IMovie '11 exports look awful

Hi! I've edited a video in iMovie and it looks great when watching it in iMovie itself. But when I export it, using Quicktime, with the highest possible settings, the picture quality is awful, with lots of banding. I was wondering, is this a known issue with iMovie '11 and is the a solution?
It saddens me to think I'm stuck with videos looking like this when the original picture quality is so much better. And I don't feel like paying lots of extra money to buy Final Cut Pro just to make a decent video export, especially since I've already edited the whole video in iMovie. That would be such a waste of time and hard work. If only I had known before I started editing the video.
Anyway, I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!

It could be your settings. Can you tell us what settings you are using in QuickTime?
I would suggest trying SHARE/EXPORT MOVIE in the largest size available. That should produce a good quality movie. In my experience, adjusting the QuickTime settings might help you get close to the same quality at a lower file size, but it is not likely to get you higher quality than Apple's Presets under Share/Export Movie.
If EXPORT MOVIE still gives you bad quality, please post back.

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bubsy wrote:
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Are you using the same playback deck? All players use different upscale algorithms and some are really awful. Then there is the setting on the TV which may have its own upscaling routine. Your DSLR footage was 720 or 1080 but your DVD is a very lossy and lousy MPEG2 that, at best, can only deliver 480 horizontal lines of severely compressed video. You are throwing away 75'% of your pixels.
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Message was edited by: David Bogie Chq-1

Help! DVD copies looking awful!!

Hi,
The DVDs I'm burning look awful. I am exporting a project from FCP to a QT movie. The QT looks fine on the computer when I play it back full screen but when I burn it to a DVD it looks horrible both on the computer and from a DVD player. This is a weird turn of events since I have downloaded and made files from the same project many times and did not have this problem. The resolution is so jagged and the titles look horrible.
I am not using any compression when making the QT. I have used current settings - which are HDV 1280 x 720p and, when that looked bad, I tried using pro res 422 720p. I have changed the settings in idvd 6 to Best Performance and have also tried the Best Quality Setting.
I've been searching this forum for hours for answers about my problem. I have tried every fix I can find to no avail. I'm desperate now since I need to get a dvd in the mail today in order to make a festival deadline.
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#42 - Quick and dirty way to author a DVD
Shane's Stock Answer #42 - David Roth Weiss' Secret Quick and Dirty Way to Author a DVD:
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1. Export a QT movie, either a reference file or self contained using current settings.
2. Open DVDSP, select the "graphical" tab and you will see two little monitors, one blue, one green.
3. Select the left blue one and hit delete.
4. Now, select the green one, right click on it amd select the top option "first play".
5. Now drag your QT from the broswer and drop it on top of the green monitor.
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7. Hit the little black and yellow burn icon at the top of the page and put a a DVD in when prompted. DVDSP will encode and burn your new DVD.
THATS ALL!!!
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Capture - iShowU - Apple Animation - looks great - edits great - Can't get the **** thing out of iMovie - it exports a screen shot only - a backwards screenshot - like a negative - upside down as well - to iTunes, MediaBrowser, .Mac, YouTube - desktop.
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Note to Apple - Is this something that I can expect to be fixed or do I give up and start over?
They will if everyone provides appropriate feedback through proper channels. Here is a link to the Apple "Product Feedback" page on which you can locate a link to current Apple products. Use the links provided to report bugs, make technical comments, or request enhancements. If you don't report a problem, they can't fix it. In addition, the are much more likely to fix a problem reported by many users than one reported by only a few. Don't assume someone else will make these reports for you. Please play and active role here.
Apple Product Feedback Page

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whats with that i put a few clips in the new imovie and it looked awesome then did the same thing with fcp and it looked crappy is there an exporting setting or something

Before you import, export or anything else, do this.
Go to the menu bar: *Final Cut Pro* > Easy Setup > DV/DVC Pro NTSC (if relevant, choose the Anamorphic version of this setting) > OK.
Sequence > Settings > Load Sequence Preset > OK.
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File > Export > QuickTime Movie > Current Settings > Self Contained.
Before you view the result in QuickTime Player:
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So far so good.
Next I exported the movie choosing "Export for iDVD" from the Export menu option.
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So I double-clicked on the .MOV file to verify that the contents of the file were OK too.
After a few seconds (ranging from 5 to 43 based on multiple tries), the movie stops playing and my Mac freezes - except for the mouse. I can move the cursor around the screen but everything else in th UI is unresponsive.
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Post back if the above does not help.

IMovie '11 Exports are distorted with dark colors.

Hello everyone, I have a bit of a problem with iMovie 11 exports. I usually capture video games with an HD PVR (.mp4 files)
Once I import those videos - without converting them to .mov or any DV formats, I edit, export, and save the video to my desktop. However, once I watch the videos- no matter what format I save it in- the video comes out a little disorted, or blurry, and you can specifically see the problem with the dark colors and any darkened spaces in the videos. Anyone with the same problems/solutions?

The blurry video is likely caused by the de-interlacing of the video. iMovie doesn't handle interlaced video properly where Final Cut Pro does.
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When i import from my vidio camera into imovie the clips look tall and thin.tied different imports like full size or large but seem to make no difference everything seems to run ok including sound whats going on? the m

when i import from my video camera into imovie the clips look tall and thin. tried different imports like full size or large have imported both sd and hd but seem to make no difference everything seems to run ok including sound. whats going on?

Hi Brad,
when you use Streamclip to convert media, use the same name for the exported file (only with different extension). Then make a shell script calling
touch -r origFileName.mp2 newFileName.mov
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The script may look like this (save the file, give an exec permission to it and call it in the right directory):
#!/bin/bash
for i in `ls *.mp2`; do
NEWNAME=$(ls "$i" | sed -e 's/mp2/mov/')
touch -r $i $NEWNAME
done
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this is gonna need a compressor / dvd studio pro guru to
I have been searching the internet / forums etc etc for hours - have tried heaps of suggested settings but just cant get a good result - I am on a brand new mac pro quad core - the latest Final cut studio with all latest software updates.
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after trying the standard best quality settings and getting youtube results:
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100% duration relative to source.
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Try exporting from FCP timeline to selfcontained QuickTime file first, and processing this file with Compressor. Report if there is any difference, please. I am asking because I just found similar bug considering HDV 1080i50 format.

When publishing to a folder page looks awful once uploaded. Can anyone help

Hi,
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IMovie '11 exports look awful

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