Best quality for iDVD?

hi,
my FinalCut project loses a lot of quality once it is burned in iDVD. it gets really blurry. I am using a lot of titles and a JPEG template created in photoshop with video layered over it. It looks fine when i export to quicktime, bt once it is imported into iDVD, it loses it's quality. does anyone have any suggestions/ideas? i am stuck and would greatly appreciate any help! thanks

iDVD does the compression for you; that's what takes it so long to burn
So, from FCE don't use Quicktime Conversion, use Export as Quicktime Movie; you don't have to check the "make movie self-contained button" if you are keeping all the files together
The closer you are to iDVD's two hour limit, the more likely you are to encounter quality issues, that is really pushing the limit of the product
I generally try to keep my movies under 90 minutes and I get pretty good quality; but as stated, it all comes down to source. Editing DV material I ain't ever gonna make the stuff look like Stephen Spielburg .. or even broadcast TV but I sell these DVDs and most people are happy with the quality
If you really need to make a movie longer than 90 minutes then you need to get into dual layer media (which means a dual layer burner) or look at DVD Studio Pro; an expensive proposition now that you can no longer buy that program separately
As for the quality degrading once you export to QT; how are you judging this? Make sure QT player is set to it highest quality. A TV is still the best place to judge this quality. And all of this is assuming you are working in the formats FCE is designed to deal with: DV or HD.

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Best compression for iDVD authoring and DVD playback?

I have some DV footage that I had captured into MPEG-2 files on my old PC, then recently got a Mac and I want to be able to edit the footage on the Mac software I have and put it onto DVD for standard playback on a TV.
I've got the latest Quicktime Pro with the MPEG-2 playback component, and MPEG Streamline that allows me to convert the MPEG-2 files into MOV files. I want to be able to edit them in iMovie and Final Cut Express, and then I want to drop them into iDVD.
I would like to know what the best compression to use would be in converting the MPEG-2 files into MOV files or other format that's compatible with iMovie and Final Cut Express that will result in the best quality for DVD playback. I don't have Final Cut Pro so I don't have Compressor, which I understand, already has a preset compression optimized for DVD authoring and playback later on.

So you have some already mpg-2 compressed files you want to edit in FCE. Using MPEG Streamclip, I suggest you convert them to DV video (which runs about 13 GB per hour) to work on them in FCE.
As far as recompressing the edited video, I really doubt the mpg-2 encoding mode used will make much difference since you took the real quality hit when you initially mpg-2 compressed to content.
If you want to take the additional time required, you can try the new 'Professional Encoding' option in iDVD 7, but I seriously doubt it will improve anything. (You know the old 'silk purse out of a sow's ear' thing...)

Best quality for youtube

I made a video and its 2.01 GB in iMovie. i want to put it on youtube but I want the best possible quality. The limit for youtube is 100MB whats the best way to compress my movie?

Hi F,
I followed your link and found your instructions about exporting from iMovie with best quality for YouTube.
The instructions were pretty clear, although my options didn't line up with them exactly (I'll tell you my explicit settings below). Still, I exported it successfully.
Then I uploaded the resultant .mov file to YouTube. When it was all finished processing, I viewed it. After the first fraction of a second all I saw was garbage -- just junk patterns filling the screen. The sound was excellent. (by the way, I had lots of very short clips in there -- 00:00:03 in length (not sure what the units are).
So I went back to iMovie, opened up my movie project. Played the video. Now it is intermittent garbage, too. Looks just like the uploaded file, but only intermittently.
Here are the exact options and settings I used for export:
File->Share, chose quicktime and expert settings, pressed the "share" button.
in the Export dialog, I selected "movie to quicktime movie" and clicked on the "options" button.
Options:
Video:
Settings...
Set compression to mpeg-4
Set quality to medium
Set frame rate to 30
Let Key frame and Data rate defaulted (unchecked)
Filter...
didn't look at this. Now that I do, it's set to "none"
Size...
Selected the "custom size" radio button and set it to 320 x 240
Sound:
Settings...
format: uncompressed
sample rate: 44.1khz
sample size: 16
channels: 1 (mono)
There was also a check box for "Prepare for internet Streaming"
It was already checked and set to "fast start"
I didn't change it.
If you could give me any further help, I'd really appreciate it. This was my first attempt to put anything on YouTube.
Thanks a lot,
Bruce Delaplain
Message was edited by: Bruce Delaplain1

Best quality for SD movie into iDVD

I just finished creating a movie in iMovie '09. It was originally recorded with a Sony 8mm camera and passed through a Sony DV camera into my MacBook.
I've added the titles, transitions, chapter marks, etc. The movie is about 50 minutes long.
What is the best way to get it into iDVD and retain the best quality possible?
Should I "share to iDVD" or export as a QuickTime movie and then drag that into iDVD? Which settings would be the best for that choice?

You can actually convert them AFTER you've moved them in. When you captured them from the camera, they were saved into DV format. You can use mpegstreamclip (free download) to convert the DV clips into AIC or M-JPEG. If you do it correctly, the next time you start iMovie it will import the AIC-based clips in as well. Then, when iMovie reads them into your project and eventually renders the final movie, it will handle rendering better with AIC or M-JPEG clips as the source material.
I understand needing to work with what you have; it is a pain to go and replace each clip, clip by clip, with new clips. However, I have very little experience with DV. I've been using mpeg clips from a HDD camcorder for over a year and have only just started using DV as I am now also shooting with a higher-end DV camera for church projects.
I wish I could give you advice on how to export your project so iDVD can make the best DVD from it, but all of my work to date has been exported into movie files and played onto a HD TV through a laptop using QT or presentation software.

Best quality for burning to DVD?

I've created a video project for a friend - home movies, scanned family photos, etc., with narration and music. Some of the images are pretty good quality, some not so great, but it's okay. I now want to burn it to a DVD - what's the best quality way to do that? Is there a compression type better for this than others?

Just export from FCE to QuickTime Movie. DO NOT export to QuickTime Conversion if the ultimate purpose is to create a DVD. iDVD or other DVD authoring software will take care of the necessary encoding for DVD.
To save time & disk space, when you export from FCE you can UNcheck the option called "Make movie self-contained." This will create what is called a QT Reference Movie, which you can import into iDVD or other DVD authoring software just the same as any other QT Movie.
One more tip - before exporting your movie from FCE be sure to do the following to actions. This will make your export go more smoothly and help maintain quality overall:
Sequence > Render All > Both and
Sequence > Render Only > Mixdown

Best compression for IDVD

I am taking a slide show made in Iphoto and saving it. Then I open it in Express and and add a sound track to it and then save it as a quicktime to be brought into IDVD.
What is the best setting for that quicktime movie because it doesn't look so good when i bring it into idvd.........? i just am saving it as a quicktime looking for the fastest processing... but best quality is important too....
can i dvd import mpeg4? I was hoping to save it as dv but that seems to be a long export time... speed is important
I also could save it as an mpeg-2 and then go through studio pro but i want something quick for the family christmas card which is a dvd....
thanks.....

Test results for you Martin (and anyone else!).
I used 10 good quality jpeg slides (2560x1920) and didn't bother to downsample them.
Imported them into FCE at 3 seconds each for a running time of 30 seconds.
This slideshow was converted to a QT Movie and put into iDVD.
I then made another slideshow in iDVD using the original jpegs.
The DVD-RW was burned using Best Quality. The whole exercise took about 20 minutes.
The DVD was viewed on both the CRT monitor of my eMac and a large 28"(4x3) CRT TV (using a DVD player).
Sharpness-wise I could not detect any difference (between the 2 slideshows).
However the FCE slideshow did exhibit more interlace flicker/aliasing on certain slides. (I hadn't got a TV hooked up during the FCE phase or used a deinterlace filter).
The results are neither scientific nor conclusive but they do suggest that we may be worrying too much about the techniques we use.
Ian.

Best performance vs. Best quality in iDVD Prefs!?

What is the difference? i have selected "best quality" and see no difference in picture, but one can fit more onto a dvd with best quality vs. performance. what is the difference!? thanks!

A quick, simple explanation is given in David Pogue's little iLife '04 manual. I will pare it down a little:
"Given that a blank DVD contains a limited amount of space, how much picture-quality data can it afford to devote to each frame of video?
The Best Perfomance option in iDVD 4 ....allots a fixed, predetermined amount of data to each frame of video--enough to make it look great--no matter how many minutes of video is included. A lot of the DVD might wind up being empty if the project contains less than an hour of video. But, the burning process will go quickly and the video will look really great.
The Best Quality option uses every micron of space on the blank DVD, analyzes the amount of video included and divides it into the amount of space available on the DVD. The amount of information used to describe an indiviual frame of video will vary from project to project, and it will take a lot longer to burn the DVD because of so much analysis. But it will give two hours of great-looking video per disc."

Why is the finished DVD so low quality despite having chosen best quality for Pal. Compared to Pro Show Gold its rubbish !

I am VERY disapointed with the quality of a finished DVD. As a proffesional weddig photographer the program quality is just not proffesional in quality. Compared to Pro Show Gold by Photodex which unfortunately is not available in MAC format. Can anyone offer advice and proove me wrong for deciding on MAC over PC !
I have chosen the best quality and burnt using Toast 11

Hi Nigel.
nigelfromlewes wrote:
What can I add other than I followed the instruction to the letter and have purchased a suggested
Application Toast11 .
You can add plenty (and probably remove a bit as well ). As you recompose your question(s), keep in mind:
the respondents on this site are just users helping other users. Apple sponsors the site (for its own ends) but does not participate in any of the discussions or provide any compensation of any kind to any participants.
whining and threatening (typically: "Lightroom is looking better and better", but your "proove me wrong for deciding on MAC over PC !" is up there) lower your chance of receiving helpful advice.
no one here knows what you are trying to do, what you have done, what the result was, how that differed from what you expected, or anything about your current software and hardware set-up other than what you tell us. Being pointed and specific is a very good way to help us help you.
What were you trying to do?
What specific steps did you take to achieve it?
How did the result differ from what you expected?
What steps have you taken to achieve a different outcome?
Did that work?
What hardware and software are you using?

What is the best replacement for iDVD

I just bought a new iMac and found out that iDVD has vanished. What's the best approch for making slide shows from iPhoto and burning to a DVD?

Sorry, but I haven't found a way to burn a movie directly from iMovie since iMovie HD (6) (note: burn project to disk):
Whereas, there are no options to burn in the current iMovie version:
You can share it to online sites and you can export it, but you can't burn it.

The best quality for ripping a song

hi,
i have some old cds that i would like to rip and upload to my ipod touch.
but what's the rate for ripping songs from cds that would give me the best quality of the songs.
thanks.
ps. now i use 192 bps, but sound quality doesn't seem too good.

You'll get an extensive comparison of the AAC and MP3 formats and bit rates benchmarked against CD format at this link: Planet of Sound - Quality of AAC audio and MP3

Exporting the film in best quality for further editing

I am about to finish a 52-minute long documentary in Final Cu Express. I've been editing in HD, using Apple Intermediate Codec1080i50.
Part of the project files and render files are in an external G-Raid and other part are on my Macbook pro hard drive, Since I will be traveling, I would like to be careful and minimize the risk of something happening either to the G-Raid or to my Mac, therefore, I want to export the film as it is, although in the future I still might need to work on it - do some more final editing and definitely do the subtitles in DVD Pro (currently I don't have the DVD Pro). My question is whether I should be using export - quick time movie or quick time conversion - and what the settings would be for the best quality product that could be used in documentary film screenings and possibly shown on TV? Or how should I go about saving the project? Right now the project file only has references to the files, right, not the files themselves and if something happens I might lose it all...
Thanks for the help!

QuickTime Movie. Forget the render filed, they seldom reconnect properly; it's usually better just to re-render. Keep your G-RAID and make sure it is backed up together with your project.

Best Quality for .avi movies in iMovie HD?

Hello:
I recently had a number of old 8mm and Super8 movies converted to .avi files. The quality is pretty good and I want to create some DVD movies and I was want some suggestions on the best quality settings when exporting either to iDVD or Toast. I created a small sample movie and exported to a DV file with the highest settings and it plays well on my computer DVD player, but plays in slow motion on my home DVD player. Is it possible that my home DVD player is simply having a hard time decoding the DVD and it looks slow? Is there a way around this via the encoding settings?
Thanks,
cbrose

DVD's use MPEG-2 as their playback method so it doesn't matter about all of your conversions (AVI ->DV) as iDVD will convert it again to MPEG-2.
Toast and iMovie do the same thing but iMovie can't convert to MPEG-2.
DV Stream (.dv) is the format used in iMovie and it allows editing. MPEG-2 is solely a playback method and it doesn't allow editing (without converting first).
If your .avi files play properly in QuickTime you can import them into iMovie (converts to DV Stream) edit and add and then send to iDVD (converts to MPEG-2).
If they don't need any editing in iMovie your can just bring them into iDVD, or Toast, (they convert) and then burn the DVD (converted again to MPEG-2).
Try a new "home DVD" box. There is probably something wrong with yours. About $35.

Export settings for best quality for pages with letters etc.

Hi, I am trying to make video of a musical piece, featuring the score of the piece with pages turning following the progression of the music. I made the video in Adobe After Effects CS5 and exported it so it would be lossless. The video itself is a .mov file and looks great when I view it in Quicktime, but when I import it into FCE the quality goes down a bit. I don't know if FCE is handling the clips correctly or if it's just for making it quicker to view. Any suggestions on export settings from FCE for best quality of a video of this nature, so that the notes are clearly readable.
Thanks in advance
Ps. It has to be in a format suitable for Youtube.

Under "Sequence" and in "Settings" and in the tab "Render Control" I have: Frame Rate: 100% Resolution: 100%.
If that is what you were referring to... but under the tab which is called RT and is located left of the timeline and left of the timecode. There I have checked : Safe RT, (Playback Video Quality) Dynamic, (Playback Frame Rate) High.
There might be a way to import the clip in better quality (so it doesn't downgrade the quality).
Was mostly trying to find out with the export but it might have something to do with this.
Thanks

Exporting best quality for DVD

I shot video with a Canon 5d Mk2. 1080p 30 frames, 48k. Looks awesome in Premiere! But when I export the video to Encore i use the Mpeg-2 DVD preset, and it just kills the quality. I have to burn to standard DVDs because my clients need them that way, so Blu ray isn't an option.
I understand it has to compress everything, but i would like to know how to get the best quality possible. It needs to look better! I am using CS5
Please Help!

John,
Thanks for your response. The issue seems so simple since I've followed steps described on Lynda.com back when I was using CS4.
I'm now using CS6.01. I created this video in CS4 and updated it in CS5. PS, AE, and Pr
I've installed all of the updates to CS6. To newest QuickTime and to the Video Card
My PC is running Windows 7 Ent.; 64-bit Xeon CPU Quad 2.8GHz
And I'm not running other software.
The source footage is a sequenced .tiff animation I rendered out of AE.
I've made a video a few years back. A copy is here on YouTube: http://youtu.be/lAh70G_AOFE.
I'm not editing the video. I just get requests to have a DVD of the original source to play in our tradeshows. Sharp copy/product edges. It looks great in Premiere and I've set on paper my standard work from Lynda.com (Premiere Pro CS4 Essential Training - Chapter 16).
I select the Sequence in Premiere Pro and select File / Adobe Dynamic Link / Send to Encore. Then set the Project and Build settings.
But as you can see below the file exported to Encore didn't transcode (?) properly
BEFORE Screen in Premiere:
NEW: I can see now that the Video in the timeline has the jags

Exporting best quality for HDV

Hi - I've been editing for the first time on HDV 1080i50 in FCP - I want to export as a Quicktime in the best setting possible but not sure what it is. When I go export quicktime hdv1080i it only lets me do medium quality - in the past when I've exported in dv-pal I can change the setting to best quality...can anyone suggest what I should do.
thanks

thanks - what about the settings on that please as I think it just does the last export setting (which would be dv-pal)
cheers

Best quality for iDVD?

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