How achieve highest playback quality from shared iMovie HDV Project?

Question

I have a Sony HDR-HC9 1080i HDV tape camcorder and I am able to play back HD video to either a Mac computer or to a Panasonic Full HD 1080p TV. Playback quality of unedited HD holiday video footage to TV using HDMI cable and to the computer via Firewire is superb. This excellent playback quality is also preserved in an edited iMovie Project in HDV format 57 minutes long and 48 GB in size which I made from the original 90 minutes holiday video footage.
The problems arose in trying to preserve this high quality when sharing the iMovie Project. Before I bought this HDV camcorder I had a Sony DV tape camcorder and I always used to make an archive tape from an edited DV Project by exporting the iMovie Project back to tape. However, when attempting to do the same with this latest HDV 48 GB Project the computer message informed me that it would take about 43 hours to do this. So that is out of the question!
Next I decided to make a Quicktime movie from the iMovie HDV Project using Full Quality compression via Apple Intermediate Codec (1440 x 1080). This took 12 hours to do! Computer viewing of the resultant 44 GB movie gave excellent image sharpness in still views, but for views of moving objects and also panned footage from the camera, closer viewing showed fine comb-outlining on most objects, but especially on narrow vertical objects. Is this what some of you call "jaggies" and is it an interlacing artifact? Whatever it is it was NOT in the iMovie Project but was introduced by the compression process Project->>Movie. Still worse was the jerky playback of the movie. The "IMovie Inspector" info confirmed that the movie had been made during the compression process at 25 frames per second whereas playback was in the range of only 3 to 10 fps! Previously made shorter Quicktime HD movies have not shown this jerky playback and played at 25 fps. Can anyone explain why this jerky playback occurred with the the longer 44GB movie?
Finally I made a DVD by dragging the uncompressed iMovie HD Project icon directly onto a DVD theme in iDVD and burning. The result was OK on both the computer and on TV but not great. Close viewing on the computer showed an effect which looked like a thin film of water rippling horizontally. This effect also showed in TV viewing of the DVD. Interestingly, this effect was almost eliminated when "Deinterlace" was UNCHECKED in the iDVD player viewing options.
My own conclusion is that the highest quality for archiving and playback is achieved by storing the large edited iMovie HDV PROJECT on an external hard drive and playing it back at full screen size on the Mac computer. In this way the iMovie editing functions such as the Timeline are hidden from view and cause no distraction when watching the superb HDV quality.
IS THERE A BETTER WAY?
Please comment and advise.
Vee Kay

Answer 1

I have a Sony HDR-HC9 1080i HDV tape camcorder and I am able to play back HD video to either a Mac computer or to a Panasonic Full HD 1080p TV. Playback quality of unedited HD holiday video footage to TV using HDMI cable and to the computer via Firewire is superb. This excellent playback quality is also preserved in an edited iMovie Project in HDV format 57 minutes long and 48 GB in size which I made from the original 90 minutes holiday video footage.
The problems arose in trying to preserve this high quality when sharing the iMovie Project. Before I bought this HDV camcorder I had a Sony DV tape camcorder and I always used to make an archive tape from an edited DV Project by exporting the iMovie Project back to tape. However, when attempting to do the same with this latest HDV 48 GB Project the computer message informed me that it would take about 43 hours to do this. So that is out of the question!
Next I decided to make a Quicktime movie from the iMovie HDV Project using Full Quality compression via Apple Intermediate Codec (1440 x 1080). This took 12 hours to do! Computer viewing of the resultant 44 GB movie gave excellent image sharpness in still views, but for views of moving objects and also panned footage from the camera, closer viewing showed fine comb-outlining on most objects, but especially on narrow vertical objects. Is this what some of you call "jaggies" and is it an interlacing artifact? Whatever it is it was NOT in the iMovie Project but was introduced by the compression process Project->>Movie. Still worse was the jerky playback of the movie. The "IMovie Inspector" info confirmed that the movie had been made during the compression process at 25 frames per second whereas playback was in the range of only 3 to 10 fps! Previously made shorter Quicktime HD movies have not shown this jerky playback and played at 25 fps. Can anyone explain why this jerky playback occurred with the the longer 44GB movie?
Finally I made a DVD by dragging the uncompressed iMovie HD Project icon directly onto a DVD theme in iDVD and burning. The result was OK on both the computer and on TV but not great. Close viewing on the computer showed an effect which looked like a thin film of water rippling horizontally. This effect also showed in TV viewing of the DVD. Interestingly, this effect was almost eliminated when "Deinterlace" was UNCHECKED in the iDVD player viewing options.
My own conclusion is that the highest quality for archiving and playback is achieved by storing the large edited iMovie HDV PROJECT on an external hard drive and playing it back at full screen size on the Mac computer. In this way the iMovie editing functions such as the Timeline are hidden from view and cause no distraction when watching the superb HDV quality.
IS THERE A BETTER WAY?
Please comment and advise.
Vee Kay