Best quality on screen

Hi there,
Could someone please remind me what setting I should use to get the best quality when I preview my edited sequences on my computer.
I find that the text that I included via the video generator is not looking sharp and the video does not look so good either.
Many thanks in advance
Ivan

Ensure source files match the timeline to minimise rendering
Ensure everything is rendered
Set all your RT settings to highest level
Generated text will have a rasterised effect... even after rendering, but will usually play back normally once exported. (this is associated with interlacing, field dominance).
Playback within the viewer of FCP is compressed...so will never look as good as the source media, therefore my advice is not to get too hung up on FCP playback quality as it's not designed to be high fidelity. Export a short segment, and view as you intend to see the final edit... as a DVD, Web etc... then make a judgement on quality.
The Mystic North

Similar Messages

Need serious help about understanding settings on photoshop for the best quality- please reply is you know a lot about this.

Ideally I'd like to speak to someone from the UK as I feel I can't write out everything I want to say because it's too confusing and it isn't just one question.
I need help with setting photoshop so the images are the best quality on screen and for websites and printing and how I can change that etc I've heard different things and I just need some clarification and advice.
Obviously I'm sure some of you wont want to give personal details out that's fine but I'm generally just in need of some advice, let me know if you can help:)

I don't change any settings. For 1X web images I always use Save for Web. PS remembers which web settings you used the last time. This doesn't effect other files or formats.
Image optimization — Web Fundamentals
Improving Images for Hi-Res Retina Displays
A guide for creating a better retina web - Ivo Mynttinen / User Interface Designer
Serving Hi-Res images only to High Density Displays with PHP
Retina Images
Seriously, you can drive yourself crazy with all this Retina display stuff. I don't see much upside to it except for very special situations.
Nancy O.

How to give client best quality of raw footage

So normally I shoot, edit, and burn sporting events for a certain client. However, this thime the just want to pay for the raw footage. Since I've noveer done this before, I'm a little confused. Usually I would export using Quicktime and then drop th quicktime into iDVD or Roxio and then burn a copy. But since they might want someone else to edit the footage, how do I give them the best quality format. I am sticking with burning something to DVD. But last night I was looking at export using quicktime conversion. There were all kinds of options. What would you recommend for exporting? I would assume if I burn it onto a DVD using iDVD, they would have to rip it to edit it. But doesn't puting something on DVD compress the footage? It is shot in SD, but I want to ensure maximium quality. Any suggestions?

It's a Sony miniDV camera. The footage specs are as follows:
Sony:
Frame Size: 720x480
Vid Rate: 29.97 fps
Compressor: DV/DVCPRO-NT
Data Rate : 3.6MB/sec
Aud Rate 48.0 KHz
Aud Format: 16 Bit
Pixel Aspect: NTSC-CCIR601
Field Dominance: Lower(even)
Or at least that's the information I got from FCE. The footage is 3 seperate camera angels with about 75 minutes for each camera. I'm assuming they mean to have someone else edit it, but what program they would be using, I really don't know. When you state "1) an actual copy of the raw footage", do you mean a tape copy? I do not want to give them the original tapes it was recorded onto.
"QuickTime/DV or QuickTime/AIC" I do not know the difference. I refer to myself as the Cole Trickle (Days of Thunder reference) of video editing. I don't know how or why the car works, I just know how to drive it. With video editing, I do not know all the internal knowledge of aspect ratios or what a codec is, but I know how to tell a story and get that feeling onto a TV screen. Yes, I am limited by my own ignorance, but I am a visual learner. I can read it 100 times, but if someone shows me once I have it down.
Aside from the rant, I want to deliver the footage on DVD. Our original agreement was for myself to edit the footage, but I respect the free market. I want to be as profesional as possible when it comes to business. I fell into this client backasswards, and wasn't meaning to create a full time career, but they liked my work and I liked doing it.

NEED THE BEST QUALITY QUICKTIME MOVIE FOR DVD! THANKS FOR ANY ADVICE.

I just finished a three minute piece that will be shown on DVD and projected to a sixteen foot screen. I usually just output a self-contained quicktime movie with current settings and then compress with bitvice. While I'm happy with those results, because of the size of this screening, I'm curious whether there might be better options for output to quicktime, such as uncompressed, etc?
I've also heard that I could output as a Jpeg, or a PNG file, but I'd love some advice on what works best and the workflow, as I need to get this done fast and can't really afford the time to experiment.
Any advice would be HUGELY appreciated. THANKS1

I usually just output a self-contained quicktime movie with current settings and then compress with bitvice.
That will provide the best quality ... the quality won't improve over what you had in FCP. Depending on your source media type(s), you may have had a better quality export IF you had edited and rendered with another setting.
-DH

How to export and reimport clips maintaining best quality?

I'd like to ask a few questions.
(1) I have several subclips in FCE that I would like to export, so I can import them back into FCE as individual clips, separate from the original capture. I would also like the option to use the exported clips in iMovie project. The most important thing is to save the clips at the highest possible quality. I ran into a problem when trying to import the clips back into FCE.
First, I tried exporting clips using File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion... with the following options:
Video Settings:
Compression Type H.264
Quality: Best (the slider in the Settings window I dragged all the way to the right for Best quality)
Key frame rate: 24
Frame Reordering: yes
Encoding mode: multi-pass
Audio Settings:
Format: Uncompressed
Sample rate: 48 kHz
Sample size: 16
Channels: 2
Prepare for Internet Streaming <unchecked>
The clip was saved to disk. I didn't open or modify the clip at all.
Then I tried using File>Import>Files... but when I tried to import it, I got this error:
"File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown."
So this is the problem I'm experiencing. Can't re-import the clip into FCE (it imports into iMovie fine, though)
Questions: Am I using "wrong" settings? Why is this happening? How can I export and reimport clips while maintaining best video and audio quality?
(2) A couple related questions: Some of my original source video was recorded at 12-bit quality (32 kHz). I know 16-bit is best (48 kHz) but the camera I used came with factory default 12-bit (and as a novice I didn't know to change it until several months later).
So here are my questions.
(a) If I export these clips using audio export settings at 48 kHz instead of 32 kHz, would that cause any problems?
(b) Would those clips then be recognized by FCE and iMovie as having 48 kHz audio even though it was originally recorded at 32 kHz? (I know the quality will be no better, but I've read somewhere that using 32 kHz audio can cause some problems with out-of-sync audio, particularly in iMovie. My hope is the new clip with the 48 kHz audio will circumvent such problems.)
Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT

TSchneider: Thanks again for your valuable reply. I have a few follow-up questions.
My first set of questions is about rendering audio to 48kHz in the timeline.
Almost immediately you'll notice that FCE has tagged the
entire audio track with a red bar meaning it will
need to be rendered (if you try to play the clip from
the Canvas controls you'll just get beeping or very
low quality sound). Go up to the Sequence menu and
select the Render All (or Mixdown) command and FCE
will transcode the 32kHz audio of your clip to the
48kHz audio of the sequence it's sitting in.
I followed your instructions and everything seemed to work until I got to the passage above. I dragged the subclips into the timeline. The clips appeared in the timeline but there was no red bar. If I chose Render All from the Sequence Menu, nothing happened. If I chose Export to Quicktime Movie, however, it takes several minutes, apparently rendering the audio and video. If I chose instead, Print to Video, the red bars do appear and the rendering process again gets going. There is a small progress bar for both operations in the center of the screen with a percent done and estimated time remaining.
Question: Why doesn't the red bar appear as soon as the clips are in the Timeline?
Question: Why doesn't Render All (or Render Audio) work? It would be much easier to walk away while all the audio rendered into 48kHz and then come back later to save the individual clips to disk.
My second set of questions pertains to the possibility of using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion as a substitute for Export>Quicktime Movie, mainly for academic instead of practical reasons.
If you export a clip directly from the bin "Using
Quicktime Conversion" there aren't any suitable
conversion video/audio formats that would give you
both video in the right format (for iMovie) and
transcode the audio to the sampling rate you want.
I understand your description of rendering the audio files in the timeline. If only academic, I was trying to see if I could duplicate the results using using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion. I chose Quicktime Movie as the format. The video setting was DV/DVCPRO-NTSC. The audio was uncompressed with 48kHz rate. This created a Quicktime movie file with these formats. If I opened the quicktime movie file in Quicktime and checked the info on the file, the audio was indeed 48kHz.
Question: Does this mean that the Quicktime Conversion process rendered the 32kHz audio to 48kHz audio prior to writing the file? If so, it would seem to bypass the need to render the clips in a sequence (although if I could render all the clips in the sequence at once, while I was away from the computer, it would be faster than rendering and saving each clip one at a time).
Question: When I exported a clip this way, then imported it into iMovie, the original capture date/time info was missing when I got info on the clip. However, when I save the clip using Export>Quicktime Movie, the date/time of capture was still present. Would there be any way to preserve this date/time of capture info when using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion?
Question: If I decided to Export>Using Quicktime Conversion with the above settings (DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, 48kHz audio) there are other options I'm given pertaining to the video settings. There are settings for Compressor Quality, with a sliding bar where you can choose Least, Low, Medium, High, and Best quality; and there is Scan Mode (interlaced or progressive). How does one choose among these? If you want the best quality exported clip, I suppose you would chose best quality, but what scan mode is "best" for my purposes -- interlaced or progressive?
Thanks a lot for your help. I'm learning a lot!

Export images at BEST quality

When you export images form Fash, File/Export/Export image/png (i.e.), the default quality is HIGH (and you can`t change it), but I'd like to export in BEST quality, however there is no control over quality.
the best way at this moment is taking a screen shot from a swf, very awkward and unprofessional metod (worse, you cannot do it with alpha channel)
Any suggestion?
Thanx in advance

You are mislead, a png uses a lossless compression whereas a screenshot of a swf went through jpg-encoding (lossy).
Event the "Best"(100%) JPG Quality is worse(in terms of prevserving the original) than the "high" PNG Quality

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

DVD Quality and Screen Image Size Issue

When I export an iPhoto slide show to a QuickTime movie (.mov), the result is a beautiful, high quality full screen movie, when played on my iMac. When I use that same slide show in iDVD, and burn a DVD, the quality of the slide show is not as sharp and it is not full screen. Are there some settings I can use to correct this? Is there a later version of iDVD that would correct this? Or is there some non-Apple software that will do a better job? Thanks.
NJZ
Using OSX 10.5.8, iPhoto 8.1.2, iDVD 7.0.4.

There are many ways to produce slide shows using iPhoto, iMovie or iDVD and some limit the number of photos you can use (iDVD has a 99 chapter (slide) limitation).
If what you want is what I want, namely to be able to use high resolution photos (even 300 dpi tiff files), to pan and zoom individual photos, use a variety of transitions, to add and edit music or commentary, place text exactly where you want it, and to end up with a DVD that looks good on both your Mac and a TV - in other words end up with and end result that does not look like an old fashioned slide show from a projector - you may be interested in how I do it. You don't have to do it my way, but the following may be food for thought!
Firstly you need proper software to assemble the photos, decide on the duration of each, the transitions you want to use, and how to pan and zoom individual photos where required, and add proper titles. For this I use Photo to Movie. You can read about what it can do on their website:
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
(Other users here use the alternative FotoMagico: http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/homevspro/ which you may prefer - I have no experience with it.)
Neither of these are freeware, but are worth the investment if you are going to do a lot of slide shows. Read about them in detail, then decide which one you feel is best suited to your needs.
Once you have timed and arranged and manipulated the photos to your liking in Photo to Movie, it exports the file to iMovie 6 as a DV stream. You can add music in Photo to Movie, but I prefer doing this in iMovie where it is easier to edit. You can now further edit the slide show in iMovie just as you would a movie, then send it to iDVD 7, or Toast, for burning.
You will be pleasantly surprised at how professional the results can be!
To simply create a slide show in iDVD 8 from images in iPhoto or stored in other places on your hard disk or a connected server, look here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1089

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

How to best quality DVD?

I have a new movie that runs an hour and a half and is presently 17.7 gigs. I want to put it on DVD. iMovie compress it down to 2.8 gigs before burning a DVD but I want best quality possible which I believe is 4.2 gigs for a 4.7 gig DVD (one side). I've never done this before. Can anyone tell me the basic steps to produce the best quality possible DVD?

Hi
Klaus1 is 100% right
My twist to this is as follows
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 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

Which QT codec for best quality

I have just finished a FCP 5 project that is less than 1 hour and would like to convert it to a QT mov to show from my laptop through a projector on a big screen. Do I use the H264 at the highest quality settings or do I use the DV/DVCPRO-NTSC best quality settings. Or, is there another QT codec that I can use to achieve the highest quality. This a SD video project not an HD. Thanks for any suggestions.
Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9) QT Pro 7.1.6

The resolution is hardly the main variable for file size vs. the bitrate. I find that 320X clips will upscale quite well from good quality source material at a high enough bitrate. You ignore the data rate and do 640X at 200 kbps it will look crummy regardless of the great size you chose.
Actually the advice I gave him to try a test clip at a few variations is the best to follow. Avoids under or over compressing the original.
Apple agrees with me as well:
Data Rate (bit rate): In general, the higher the data rate, the better the quality, but the bigger the file. In most cases, you’ll want to set a data rate based on the way your movie will be viewed. For example, for streaming to 384K broadband connections, you need to limit the data rate to around 350-360 kilobits per second to leave room for network traffic. If the file will be downloaded for playback, the data rate can be much higher (the higher the data rate, however, the longer a slow-connection user has longer to wait before playback begins). In addition, remember in this dialog you’re setting the video data rate. You also need to leave some room for audio.
For H.264, here are some general guidelines:
* For a frame size of 1920 x 1080 (full high definition), choose a data rate of 7,000-8,000 Kbps.
* For a frame size of 1280 x 720 (commonly-used high definition), choose a data rate of 5,000-6,000 Kbps.
* For a frame size of 640 x 480 (standard definition), choose a data rate of 1,000-2,000 Kbps.
* For a frame size of 320 x 240 (Internet-size content), choose a data rate of 300-500 Kbps.
* For a frame size of 176 x 144 (3G), choose a data rate of 50-60 Kbps for 10-15 fps content, or up to 150-200 Kbps for 24-30 fps content.
As mentioned in the 3G example, it’s important to keep in mind that the data rate of a movie is also affected by other compression options you set, such as the frame rate. So the higher your frame rate, the higher your data rate needs to be.

Settings for best quality DVD

Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help me to get the best quality DVD for home movies.
I have been editing and putting the movies to DVD for a number of years and the quality has been excellent. but over the last year something has changed and the quality of the final DVD is quite poor (pixalated)
I have tested different settings in both imovie HD and idvd but it hasn't made any difference so far.
I am using the following:
Sony HDR-HC9 handycam (Recording in HDV1080i)
imovie HD 6.0.3
iDVD 7.1
Thanks for any insight you can give me!

Hi
As written - dust on lens - first thought
If You made a lot of DVDs in a row (>3 at a time) then there is a risk to burn out/harm the laser.
my list on DVD Quality - read or keep. It's long !
*DVD quality*
1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality *(movies + menus up to 120 min.)* - BEST
• Best Performances *(movies + menus less than 60 min.)* - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) *(movies + menus up to 120 min.)* - slightly lower quality than above
2.Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not selfcontaining, 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. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 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 eg x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with Apple’s Disk Utilities application.
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).
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)
7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD
8. Don’t burn more than three DVD at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while befor 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 shortlived 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-layer.
*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 plyback
The BD-encoded DVDs can be playbacked 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 recorde 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 JESDeinterlacer3.2.2 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 plabacked 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 choise 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 IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER
• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk
• No other programs running in BackGround eg EnergySaver
• Don’t let HD spinn down or be turned off (in EnergySave)
• 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 screensaver 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
Yours Bengt W

Export old VHS to DVD. Best Quality?

I am fairly new to FCE4. I copied all my home videos from VHS to my computer via Sony DCR-HC30. They became ".dv" files. Now I am finished editing/fixing the first video and I am ready to export it. All I want to do is to be able to make a dvd out of it and watch it on a hdtv. I know it will be very hard to get the old VHS quality videos to HD, but what would be the best setting under "Export" to get the best quality out of them. I tried to do a HD export watching a youtube video and after I did it it said it would take 11hours, thats way too long for me. Any help would be great.
Also, I have done a few projects on IDVD as far as creating the dvd menu and chapters. Is there a way to do that on FCE or is it better after export to run it through IDVD to get my dvd menus and give it an actual dvd feel when I insert it into a dvd player?

Hi
DVD is limited as standard to SD-video (Standard definition) (old CRT-TV quality).
There are no practical/working HD-DVD versions at all.
Neither iDVD or Roxio Toast™ will help.
DVD-Studio Pro got a HD-DVD function - BUT this only play back on some few Toshiba players.
Only way to get HD - is via Blu-Ray - require Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro incl BD-component
and BD-burner + BD-disks - AND BD-Player
I've made a list on this.
*DVD quality*
1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality *(movies + menus up to 120 min.)* - BEST
• Best Performances *(movies + menus less than 60 min.)* - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) *(movies + menus up to 120 min.)* - slightly lower quality than above
2.Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not selfcontaining, 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. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 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 eg x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with Apple’s Disk Utilities application.
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).
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)
7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD
8. Don’t burn more than three DVD at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while befor 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 shortlived 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-layer.
*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 plyback
The BD-encoded DVDs can be playbacked 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 recorde 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 JESDeinterlacer3.2.2 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 plabacked 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 choise 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 IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER
• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk
• No other programs running in BackGround eg EnergySaver
• Don’t let HD spinn down or be turned off (in EnergySave)
• 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 screensaver 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
Yours Bengt W

Import/Export to retain best quality for a Beginner

Hi,
I'm hoping someone could help me retain the best quality possible for my video while working on projects because whatever I'm doing now is not working.
I shoot with a Sony HDR-FX1000 in HDV 1080i/24p and the picture and quality is amazing when plugged into a TV or played back on the camera LCD screen. I use a new iMac 2.7GHz Intel Core i5, Mac OS X 10.7.4 to edit. However, when I import into my new FCP X it is not as crisp and quality, and then when I export, it is definitely not the quality I imagined. The video loses it's sharpness and it gets very noisy plus fuzzy lines appear in some areas of shots. These lines don't show up when I view my edited footage in the timeline, only after exporting. I'm fairly new to this all and know I'm not using the best settings to retain the most quality because the beginning and end quality look very different.
I don't do heavy duty editing or effects at the moment. Basic color correction, slow-motion, preset effects, transitions, music and titles.
ANY help relating to what my settings should be across the board to retain the best image possible is greatly appreciated. I can't seem to figure it out with trial and error anymore and thought I'd turn to the experts for help.
Thanks!
Smalls

I've set the viewer to both fields. I guess I don't know why I was transcoding. I thought it somehow optimized the video. Could part of the reason the quality drops be because I transcoded the video when I didn't need to?
When I export, these are the settings I use and then export to QuickTime.
Here is an example of the noise and lines that show up after exporting the video.
It's not like this in the viewer while editing EXCEPT when I change playback quality to High Quality. Any idea why?
Also, these are my settings when importing the video. What should be changed other than deselected the Transcoding options?
I really appreciate the input. Thanks!

New to 16x9 format, how get best quality when using standard dv footage?

If I am capturing standard NTSC dv footage, and adding standard dimension digital photos, what capture and sequence settings should I use to get best looking 16x9 output? I know I can export as 16x9 and burn a 16x9 DVD in DVDSP, but I was thinking I should capture and edit that way as well to get best quality.
Thus far, I've been editing everything as 4x3 and assuming the tv's these will be shown on will compensate, which is generally true. I would like, however, to give my clients the option of which output option is best for them.

So, a client would have to give me 16x9 raw footage for me to produce a true 16x9 DVD?
Yes.
I know I can't produce HD DVDs, at least not cost effectively, and most people don't have players anyway.
Right. None of us can. The movies from the store or Netflix aren't HD. HD has no current relevance in DVD production (other than as acquisition formats).
I do want their footage to look as good as
possible on those large screen tvs.
If you produce a good DVD it will look good. All the other DVDs that are 4:3 are just that - 4:3. Same with 4:3 television. If they were produced well they should look great on any screen.
1. I'm starting with DV NTSC raw footage, a low-res
codec.
OK.
2. I'm compressing to MPEG-2 to be playable on an
SD-DVD player, a further low res codec.
OK. But you really mean "to be playable on a DVD player".
3. Regardless of what I do, it's going to be
low-res.
Regardless of what you do, the resolution is limited by current DVD technology. That is, in the NTSC world, 720x480 whether it's 4:3 or 16:9.
Does MPEG-2 always look crappy on an HDTV? On a 72dpi SDTV, it looks acceptable. Is there a workaround for HDTV?
Whether or not it looks crappy is subjective. If Hollywood-produced DVDs and SD television look great on it, then it's possible to make it look great.
Your real limitations - the ones you have control over, are:
- quality of camera, glass, and related equipment
- quality of lighting, audio, camerawork, production in general
- recording format (DV ain't the greatest).
- editing format (hint: you don't have to edit in DV)
- quality of editing / editor
- quality of MPEG2 encoding
In your case I think the last one is the most relevant. If you aren't getting acceptable results you may need to learn more about MPEG2 and Compressor.
BTW 72dpi is a print term, it has absolutely no meaning in video.
Further question, if I'm doing a photo slideshow, not DV footage, can I leave it uncompressed or will it convert to MPEG-2 and stink regardless?
To make a DVD movie it needs to be MPEG-2. That's the technology we have. But it doesn't have to stink. The MPEG-2 you use is the same MPEG2 the studios use with movie releases. The technology is the same, the difference is that they have people who really really know how to use it well.
There is a way to make actual slideshows from JPEGs which play from a DVD or CD. I know little about this, but I suspect that the resolution is still limited to 720x480. Someone will correct me if that's wrong. But you don't have to put them through MPEG2 compression.
You may benefit from finding out what 16:9 really means. All it means is that the display is wider. That's all. There is no implication of a quality increase, in fact from DVD playback the 16:9 picture will always appear a little softer than SD if viewed on a widescreen device. That's just the way it is.

Best quality on screen

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