smoother, and any action flows more "creamily", whereas 'progressive' may be considered 'sharper' (..it is if you freeze a frame..) but more jerky.)
So our 'amateur' hi-def movies may be recorded as HDV, AVCHD or some other similar format. 'Professional', or broadcast-intended, hi-def may consist of several other non-amateur formats, some of which are completely uncompressed and require extremely fast links between the cameras and recording equipment, and massive-capacity hard discs to capture and edit the huge quantity of data which such cameras..
..deliver ..for $150,000. Or here's a remote-control broadcast hi-def camera for (only) $7,995..
(..Tell me if I'm boring you..)
The hi-def cameras which we're more likely to be using..
..record compressed video in MPEG-2 format, or H.264, or some similar codec. The idea behind HDV was that the companies which make 'consumer-grade' (amateur) camcorders wanted a method to record hi-def - with about 4x the data of standard-def - onto the little miniDV tapes which we were all familiar with. So a method was found to squeeze 4x the data onto a tape which normally records standard-def DV data at 25 megabits per second. The method decided upon was MPEG-2 ..the same codec which is used to squeeze a two-hour Hollywood film onto a little 4.7GB capacity DVD. (Bollywood movies, as distinct from Hollywood movies, tend to be three hours long!)
If MPEG-2 was good enough for the latest cinema releases, in nice, sharp, sharper-than Super-VHS form, then it was thought to be good enough for 'domestic' hi-def recordings. The only awkward thing about that - from an editing point of view.. (..but which of the camcorder manufacturers are seriously interested in editing..? ..they primarily want to sell 'product' which - according to their advertising - is terrific at simply recording and playing-back video. Like car advertising shows you how wonderful cars are to sit in and for travelling to places, but the adverts don't tell you about how tricky it may be to get into the rear sidelights and replace a blown bulb..) ..is that in HDV there's only one 'real' frame for every 15 frames recorded on the tape. The other 14 are just indications of what's different between the various frames. Therefore, for editing, the 'missing' frames must be rebuilt during import into iMovie.
Steve Jobs heralded 2005 - at MacWorld, you may remember - as the "Year of HD!" ..It became possible to import and edit hi-def in iMovie ..that is, the HDV version of hi-def, not the uncompressed 'professional' broadcast version of hi-def, of course.. but ONLY with a fast enough computer ..and many weren't fast enough to import and convert HDV to editable-format in real-time (..no mention of it being the year you would import at half, or a quarter, or an eighth, real-time ..ugh-ugh).
So HDV gets converted to AIC to make it editable ..and then what d'you do with it? ..Few (none of them?) HDV camcorders let you import HDV back to tape from iMovie. No Macs had/have Blu-Ray burners ..although you can burn about 20 mins of hi-def onto normal DVDs with a Mac's normal inbuilt SuperDrive DVD burner with the appropriate software ..DVD Studio Pro, or Toast, etc.
(..Once again, there was some omission from the hoopla ..yes; you can import HDV! ..yes; you can edit HDV! ..er, no, sorry; no mention that you can't burn a 1 hour hi-def home video onto a hi-def DVD with a Mac ..iDVD would/will only burn in standard-def, and there are no Blu-Ray burners built into Macs..)
Then came AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec; High Definition). This compresses video even more than HDV (whose compression is pretty much invisible, and is in regular use for broadcast material) by using a different method. And along came progressive hi-def recording, trying to supersede HDV's generally 'interlaced' 1080i hi-def.
But the problem with progressive, non-interlaced AVCHD is that if there's rapid movement in a scene - if you move the camera, or something rapidly crosses the picture - instead of the "creamy flow" of interlaced video, there's a jerky lurch from one frame to the next. And with the added extra compression of AVCHD this jerkiness can be (..to my mind..) even more horribly evident.
Anyway, unscrambling ..and then re-assembling.. hi-def interlaced MPEG-2 HDV is pretty much invisible - to me, anyway. The video looks sharp, moves smoothly, looks 'true-to-life' and doesn't have terrible artifacts and jerks.
Unscrambling ..and then re-assembling.. hi-def interlaced or progressive AVCHD (..which is sometimes described as MPEG-4 or H.264..) - I know that you know this, but I'm also writing for others here - isn't quite as simple as doing the same for tape-based MPEG-2 hi-def HDV. Here's all the gobbledegook about what AVCHD can consist of.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_AVC
..Oh, and here's a bit about the "usability" of AVCHD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
There are many more 'varieties' of encoding in AVCHD than in 'simpler' hi-def, such as HDV. There's less data sent in an AVCHD data stream than HDV (..AVCHD has jumped from 17MBits/sec to 24MBits/sec ..just below HDV's 25MBits/sec..) so the video is more compressed than HDV. And there are all sorts of video formats (interlaced, progressive, HD, 'Full' HD) which are recorded by different cameras under the all-embracing 'AVCHD' label. iMovie - or a Mac - has to work much harder to unscramble and convert the more-compressed AVCHD format(s) than uncompressing HDV. And has to work harder to compress the output of iMovie to H.264 (an AVCHD codec) than when re-compressing to MPEG-2 (the codec for standard-def DVDs and hi-def HDV).
To - finally! - come back to your question "..is there therefore no advantage in using DV tape-based vidcams for editing purposes.." I'd say that there ARE advantages in using tape-based vidcams for editing purposes ..using your two categories:
1. Non-hi-def tape-based DV is ..to all intents and purposes.. lossless. And the material can be imported in real-time, and be output - with no loss - in real-time, too, using any Mac from an old G3 onwards. Importing non-tape material into iMovie ..e.g; miniDVDs, or chip-based, more compressed video.. is more long-winded, and generally has to go through various external bits of software (..e.g; MPEG Streamclip or somesuch..) to put it into a format that's editable in iMovie. AVCHD can, theoretically - as 'AVC', without the 'HD' - be used for recording in standard-def, but there are currently few AVCHD camcorders which are built to record standard-def video as well ..there is the Sony HDR-SR12. But only iMovie running on an Intel-powered Mac will decode AVCHD, apart from separate standalone Mac software such as 'Voltaic'.
2. Hi-def tape-based recording IS an advantage on anything that's less than the fastest, or highest-powered, of Macs, because it needs less "horsepower" to "unpack" the compressed data and to get it into an editable format through recovering, or rebuilding, the necessary individual frames. I think it's an advantage in every case, as not only can tape-based hi-def be edited on older, slower Macs (including pre-Intel Macs) but also:
(a) HDV data's less compressed, and so motion is generally expressed - currently - more "fluidly" than with the more compressed hard-disc or chip-stored AVCHD,
(b) HDV original material is "self-archived" onto its tapes ..you don't have to "empty" a camcorder's hard disc or memory chips onto something else - such as a separate hard drive - in order to re-use, or continue using, the camcorder: you just drop in another cheap 1-hour tape,
(c) Tape-containing camcorders tend to be heavier, less lightweight, than fewer-moving-parts chip-based AVCHD camcorders. They're therefore inherently less "wobbly" and don't tremble so much in your hand ..that gives smoother, less "jiggled-about" recordings ..even taking into account the stabilisation built into most camcorders,
(d) Tape-based camcorders are less likely to lose an entire 'shoot' by being dropped or mis-treated. Material already recorded onto a tape will not be damaged if you drop the camera and its tape-heads thereby become misaligned. The data can be recovered by simply ejecting the tape and popping it into another camcorder. If a hard-disc camcorder is dropped, subsequent head misalignment may mean that all data already on the hard disc is irrecoverable. If a memory chip becomes corrupted, all data may similarly become irrecoverable. If a tape becomes damaged, it's usually only a few seconds' worth which be lost. (..I dropped a tape-based camcorder in the sea when I was trying to get shots of waves coming in onto the beach from an offshore viewpoint, and a wave washed right over me and knocked me down. The camcorder was a write-off, but I managed to prise the tape out, and recover the 30 minutes of movie I'd already recorded. I don't really want to test it, but I have doubts about whether I'd have been able to recover my video from a similarly-drowned hard-disc based camcorder ..maybe, in the interests of factual objectivity I'll try it some day with an old, no-longer-used 2.5" hard disc..)
(e) AVCHD camcorders - unless you're looking at 'semi-pro' or professional 'cost-a-plenty' record-to-chip camcorders, or that Sony HD12..
..are generally built for "point-and-shoot" amateurs. This means that AVCHD camcorders generally do not have the assortment of manual controls which you find on most tape-based HDV camcorders (..because the camcorder makers also aim, or aimed, HDV at low-cost broadcast users, too). There's usually far greater flexibility and more shooting options (shutter speeds, exposure, audio handling) on tape-based HDV camcorders than can be found on AVCHD camcorders. If you're just pointing and shooting, that doesn't matter ..but if you want to shoot good-looking video, there are generally - and it is a generalisation - more adjustment options to be found on a tape-based camcorder than on a chip-based or hard-disc AVCHD camcorder. In my experience - yours may be different - people tempted by AVCHD camcorders tend to buy (..and manufacturers tend to publicise..) high pixel counts (like "Full HD 1920x1080") and that magic word "progressive" (perhaps because it has the flavour, in English, of "futuristic" or "more advanced") rather than their being concerned with choices of apertures or shutter speeds and the clearest representation of what the camcorder's pointing at.
In summary ..at last!.. "..is there therefore no advantage in using DV tape-based vidcams for editing purposes.." Yes; the advantages, I believe, are that HDV converts fast into AIC for editing; my perception is that HDV delivers smoother action (onscreen movement) than AVCHD; and with a suitable deck..
..HDV can be returned back to tape, whereas it's more long-winded and needs more subterfuge to export AVCHD back to a chip, or a camcorder's hard disc, for in-camera replay ..and thence out to an HDTV.
As always, these are simply my opinions ..others may disagree.

Significant quality loss and jagged diagonal lines when exporting from FCP

I've been working on this problem for several days and I'm going insane! Every time I export my movie from Final Cut, there is a significant quality loss. It is most noticeable in two ways: diagonal lines become very jagged (looking somewhat like diagonal lines in an older video game -- more a diagonal sequence of blocks); also, in some areas such as faces, the colors get a little blurry and there seems to some "pooling" of colors around the edges of the face.
I'm pretty sure the problem's not in capture: the Quicktime clips that I captured from the camera are all pristine. When I play them in Quicktime, I can blow them up several times their original size, and they maintain their sharp lines. (I also Reverse Telecined them all with Cinema Tools, if that's relevant.) I also know the problem's not just my computer monitor; when I play these movies on my external monitor and TV, they look bad too. The clips look bad after I bring them into Final Cut, and while I'm editing, but at first I figured that was because Final Cut sometimes doesn't show full resolution in the timeline. Still, when I export, the quality of the original captures just isn't there.
Some details:
Captured from 24A progressive, Sony HVR V1U HDV.
Using Final Cut 6.0.1, Compressor 3.0.1, Quicktime 7.2.0, OS 10.4.10 (all the most recent versions I believe).
I've exported in many different ways: using Compressor (and have tried a number of different settings: the DVD Best Quality 90 Minutes default Setting, as well as using a variety of bit rates from 3.0-8.0, One pass CBR, Two pass CBR, Two pass VBR, Two pass VBR best; Video Formats NTSC, HD 1440x1080...I have tried many combinations. Regardless of the size of the m2v created, the files seem to have the same problem over and over. I've also tried exporting from Final Cut as a Quicktime Movie and with Quicktime Conversion. Same result. I also tried using different compressors with my Final Cut sequence: Apple Intermediate Codec (which I used when capturing -- you have to with the Sony HVR), HDV 1080p24, HDV 1080i60, Apple Pro Res 422, H.264...
What's happening? Why is Final Cut turning my nice pristine captures into jagged foulness? What can I try that I haven't yet?

Welcome to the forums!
Unfortunately, you seem to have tried everything I can think of, and I don't have the latest versions of FCP to know if it is a bug. However, in the off chance that you haven't given this a shot:
Take a problematic 10 second section of your timeline (set in and out points) and the Export -> Quicktime (not QT Conversion) and make sure that you have it on Quality settings that you captured, and select the "Make Self Contained" box.
Look at that in Quicktime and see if it's bad. If it's not problematic, use that video file in Compressor for your render.
Hope that helps!
~Luke

IMovie project quality poor in iDVD export

I'm having problems with the quality of iMovie projects exported to iDVD. The final dvd looks very pixelated, however, when I export the same project to iTunes and view the video on same TV, the video looks perfect...clear as a bell, when great definition.
Here's what I'm doing...
Video imported from my HD camera at Large 960x540,Optimize setting.
Clips moved from Events to Projects.
No major edits made in Projects outside of a trim or two.
Project 'Finalized.'
Project sent to iDVD via Share > iDVD.
Am I missing something? I've even tried omitting step 4 above...not finalizing. Same DVD result. The video looks perfect on my screen in both iMovie and iDVD as I work on it. Only experiencing problem with final DVD output.
I'm using iMovie 11 (v9.0.4), iDVD (v7.1.2).
This is the first time that I've used iMovie 11 to create my video before sending to iDVD. In the past, I've used iMovie HD and never had a problem with iDVD output.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hi
There are lot's of thought's about this - read as much as You want of my notes.
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.
DO not use - "Share to iDVD" in any iMovie version !
iMä'08 to 11 - "Share to Media Browser" and as LARGE or Medium - NOT HD or other resolutions as this too degrades the final DVD.
3. I use Apple Disk Util tool (or 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 DeaskTop/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

Tif export quality loss

hi,
i exported a tif sequence from a mp4 in premiere (cs6) to do some compositing on it. the exported images look the same but when doing some color correction on it the tif sequence reveals that it's in lower quality.
the left side is the tif export with significant less detail.
i also tried ae with color management but i always had the same problem.
rendering with 'use max depth' and 'use max quality' did not solve the problem.
did i miss something or is premiere processing some colors wrong internally?
(as a sidenote, quicktime player, nuke, vegas12 worked just fine)

hi,
it looks like the problem is related to mpeg 4. i did not have time to do further testing. here is the file info:
Format                         : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                 : Advanced Simple@L3
Format settings, BVOP          : Yes
Format settings, QPel          : No
Format settings, GMC           : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix        : Default (H.263)
it did not occur with other videos.
the interesting thing is that the quality is fine within the timeline. but upon output there is a quality loss.
no, output is 8bit. as mentioned in the first post 'use max depth' did not solve the problem.
quicktime based applications did not have the issue.
as for the color shift problem i thought it is related to the same issue but it was something different and is fixed now. i was unable to edit the post to remove it.

Sound Quality Loss

When I create a track on an audio instrument track using the Vienna Symphonic Library Special Edition, the sounds are great. But then, when I export it to an audio track in order to save room, the sound quality goes way down. Is this because I am using the built-in audio on my macbook pro? 16 and 24 bit exporting doesn't seem to make a difference.

Colin, theorectically, there should be no difference.
theory sometimes lets us down.
it does here.
i find the same thing: everything sounds like a million bucks then you press bounce or export and the resulting file sounds like a quarter of a million.
some things you can do to keep up the dub quality are: get the instrument to peak at no more than -6 on logics meter.
keep the playback tracks level down, especially if you have a full orchestra going (25-40 tracks). mine end up somewhere around -18.
a frozen track results in a 32bit file. 24bit is the max for export and bounce.
i can hear a difference there too.
this is nothing compared to the quality loss, as in Waveburner, when dropping to 16bit for CDs...... THAT is very noticable.
let's not mention CD to mp3(:
maybe things will change in a future edition of logic where 32bit files may be used anywhere.
make sure you are listening to the playback at the same level (spl) as before dubbing.
The built in audio has nothing to do with the quality of a bounce, it only outputs the result.
apples conversion is not top grade, never has been.
it might be time to invest in a pro D/A. Benchmark make a beauty.
if you don't need 8in/8out, just go for a 2in/2out. at the same price point, the 2/2 should be of better quality.
the loss with digital is nowhere near as bad as with analog, if that makes you feel any better.
best, david r.

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

Quality Loss When Importing Video into Timeline...Any Ideas??

Hey all -
I'm fairly new to CS4, so excuse me if this question is a little dumb.
I've offered to edit a friend's actor showreel to familiarize myself with CS4. He gave me a bunch of HD clips: they're .MOV files, and are 1920x1080 and 23.976fps.
I can import a clip and drag it into the preview screen in the middle: it looks fine. However, when I drag it onto the timeline, it suddenly looks faded and blurred. It's not horrible, but it loses the vibrancy of color, the sharpness and the contrast of the original clip. A lot of the quality is gone.
I've tried opening the project with a number of different settings, no difference. I thought it might look OK when I exported it, but it looks just like it does on the timeline monitor: a little washed-out, blurred, just not as nice as the original.....
I'd hate to present it to my pal looking like this, can anyone suggest a solution? I tried everything I could think of already....
Thanks!!
B

Hi Hunt -
many thanks for your reply. I've spent the last couple of days trying to follow your advice and do more research.....still no luck.
Firstly, I upgraded my OS to Windows 7, thought it might help for some reason. Didn't. I downloaded a bunch of codec packs.
Gspot reports:
Codec: AVC1
Name: H.264
Codec Status: undetermined
So I'm basically running through all the possible output formats, but really it doesn't seem to be an encoding problem: the quality loss happens as soon as I move the file from the preview screen to the timeline.
If you have any othe suggestions I'be very pleased!!
Thanks
Bruce

Quality issues in iDVD - is DVD Studio Pro the answer?

Hi all,
I am having a problem producing a high quality DVD with iDVD. I know this is the DVD studio forum but I am wondering if I need to switch form iDVD to get the results I want. So, this is what I am doing in iDVD.
I am using 13 QT (.mov) movie files that were made using the "Best" quality setting. Their size is 720 X 480. I am using the "Professional Quality" encoding in the Preference dialog and the Project settings dialog. The theme I am using is Revolution. (This is all in iDVD)
I have burned a few DVDs (Memorex DVD+RW, 4X) and at first used the "Best Performance" encoding. It took about 20 min to burn the DVD. The results were too pixelated. Then I read about the other settings, and used the "Professional Quality". This higher setting took over 40 min to burn the DVD. Unfortunately,the results were not that much better.
Can someone help me to figure out what is wrong? I am looking to produce the crisp quality I see when I view the QT movie files (before I incorporated them into my iDVD project).
What I am thinking is that iDVD is not capable of producing the high crisp quality I am looking for and that DVD Studio Pro might be my answer. Or, could it be my QT movie files (thou they look great when I just play them on my computer in the QT player.
Thanks
PS: I posted a similar topic in the iDVD forum but no answers as of yet and I am on a strict deadline (aren't we all...lol)

You didn't mention that you were doing screen captures. That makes a difference. Camtasia is compressing your screen captures. All DVDs use MPEG-2 compression. So you are in fact double compressing your videos (which always results is lower quality).
To get better results see if you can get Camtasia to record uncompressed, or using the Animation codec at Best. This will result in a absolutely huge file, which is what you want. You bring that into iDVD for good results. Or bring it into Compressor and then DVD SP for better results. Or a third party MPEG-2 encoder like BitVice and then DVD SP for best results. Of course using anything other than iDVD will require a couple of weeks training.

Another quality loss issue: exporting

I see a lot of people have problems with quality loss.
I am importing an movie of an animated screengrab (using Snapzpro). This movie looks great - nice and sharp when viewed in QT. After importing into iMovie it's slightly blurred, notr a big deal just looks a bit "warm".
However when I export it looks bad, diagonal lines are very jagged. I've tried export at Full quality, I've tried expert settings with DV-PAL and many other codecs.
It's just about OK if I use "none", and then import into QT Pro and export with DV-PAL - what I don't understand is why I can't just use DV-PAL direct from iMovie.
Is this something I just have to put up with? Would it better with Final Cut Express?

Actually I discovered since posting the question, that the dimension is something to due with it, but too small rather than too large. I was capturing at 640 x 480 and I discovered that capturing 768 x 576.
I also think that the nature of the image is crucial. This is large scale musical notation - lots of diagonal black and white straight lines so any jaggedness becomes very obvious.
What I still don't understand is why the export from iMovie using DV PAL is not as good as the export from QT using DV PAL - I have to export from iMovie with no compression, then re export from QT Pro.
Although I,m totally ready to accept this is a human operator error, I've also seen lots of people say iMovie does degrade on importing which is why I wonder if I need final Cut Express or Pro

Huge quality loss in iMove '11

Hello fellow iMovie users.
Yesterday I upgraded to iLife 11 to get the new iMovie and its "new" audio editing capabilities. I could ofcourse just buy it from Mac App Store, but I am principally against App Store and its strict rules, so I choosed to get it the old way.
Anyway, I liked what i saw. Finally the new iMovie was about as good as the five year old one, and had some neat features like chroma key and cropping.
So I decided to start practicing and create a short video based on some old DV-videos filmed with my Canon MV950 DV-PAL camera.
I imported the footage into iMovie, and noticed some significant quality loss after the import.
And it get worse. After I exported the video, it seems like it is heavily compressed, even if I'm exporting to QuickTime and selects the highest quality possible.
I have some screenshots to show you the differences.
This is the original DV-footage.
The imported video. Notice the higher compression and the choppy edges.
And this is the exported video. Notice the insanely bad quality, especially in dark areas.
Is there any way to fix this, or do I have go back to iMovie HD?
PS. Sorry if my post is a bit unreadable. I'm from Norway.

Steve,
While I agree everyone should have owned a HD camera by now, there are a lot of low-end SD cameras that are still being sold today. In this era of our economy, consumers are sensitive to prices; especially low or lower prices.
And unlike the video camcorder boom of the 80s with Sony introducing the Video8 handycam (shoulder mounted camcorder), people today do not video using traditional camcorders. Most either do it through a digital camera, DSLR, iPhone or blogger cameras and are already mostly in an acceptable progressive format. There is nothing wrong with DV style cam. Canon GL-2 and the Panasonic DVX-100 are still commanding such a very high price tag for cameras of older technology and still being repaired goes to show that there are people out there still using it.
If one can convert quality interlaced footage into quality progressive footage, you can use that footage and create good results using iMovie 11. I agree with you and Tom that iMovie 11 captures interlaced footage in full. But what's the use if it can't make a good product in the end that looks like what iMovie 6HD can do and when there are PC software out there including the free Windows Movie Maker that can do this with no problem.
Consumers, unlike some of us, only relate to past software used and are usually benign to the fact of progressive vs interlaced. I have dealt with some mis-informed customers that they believed FULL HD only means 1080p at 60fps; anything else is not. I digress.
With Mac users, they don't necessarily follow the same upgrade frequency as PC users either. Macs generally last a lot longer between upgrades compared to a PC because they don't have to run a barage of virus/spam/anti-malware growing definition files which ultimately slow an otherwise healthy PC down. Macs do not have to worry about this.

Quality loss in iDVD

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