Full Quality DVDs?

Does anyone know of a way to convert your TS folder once you rip a DVD so it will play on the Apple TV in full quality? I do not about the size of the file, I am more concerned about quality....thanks

If you use the correct settings then, apart from the 5.1 audio you should not be able to experience any difference. The tools I listed are the best available. If you are not happy with the results I suggest you just hook up your DVD player to your TV and use that. That is the only way to ensure 100% fidelity. Unless you want to write our own transcoder.

Similar Messages

Export in Full Quality??

With iMovie '06, all I had to do was click on "Full Quality" when exporting to have the video export in the same quality that it had been in as I was working on it. I can't find any way to do that with iMovie '11. I've tried Export Medium & Export Large, Export to Quicktime Broadband High as well as the default option, and every time the final video comes out fuzzy and not nearly as clear as the project I had been working on. The material is not in HD, but nevertheless the final exported product is always much lower quality than what it should be.
Someone please tell me there's a way to export my video without vastly reducing the video quality. Thanks

Hi
The problem is - What do You mean by Full Quality. It's very different if Your original material is
• miniDV tape PAL or NTSC refered to as DV and 25 or 29.97fps
• DVPRO
• DV-HD
• DV Widescreen (16x9)
• HDV 1080i
• HDV 720p
• MPEG-4
• iSight
• MPEG-2 from Cameras that records on DVD or miniDVD - some versions are OK
• .mov
• .avi
• AVCHD (= H.264)
And - where You aim Your movie
• as a DVD
• YouTube
• AppleTV
• else
IF You are as Me in miniDV tape age and aiming to do a DVD as result.
Then and Only Then - iMovie'08 or 09 or 11 - are not the tools to USE as they all discard every second line
in interlaced video on export - How-ever You trie to do it. Not Possibly.
Tools to use are
• iMovie up to HD6
• FinalCut any version Express or Pro
To re-install iMovie HD6 - You need the iLife 6 Disks or the one that Came with Your old Mac.
From here You must seek the forum to figure out exact steps - Has been delivered several times during the Years.
As I get it iMovie'11 has to be removed first - then iMovie HD6 installed then put application into a folder
named iMovie Previous versions - Then iMovie'11 can be re-installed.
Yours Bengt W

Full quality Video Output

Hi I wanto to use my Imac to play videos, are NTSC videos compressed on MPEG2 Full DVD Quality or H264 NTSC Standard, I want to play it to external TV to play only the video, I tried VLC and connected the TV as second monitor and configured VLC to play video on second monitor, it works, but quality is poor and blurry, if I play the same video from DVD player or from my PC to the monitor it looks full quality but from VLC in that way on the Imac I told you the bad quality problem, What software can I use to play videos getting the BEST quality on my TV?? I have also a CANOPUS that I can connect to Firewire port on my pc I use that to get video signal output but VLC on my Imac didn't recognize the Canopus? What can I do to play videos on my TV on the best quality? what software or what configuration?? Thanks

In Extended Desktop Mode (Mirroring Off) you can drag the QuickTime video to the external TV monitor and then Enter Full Screen.
{quote:}Can I do that on quicktime? have the controls and playlist and modify it during playback in main monitor and video playback ion my TV?{quote}
No, I think that your are going to need something stronger than VLC or QuickTime to accomplish that?
Head over to the iMovie or Pro Applications: Video sections of the forum and check around there to see if one of those will suit your needs.
http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa?categoryID=1
Perhaps
iMovie 11> http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/
or
Final Cut > http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/

Video freezes when exporting to Full Quality

[Background: I've been working on a video project in iMovie HD that I'm doing in pieces - exporting each section of the video at full quality when it's done, so that later I can put them all together in a new project.]
Lately I've been having major problems exporting to full quality Quicktime files. The exported video freezes a few frames in, though the audio continues to play normally. This does not happen if I save it to a smaller quality, say, Web Streaming.
I'm having trouble seeing a pattern in how/why/when this happens, too. I have successfully exported movies to full quality both before and after movies that export incorrectly. The first project that had this happen, I decided to reassemble bit by bit to find out if something specific was causing the problem. Turns out that Full Quality exporting started having this problem if I had added titles. After jumping through something like 50 hoops - exporting little pieces, reimporting, exporting just the titles, etc., etc - I managed to work around the issue. Bit of a headache but all seemed to be well.
BUT, the frozen video problem soon happened again. The next time I had this trouble exporting, there were no titles in the project at all, and the problem instead occurred once I added music. So there does not seem to be a pattern within iMovie itself. This makes me think it's either a Quicktime problem or something to do with my computer itself. I have 2GB of memory, 37GB of space left on my hard drive, and I'm running Quicktime 7.4.1 and iMovie HD 6.0.4.
Please help! I'm on a bit of a deadline, too. This is driving me crazy!

Thanks Matt. I am in the same boat as many people have obviously been in - trying to burn a DVD to a film fest deadline of tomorrow, and after 4 hours of trying to make a disk image, getting 'error during burn'.
I have one question.
a) In imovie, I clicked the 'create iDVD' button to create this project - which has problems burning.
b) Now if I simply try to drag that .mov file into the iDVD pane as you suggest, is that identical to what I have done in a) - in that we're operating with the same basic animal. Of so
c) I should try the process of exporting to .dv, reimporting to new imovie, redoing chapter markers and THEN dragging the package .mov to the iDVD pane - hoping that chapter markers are preserved.
Oh ... someone said one should try to save the .mov as a sel contained file. is that necessary?
Thank you for sitting in front of you Mac!

Share iMovie Full Quality lost option

I'm trying to share an iMovie project to iDVD and full quality is not an option. I chose share: Media Browser, Large. All my text is now blurry in iDVD and my photo quality is real fuzzy. How do I get the quality I have in iMovie into iDvd? I see no options. Help!

Another thing is that you must get your video into your project in a Loss Less format. IMove 8 defaults to an .mp4 which is a compressed format. I don't know how to set it to dv or a Loss Less format like in IMovie 6. I would hope there is a way, please post if you find out. Unless you Project is created with a Loss Less / dv format professional or not you DVD will be degraded.

"Full Quality" = Poor quality text?

I am making a DVD, and am using video that is exported from iMovie HD. When I chose "full-quality" for the export, and view it when it is done, the quality (compared to how it looks in iMovie) is crap. It is especially noticeable in the "title slides" where there is just white text over a black background.
In my opinion, it definitely doesn't look like "full quality". What am I to do?

What I don't get, is that when I try to do the "share
to iDVD" feature, it opens a completely new project.
I already had one started, but it won't let me share
into that one. What do I do?
To add an iMovie project to an existing iDVD project, drag the iMovie project into the iDVD window. That is how we routinely include multiple iMovie projects on a single DVD.
As Lennart said, there's no good reason to export the iMovie project to a Full Quality movie you send to iDVD. In fact, it can cause problems. Your DVD won't contain the chapters you created in iMovie, for example.
When you Share an iMovie project to iDVD, or drag the iMovie project into the iDVD window, iDVD grabs a special movie iMovie stores for it inside the iMovie project package. The movie is in the package's Shared Movies > iDVD folder. To look inside the package, Control-click on the iMovie project and choose "Show Package Contents" from the popUp menu. (No need to go there unless you're interested. Don't change anything.)
The Full Quality movie you created is confusing you, for it's a confusing thing. iMovie calls it that not because it plays the movie with great clarity, but because it retains all the quality of the iMovie project. Exporting to a Full Quality movie hands us a movie we can import to another project with no loss of quality. Each type of iMovie project has its own type of Full Quality movie, following the movie format of the exporting project. There's never any loss of quality.
Changing the playback features of a DV movie in QuickTime Player has no effect on the quality of the movie itself or on the quality of a DVD you burn of the movie. It only affects playback quality in QuickTime Player itself.
QuickTime has been around a long time. On yesterday's slow computers, we would lower the playback quality on (huge) DV movies so we could play them more smoothly.
Note that if you have QuickTime Pro, you can set your QT Player preferences to play DV movies with high quality by default.
Karl

Bad quality DVDs

I'm getting really bad quality DVDs, especially the menus. I created the menus in Motion and used them as menus in DVDSP 4. I build the DVD in DVDSP and everything looks OK, even when I play it using DVD Player, but when I burn it and play the disc with Player it looks dreadful, like bad encoding. I'm encoding with VBR at a bit rate of 5 with a max of 6.5. Any ideas? Thanks.
Chuck

Hi CHuck,
i've never used Motion, but i can't help you there except to say double check that you are using the full quality settings.
Did you use 1 pass or 2 pass VBR? Your bitrate seems fine. What was the source (Vhs; camcorder; stills?) Try the DVD on another player. Some of mine look different on my samsung player than on my Sony, with the latter looking much better.
Are you using a brand name type of DVD media? That could be a problem if not. Are you burning at 1xDVD speed (only available through Toast). Maybe the burn speed is too high?
Cheers,
keebler

Questions about exporting to full quality?

Hey there -
I just wanted to make sure that if I want to give my friend back a DV file from the converted tape that I choose Export, then Full Quality? I know that creates one file vs individual clips but her tape was one long one, I did chapter markers for the dvd and make splits but I don't think she wants those (some are arbitrary, e.g. the tape was long than an hour so iMovie HD split it into two clips). So, I just want to be sure that that's the right choice for exporting?
And, on that, does that remove transitions or keep them?
Lastly, there is a weird screen in QuickTime in the resulting file. It's a colorblock screen of sorts - a whole punch of pixels (big TV ones, not sure what they are called) in a bunch of colors. It's happening RIGHT at the end of the footage - not thrilled about it but it is the DV file, I guess. Depending on answer to above, I may at least extend the end transition so it doesn't make future editing difficult. Any way to eliminate it from happening?
Thanks for your help -
Alexa

+You should be able to move the cursor frame-by-frame with the arrow keys to get to the precise 'cut' point.+
I know - it's strange but I lost a few seconds of just black screen at the end - I even went back and checked against the actual movie. At any rate, I'm slicing them off carefully and now am adding just a few seconds of still time at the end so it's not an issue.
+What exactly is it that your friends want to do with the digitized footage? I recommend that you make them a DVD of the edited movie, and then export the movie back to the camcorder so they also have a digital mini DV tape of it. This way, they can view the DVD to see their movie and show to others, but they also have a backup on tape.+
Ah, let's see - somehow I've agreed to convert a bag full of VHSC and VHS tapes (and hours and hours of my life for footage that's not even my family!) At any rate, I am giving them the deluxe end product - a customized movie with smoother transitions and chapters, a customized DVD menu with images and chapters (and music, if it fits) and a customized case and printed DVD (Taiyo Yuden printed Watershield DVD). Yes, the works. So, then I told them to buy a external HDD and I would move the resulting DV files to it so they would have them should the ever want to use the footage again (e.g. make an "anniversary" montage that pulls in just clips from their wedding, or a wedding montage for their kids that includes the baby footage that I digitized.) So, they have the VHSC and VHS originals, they'll have the movie on DVD and they were going to have the DV files on a hard drive of the appropriate size. That was my recommendation since the problem was that the tapes sat around in the first place - they aren't going to convert them without help. But, if that's the "best" option for longer-lasting backup, I can offer it to them.
+If this were for your use, I would recommend that you also create a disk image of the iDVD project as backup. ...Because the disk image file is self-contained, you can safely delete the iMovie and iDVD projects without losing the ability to burn DVDs of the iDVD project that is now saved as the disk image. You use Disk Utility (or Toast if you have it) to burn the actual DVD disk.+
That is the best advice I could have received! I hadn't really figured out what I was going to do with the actual iMovie and iDVD projects after I was finished. I was reluctant to delete b/c - ahem - they've come back to me after 2 months of the last project and asked for another copy!!! But, I've already added one external for this, I can't house their memories in various forms forever. So, if I do the disk image, I'll retain the ability to make the disk - that's exactly what I need. I've already been caught once by the dreaded "you've updated the move file" bug once, simply because I had opened the original iMovie project - and I had to build the whole DVD again (and it had 24 chapters!)
Thanks so much for the counsel on the disk image - I had heard about it but just wasn't sure how I should directly apply it to these projects.
Appreciate it!
Alexa
Message was edited by: akcorcoran

How do I produce the highest quality DVD from MOV exported from iMovie

What is the best method in iDVD11 for burning to DVD, an imported HD 720p or HD 1080p MOV file exported from iMovie11?
I have successfully exported a 5.5GB (66min) HD 720p MOV file from iMovie. I then used iDVD to import this MOV file and burn it to DVD. When I played the DVD the quality was nowhere near that of the imported HD 720p MOV file as played on QuickTime. The DVD also shows captions at the edge of the 16:9 TV screen instead of further inside as per the QuickTime screening of the HD 720p MOV file.
How can I improve quality and maintain borders in iDVD for the DVD output?

Hi
How can I improve quality and maintain borders in iDVD for the DVD output?
Quality.
• Use iMovie up to HD6 or FinalCut - as iMovie'08 or 09 or 11 - just delivers every second line to iDVD = less resolution
• There are no HD-DVD in real life - DVD is as standard SD-Video
• If You must use iMovie'11 then do not use "Share to iDVD" BUT "Share to Media Browser" and as Large (Not HD or other resolution - as result will suffers)
Border
• May be turning on TV-Safe area in iDVD can help a bit. ?
• If this is IMPORTANT - Then You have to re-do Your movie in FinalCut and here turn on TV-Safe area and shrink the movie area to within this. Now it will show all on an old CRT-TV - but with a black frame due to that no two CRT-TVs show exactly the same area and then TV-Safe must be less than this.
My - Un-specific notes on DVD-Quality. If You are interested.
DVD quality
1. iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (vers 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1)
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
About double on DL DVDs.
2.Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not self-containing, no QT-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 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-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 playback
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 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 playbacked 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 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

Best way to produce good quality DVDs?

Hi,
Am using FCE, external LaCie DVD burner and Toast.
When I convert a FCE project to quicktime, then transfer to DVD, using an external LaCie burner and Toast, the resulting quality is very poor.
I had previously thought this was just par for the course with the footage I was producing, however I recently had a film shown at a cinema (straight from tape) and the quality was amazing - even on a large screen.
I commented to one of the guys who worked at the cinema that I was surprised by the quality of the footage given that my DVDs are so rubbish. He told me that they are so poor because of the equipment I am using to burn them and that if I had it done professionally, the quality would be much better.
What causes this?
Is there any software/hardware I can upgrade to which will produce good quality DVDs?
Nicola

Hi,
Am using FCE, external LaCie DVD burner and Toast.
When I convert a FCE project to quicktime, then
transfer to DVD, using an external LaCie burner and
Toast, the resulting quality is very poor.
Which version of Toast are you using? Are you using Toast's encoder to create the disc image? The latest version of Toast (Titanium 7) is supposed to have a much improved encoder. Also iDVD5 and iDVD6 show big improvements over earlier versions. However, I don't think MPEG2 DVD will be the full equal of the original DV, but it should come close. I suspect high-end DVD mastering programs are needed to get the best results.
867 MHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Aspect ratio when exporting full quality -- is this a bug?

Hi,
I'm new to iMovie. I'm really enjoying playing around with it and think it's a really nice tool and very intuitive. But there's one thing that is bothering me. I'm working with 16:9 aspect ratio (Widescreeen) as the project type which corresponds to how the movies were recorded (a Canon MVX4i or Optura 600 in the USA I think). Everything works fine until I try to export in full quality format (using Export). The .dv file only plays back in 4:3 aspect ratio. I tried using the Expert settings, with 16:9 set and both PAL and NTSC but QuickTime and Preview still only see the movie in 4:3 aspect. If I understand correctly, the aspect ratio is just a flag that is set somewhere.
Is this a bug or am I missing something? I don't have QT Pro by the way?
One more question: in expert settings for DV Export settings, does anyone have a recommendation for what I shold pick for DV Format, and Scan mode?
Thanks very much in advance,
David
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hi David,
This isn't entirely unique to DV. But in simplistic terms what happens is that the widescreen footage that you capture with your camera is the same resolution as square screen. The number of pixels (the dots that make up the picture) for PAL, which is the format used in Portugal I believe, is 720 x 576.
The pixels are squashed into a kind of oblong shape but then when played on widescreen kit the pixels become square causing the picture to stretch sideways. When you view the footage in QT it simply shows the picture as is - meaning that it outputs the picture as 720x576 with the oblong display.
However, when you view the footage in iMovie there's a flag in the file that tells iMovie that the footage is wide and therefore to stretch it accordingly.
There's a differing opinion of whether this display difference in QT is a bug or a feature. As Dan says, if you want to display widescreen footage in QT you're better off exporting a widescreen QT movie using the expert settings:
From within iMovie...
- Select File --> Export from the menu
- In the Quicktime section choose Compress Movie For "Expert Settings"
- Click the Share button
- In the save dialog box that pops up Select "Movie to QuickTime Movie" in the Export section
- Click Option...
- In the Movie Settings dialog box click on settings
- Select DV - PAL from the compression type
- Keep the Frame Rate at Current
- In the Compressor settings choose your Quality
- Set the scan mode to Interlaced
- Set the Aspect Ratio to 16:9 ( this is the bit that tells QT to play in widescreen)
- Click OK
- In the sound section click the Setting button
- In the sounds settings dialog box set the Format to Linear PCM
- Set the channels to Stereo (L R)
- Set the Rate to 48.000kHz
- Set the Sample Rate Converter settings to Quality Normal and the Linear PCM Settings to a sample size of 16 bits.
- Uncheck all the other options (Little Endian, Floating Point and Unsigned)
- Click OK
- Uncheck the Prepare for Internet Streaming box
- Click OK and set a destination for your file.
- Click save to compress the file.
The resulting file that is created above should now show in QT as widescreen. However you should bear in mind that you should work off the raw DV file rather than this new created one in iMovie. As a rule of thumb you should be thinking a little bit about the output media of the file. So for example if your final output medium is DVD then you can continue to work in iMovie and iDVD without problem. If you want to create a QT file for viewing on your computer then it's advisable to create a seperate QT file for this pupose.
If you'd like to know a little more about the way aspect ratios works here's some links for you:
Wikipedia
World easiest explanation of anamorphic 16:9
Hope this makes a little more sense now and sorry if I've covered stuff you already know. Hopefully this information will be of use to you but post back if you need more help.
Cheers.
David.
PowerMac G4 Dual 1.25Ghz / 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.5) PowerBook 12" 1Ghz / 768MB RAM

IMovie Full Quality

Hi
I've ben playing around with a few video clips of some friends of mine at some parties, i've put them together and put music to it and titles and it plays really well when I share it and select for CD-ROM but when I select Full Quality the picture freezes part way through! Does anybody have any ideas why it might be doing this or how I can fix it?
Thanks

Hi OK
Then there is sufficient space
And no external hard disk that interferes.
Then I would try to delete the iMovie pref file
iMovie
-->/Users/YourName**/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iMovie.plist
and
-->/Users/YourName**/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iMovie3.plist
and see if a new export will work
(to make this easy one might just start a new account (log-in) and use this and re-try)
- other thoughts:
• versions: Mac OS X.4.9 and iMovie 6.0.3 AND QT ????? 7.1.6 ?
• Running (Apple Disk Util tool): Repair permissions and Repair hard disk
might help (second one needs start from CD/DVD or external hard disk)
Yours Bengt W

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

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

Converting to Quicktime Full Quality DV ...Why so long?

In an effort to avoid the Audio Encoding problem, I've been trying to take everyone's advice by converting the iMovie to a full quality DV but on my G4, for a 90 minute project it was compressing for about 5 hours and even then it was still displaying that there was 742 minutes to go and still that figure was rising. If anyone out there has got a minute to explain why this is so I'd be very appreciative.
Just don't get it? I highlighted 17 minutes of the project out of curiousity and shared that to Full Quality and that just took about 34 minutes!
Borrowed the work G5 DP 2GHZ and that seems faster at doing the task ( doing it now actually and it's up to 220 minutes and rising and less than a quarter of the way there) but this is still longer than exporting the project to the camera and then re-importing it to a new project. That's a guaranteed 3 hours and then it's less than 7 hours from encoding to burnt disc....no audio encoding problems. iDVD breezes through that task. (By the way, about 2 and a half hours on the G5 (wish I owned one)
Peter L
Dual 450 G4 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Thanks so much for responding guys....
Len, yep camera is definitely recording in 16-bit.
John.... nothing HD here, all DV files. Yes plenty of free space on the HFS+ formatted drive.
Yes, there is lots to render in this project but when I singled out say 10 minutes of a segment that's full on slow-motion and sepia (with an mp3 under it too) and then sent that for sharing to full quality DV, it did it in 20 minutes or less.
So in my head I'm thinkin... 20 minutes to do 10 minutes of footage, 180 minutes to do the full 90 minute project.
Actually tried it with the identical project on work's G5 (same machine you have), and it still took about 7 hours overnight. And plenty of free space on its hard drive too.
I've done so many experiments over the last week with different discs, methods of exporting and importing, what gets the stalled Audio Encoding treatment and what doesn't and results on two different computers. I think I should make a separate post and report on my findings ( for what its worth) before I forget it all. Might help someone.
One of my best results was just opening the show package contents of the project, clicking on Shared Movies/iDVD/ and then just dragging the .Mov into a new iMovie project . Once again takes some time on the G4 and less on the G5 but for some reason the quality was slightly better than the results I got from the sharing to Full Quality DV. Noticed it at the beginning with the titles. There was bleeding in the letters on the Full Quality DV but it was nice and tight on the dragging the .Mov method. This is even before it was burnt to DVD.
John I can't believe how fast that G5 DP 2GHZ goes through the video encoding process. It's like almost real time. Do you think that even on the Mac Pro 2GHZ it would be as fast or nearly as? I should think about updating soon.
Thanks again
Peter L from the land downunder ....

Full Quality DVDs?

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