Exporting MPEG-4 Quicktime movie

Question

I'm trying to export an iMovie MPEG-4 project to Quicktime. The movie size (all clips sizes added together) is around 64MB. I'm setting 'full quality.' The result is a 13MB movie that Quicktime cannot open (simply 'The movie could not be opened').
If I export with 'expert settings' to MPEG-4 it works. I get a 45MB movie out of it that Quicktime can actually play. But why doesn't it work if I just choose 'full quality'? With 'expert settings' the are lot of parameters to set, and honestly I have no idea what are the best settings. What I want out of it is a movie with the same quality as the incoming clips. Since it was reduced to 45MB, I assume it's further compressed. Also, I would prefer that it was more user friendly without a lot of parameters to set. My wife will never be able to use it if she has to go through a lot of settings. Is there an easy, automatic way to do this?

Answer 1

Full Quality exports to a QuickTime movie that's the
same type and quality as the project itself. So a DV
project exports to a DV movie, but an MPEG-4 project
exports to an MPEG-4 movie. (The project type always
determines the export movie type.) Usually the Full
Quality movie isn't good for sharing for it is too
large.
All the other "Compress movie for" popUp menu
selections create an MPEG-4 movie too, suitable for
the item shown in the menu.
There are other ways to export simply too. They all
begin with choosing Expert Settings and hitting the
Share button.
Note the two popUp menus at the bottom of the window
that opens. Use the "Export" popUp to set the type of
export you want. In your case, "Movie to MPEG-4".
Then you can configure your export two ways:
1. Click the "Options" button and configure your own
settings. Not easy to do unless you know quite a lot
about QuickTime.
Or;
2. Set the "Use" popUp to "Broadband - High" or some
other configuration. This popUp lets you pick a
"recommended" group of export settings, eliminating
the need to configure your own.
The various categories in the "Use" popUp are
associated with the purpose of the movie, letting you
pick settings best suited for everything from
high-speed networks to dial-up connections.
Note too that after you set the "Use" popUp, you can
click the "Options" button to examine those settings
and adjust any you want. The bottom of that window
tells you the expected size of the export and other
useful information.
Many of the "Use" popUp menu settings are similar to
the "Compress movie for" settings in the iMovie
export dialog. But "Use" settings are more
configurable and more details are shown.
Karl
TIP: it can take a long time to export an iMovie
project. When testing the quality of a particular
export, don't export the entire project. Use the
"Share selected clips only" button in the export
dialog to export a minute or so.
Good idea. Why didn't I think of this? I just tried to export the whole movie repeatedly. The interesting thing is, if I just export a single clip, the resulting movie can be opened by Quicktime (as opposed to the whole movie). Alas, the quality is awfull. The size has been reduced from 9MB to 2MB, so obviously 'full quality' does not preserve the quality.
Also, exporting as MPEG-4 movie (.mp4) doesn't work either, again it reduces the quality. Exporting to QuickTime, but choosing the MPEG-4 coder works, though. There are some settings to choose, but most are straightforward, except 'key frames'. I have no idea what it means, I just set it to 'automatic'? I don't really know how to set the quality slider either. I guess I can experiment, and set it so that the size of the output is approximately the same as the input. I would assume that that means there is no quality loss?
Once I have set up this, it seems iMovie remembers the settings (are those project specific?), and then my wife can just use those without modifying anything.