IMovie to iDVD quality loss?

When I try to burn a movie I made from iMovie through iDVD the quality of the picture is significantly low. How can I get this fixed? I want to have crisp movies on my DVDS??

Mike you are what I'd call trigger happy. People really need to stop doing that and just get on with helping people or discussing the topic at hand. If you haven't got anything worthwhile to say then don't say anything at all.
First of all I haven't hijacked anybody's post. You clearly have a problem with your reading ability because this post has absolutely nothing to do with a slideshow. It is clearly about 'picture quality' during movie playback which has nothing to do with pictures. Also you say that I said I state that my preview doesn't look all that great. What!?! I don't state that. Reading problem again? Or wait a minute... have you just replied to the wrong topic??? That's your only way out of this embarrassing situation. Otherwise you owe myself and the OP a major apology. We're both having the same issue. I'm an Apple Certified Trainer, been working with Apple for ten years now, and I'm just a little more technical perhaps than the OP. That's why my post might seem like it's going somewhere else to the untrained eye.
In any case, back to the topic... Last night I took the advice I saw elsewhere which said to export to QuickTime out of iMovie in the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC). I also took off all the brightening effects I'd added with iMovie '08. Hey presto! Major progress. Ok so I got literally ALL of my quality back BUT... there's now a new problem I need to solve. There are now wavy lines appearing during rapid movement. Like some kind of interlacing problem. It has also chewed up my lovely cut scene logos which are fine in the QuickTime AIC source. So I'm not sure how to proceed. Re-encoding with deinterlacing set within the QT file??? There's no such options in iDVD. It may be a scaling issue. The AIC source is 960 and of course iDVD is bringing that down to 720... but I'm sure my other tries involved the same downscale. Hmmm. :-S
Anyway Liss14 I would try your project in AIC. From iMovie's Share menu choose Export to QuickTime... reconfigure the options for this to use the Apple Intermediate Codec leaving the audio settings as they are. It may take a while to export, but you should get a good result. Then bring that into iDVD and encode to a disk image which you can easily test without burning real DVDs. I'll come back if I crack my problem. If you could come back if you find this advice improves things and whether or not you see the wavy lines during rapid movement.
Cheers.

Similar Messages

IMovie to iDVD quality

Hi,
I've read many posts on the issue of quality, most though don't seem to be quite like mine. The problem it seems for many is that it's difficult to describe exactly how bad the quality is. I'll do my best in this regard...
Basically, I have a quicktime movie file (ends with .mov, that's all I know) which I made with a little program called Image Surfer. If I play this movie file in Quicktime, the quality is excellent, clear as a bell. I have my computer hooked up to my TV, and on the TV the quality is excellent.
Now, I import the file into iMovie 6. As I understand it the preview that shows in the iMovie window is just that, a preview. So the quality is pretty bad, pixelated, choppy, ugly. However, titles for example still look very smooth and crisp.
So I finish editing my movie and hit 'share' and choose iDVD.
My movie then pops up in an iDVD window (with no processing) and I do a few menues and make it beautiful. Now, if I play the movie within iDVD it still looks like the preview in iMovie, ugly. I figure that's how it should be?
I then hit burn, it chugs away and 5 hours later a DVD spits out. Now, I'm confident all the formats are the same (PAL, 4:3) in all programs. In iDVD, I have best quality selected. The movie is only about 20 minutes long, so it shouldn't need to compress it to fit.
But alas, the DVD looks ugly. It looks exactly the same as the previews in iMovie, pixelated, choppy, ugly. Both on my computer screen, and my TV, and played on several DVD players. The titles are pixelated and ugly. It's all ugly.
Now I might just have assumed that this is as good as it gets, but then I put on a DVD which I made a couple of years back using the exact same method only with earlier versions of iMovie and iDVD, and guess what... it's crystal clear.
What happended? What has changed? What am I doing wrong? Is there a secret setting I've missed?
Surely the quality of video hasn't DEcreased with each version of iLife.
Thanks for any advice, the trial & error with a problem like this has proved quite time consuming.

Never mind, I'm an idoit. Well maybe just a little absent minded.
In the midst of my experimentation I glanced up to the top bar of my iMovie project and spotted a curious little line "MPEG-4".
It would seem on the creation of my project I have neglected to select the DV-PAL format, hence all my video was being re-encoded.
Giving myself an uppercut as we speak.
Thanks for everyone's help.
Shippey thanks for that link, I'll check it out. I had noticed some time back that Image Surfer was being discontinued, didn't realise it morphed into PTM. I'll have to give it a go.

IMovie 11 and quality loss with Sony Handycam DCR-SX33e

Hi folks,
I have a Sony Handycam DCR-SX33e (good one!) and iMovie '11 recognizes it, it's able to import movies directly from the cam, creates events, etc... BUT the quality of the movies within iMovie environment is very very poor (i.e. pixels big like a house!) BUT if I look at the movies using QT (from iMovie events, "reveal in Finder" on a movie), the quality is perfect.
Still, if I make a project and finalize it, the exported movies are horribles.
I notice that the cam works with a DV-PAL resolution (720x576), but iMovie works with wide resolutions.
How can I work with iMovie without losing quality on my movies? Can QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component for Mac OS X help?
Thank you!
Bye

Geriatra,
Don't judge the imported footage in iMovie11 on the clip area and the monitor area. They are not a true representation of the finalized project. What's the best way to judge if the footage is imported properly is to look at the actual footage itself by clicking the clip and then select reveal in finder. Play the footage and see if it matches the original. If you do not want iMovie to optimize the footage, you can deselect this feature and it will simply either copy or move your original footage.
Personally, I don't know if iMovie 6HD helps because your Mac still needs to read MPEG-2 properly which you said are not having any success. Over here on my Macbook, I have no problems working with MPEG-2 converted files and with iMovie 11. Quality is superb. Albeit, I converted those MPEG-2 files using my faster Quad Core Vista 64 machine and posted them later on my RAID network server before being made available for the Mac.
Hope this helps.

FCE to iMov to iDVD = generation loss

The only way I have found to burn projects on the internal iMac DVD drive is to
a) export using QT
b) import into iMovie
c) burn from iDVD
It's so frustrating bec the newly burned DVD looks like it was all shot
on an ancient VHS camera and is fuzzier than a youtube video....
1. how to maintain clarity all the way through? OR
2. is there a way to burn right out of FCE?
thx, Hil

I don't know settings/codec of source footage;
I expect gen loss between old format tapes
transferred to DVD then off DVD into FCE.
What I'm talking about is the diff betw
FCE to finished DVD.
There are two options FCE offers for export:
export ---> QuickTime movie
---> Using QuickTime Conversion
The former, which I always use, never offers export settings
(once, as an experiment, I tried the latter,
gen loss was even worse).
Yes, burning SD.

IMovie to iDVD quality drop

Hi. I've read a number of threads about this and just thought to share my experience, and ask if anyone had any bright ideas to improve things.
My footage is of an outdoor concert, shot pretty well on Sony DVCAM with an audio feed from the desk. The 4 hours of footage imported like a dream into iMovie HD. I stripped off the sound track, made some EQ and dynamics improvements and layed it back - perfectly in sync - a miracle!
So I have a finished item, easily produced, looks and sounds great, but using over 50Gb of disk space. So I split it in two and burn best quality to iDVD. I make a further edit of 50 mins. and burn that as a separate iDVD project. To my surprise the conversions, chapter markers, animations etc all work flawlessly.
The problem is end quality on DVD. The picture is terribly pixelated (especially over any transitions e.g. dissolves) and the audio is wrecked. The drums pump as though compressed with everything on 11.
Okay - the file size (for the 50 min cut) has gone from 17Gb in iMovie to 3.5Gb in iDVD and that represents a load of lost (or heavily compressed) information, but the end result is a real dissapointment on disk.
So for now I have 'shared' (terrible term) from iMovie back to regular DV tape until such times as better disk conversions or maybe Bluray provide a solution.
In these forums, many respondants have asked 'what do you expect from a low-cost application?' - which sounds fair - except that it seems to me that this final step in the production chain is a really surprisingly weak link.
iMovie is terrific, the iDVD interface is brilliant - things that we expect Apple to do well, and they do - but all this is wasted if customers are habitually disappointed by the end result, and from reading these forums, they are.
G5 2x2GHz 2HD Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Using my e-mac 1.25 / panther / imovie 5,the results I get from DVD's burned on this machine are excellent,not only I, but others remark on how sharp and clear the end product is.Generally speaking ,I was so pleased with the e-mac
that after a year passed continually feeding in six hours of DV and burning
three DVD's of just under two hours most weekends,I purchased an imac 2.g / 20" / tiger / ilife 6. thinking it will be a faster ,and better (a year is a long time in computer hardware and software)machine .
Well ! ....
how wrong could I be ! in addition to the heavy pixillating/blocking on the finished DVD's I had to contend with constant freezing ,crashing and sudden quitting of applications for no apparent reason.Lots of wasted time and effort
not to mention coasters ( things that just did not happen with the e-mac )
It got so that every time I used the i-mac I crossed my fingers !
Eventually,I Started from scratch and restored with panther and ilife5 and
generally speaking it's a far better machine to work with, certainly the pixilating/blocking has gone and the results are ok ,I can at least use the i-mac with some confidence,,perhaps I was just unlucky with ilife 6 but it won't be installed again !
So Iain, I don't know if you want to go down that road,it is only a suggestion
but for this machine, it worked ! ( fingers crossed ! )
Good luck

Imovie to idvd quality nightmare

I finished making a slide show on iMovie HD and burnt it to DVD with iDVD (from iMovie). From what I understand KB will render the clips as you add them to your movie. When I came to burn the DVD it asked to render something as this would assure the best quality. Was it a mistake to render this then? I do not know if it rendered all of the clips again, or in fact what it did at all, all I know is that the quality of the DVD is unwatchable. What have I done wrong and how can I fix it (will I have to re-import all the images)???
Thanks

Was it a mistake to render this then?
Yes!
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/iMovieHD_6_bugs.html#jaggystills

IPhoto Slideshows: major loss of quality when passed to iMovie or iDVD

Problem: Slideshows created in iPhoto and exported to a Quicktime movie lose quality when exported from iMovie or iDVD.
I've read through many threads in both the iMovie and iDVD forums, and I've done a lot of testing to find the source of my frustration. Now I want to spell out my findings and see how they compare with what others know of this process. I'm posting the thread in this forum because iPhoto seems to be the common denominator.
I create slideshows in iPhoto, adding Ken Burns effects to each photo individually. I then export the slideshow as a Large (640x480) movie. The resulting movie looks good when played in Quicktime.
I import the Quicktime movie into iMovie, add some music and themes and then export it. No matter how I export it, the quality greatly suffers.
I try bypassing iMovie and import the iPhoto-created movie directly to iDVD. I burn the project and the quality of the video suffers.
As a final test, I create a similar slideshow in Photo to Movie, using pan and zoom effects and music, just like the iMovie project. I export the slideshow to a Quicktime movie and it looks great. I send that movie to iDVD and burn the project -- the quality is much better.
All this testing tells me that iPhoto's exporting of the slideshow creates some problem when running the movie through iMovie or iDVD. At first I thought it was just the conversion of the video to Quicktime movie and then it being encoded again by iDVD. The thing is that Photo to Movie also creates a Quicktime movie and the result after iDVD is still good. I don't have a real technical explanation for what's going on, but surely somebody does!
Sorry for the length of this post, but I needed to lay out all of my findings to try and get a good discussion going. Anyone have some insight into all this?
PowerMac G5 1.8 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Running into the same problems with video books. I created some video books (using iPhoto's book feature and exporting to iDVD) and the Quicktime files don't look good.
However, I have created some slideshows prior and didn't run into any quality issues. I used the Share - Send to iDVD, but that shouldn't change anything.
If you hear how to resolve video quality issues, I'd love to know. I haven't yet burned my video books to DVD (just exported to QT), but I'm hoping on the TV from 10+ feet away it will look fine.

Display size query, + quality loss from iMovie originals

Learning to work the iDVD process, but what is the word on a foolproof sizing method, such that the thing will display OK on any TV? I don't see any way to restrict display size in iMovie, and what good is the TV Safe check, if you can't control the display size?? Also is quality loss inevitable? I'm compiling the DVD from separate files, less than 1 gb ea. I used "full quality" Quicktime compressed versions from the original iMovie file (which look fine in QT); then pulled those back in to iMovie, then shared to iDVD. One of the files looks fine encoded, but the other has weird sizzling-oil standing wave artifacts, even on still scenes from jpegs. Looking for help/comment/expressions of sympathy
Thanks,
John
Houston TX

Hi v
Quality of the DVD-disc depends on several things.
• Highes Quality isn't Top - better is Best Performances (up to 60 min movie)
confused naming - in iDVD'08 there is Pro Quality AND I like it.
• Media brand - I use Verbatim
• Type: DVD-R my choise no DVD+R or +/-RW
• I save a Disc-Image and burn this at an as SLOW speed as possibly (eg x1) with Toast™
(Disc Util tool can also do this)
• I DON'T USE the function Share/Export to iDVD from within iMovie - IT IS DESTRUCTIVE !!
Just drop the movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window - then iDVD do the
rendering and so much better. Especially if there is photos in the movie.
• Free space on internal (start-up) hard disc - should be about 25Gb when all material is imported
and structured. This for iDVD to work with - iDVD can't use an extern hard disc as scratch.
(less than 5Gb - result is most probably of no use at all)
This is what come's first to my mind.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie HD6: HDV to AIC to HDV... quality loss?

Hi All,
I'm curious, when I use my normal workflow (HDV to AIC (imovie 6) to HDV), does it lose quality?
If so:
* Is there a way to avoid this?
* How much quality is lost? Is there a visual comparison available?
Thanks for any input!

Dear catspaw,
Here are my thoughts, based on my experiences, and what I think I understand of all this..
1. Standard-definition DV (those little tapes, or the larger 'broadcast' tapes) is pretty much compression-free ..we-ell, strictly speaking there's some, but relatively little, compression used in DV. It looks perfect, although it is slightly compressed. The material recorded onto tape - and imported into iMovie - contains every frame which the camcorder optics see. So editing it is simple: all the frames get copied into iMovie, and you can chop out, or insert, anything you want. Using iMovie HD 6, or earlier, you can then copy the edited material back to a DV camcorder ..all the frames get shuffled out of the computer and back onto tape again. (You can't do that with iMovie '08, as it has no option to Export to Camcorder.) What you see in iMovie - after importing from a DV camcorder - isn't exactly the same as what you've imported, because iMovie runs on a computer, and uses a computer display, and that generally shows complete "progressive" frames of video, whereas a TV ..or TVs with cathode ray tubes; precursors to the latest LCD or DLP or plasma TVs.. will generally show interlaced 'half-frames' one after the other, each comprising half the TV picture, but shown in such rapid succession that they blur into each other, and our brains see a succession of complete frames.
(..Here's a good visual representation from one of Adam Wilt's pages:
..There are two 'fields' of video, each made of half the entire number of lines down the screen, superimposed on each other, and blending into a full frame of video comprised of all the lines. That's what happens on a TV screen when the interlaced 'fields' of video blend together..)
So standard-def DV is really plain and simple, and there should be no quality loss after shooting, importing, editing, exporting.
2. Hi-def. A can of worms. There are several different varieties of "hi-def". What we're working with in our 'amateur' movie program, iMovie, is generally the HDV version of hi-def, or the AVCHD version. (And a few people may be working with JVC's version of 'progressive' frames, but with a lower total number of lines down the screen: 720p, instead of 1080i. 720p has 720 pixels down the screen, and records and presents an entire 'progressive' ..one-line-after-the-other.. frame of video at a time, whereas 1080i shows 1080 pixels down the screen, consisting of half that number, 540; all the 'odd-numbered' lines.. at a time, immediately followed by the other half ..the even-numbered lines.. slotting in-between the previous lot. That repeating pair of 540 'interleaved' lines gives a total of 1080 interlaced lines in every frame. Movement appears smoother using 1080i (..after all, the picture is refreshed twice as often as with single-complete-frame 'progessive' video..) but may not look as super-sharp as progressive video, because at any moment there's only half the total information of a frame onscreen. 'Interlaced' video is smoother, and any action flows more "creamily", whereas 'progressive' may be considered 'sharper' (..it is if you freeze a frame..) but more jerky.)
So our 'amateur' hi-def movies may be recorded as HDV, AVCHD or some other similar format. 'Professional', or broadcast-intended, hi-def may consist of several other non-amateur formats, some of which are completely uncompressed and require extremely fast links between the cameras and recording equipment, and massive-capacity hard discs to capture and edit the huge quantity of data which such cameras..
..deliver ..for $150,000. Or here's a remote-control broadcast hi-def camera for (only) $7,995..
(..Tell me if I'm boring you..)
The hi-def cameras which we're more likely to be using..
..record compressed video in MPEG-2 format, or H.264, or some similar codec. The idea behind HDV was that the companies which make 'consumer-grade' (amateur) camcorders wanted a method to record hi-def - with about 4x the data of standard-def - onto the little miniDV tapes which we were all familiar with. So a method was found to squeeze 4x the data onto a tape which normally records standard-def DV data at 25 megabits per second. The method decided upon was MPEG-2 ..the same codec which is used to squeeze a two-hour Hollywood film onto a little 4.7GB capacity DVD. (Bollywood movies, as distinct from Hollywood movies, tend to be three hours long!)
If MPEG-2 was good enough for the latest cinema releases, in nice, sharp, sharper-than Super-VHS form, then it was thought to be good enough for 'domestic' hi-def recordings. The only awkward thing about that - from an editing point of view.. (..but which of the camcorder manufacturers are seriously interested in editing..? ..they primarily want to sell 'product' which - according to their advertising - is terrific at simply recording and playing-back video. Like car advertising shows you how wonderful cars are to sit in and for travelling to places, but the adverts don't tell you about how tricky it may be to get into the rear sidelights and replace a blown bulb..) ..is that in HDV there's only one 'real' frame for every 15 frames recorded on the tape. The other 14 are just indications of what's different between the various frames. Therefore, for editing, the 'missing' frames must be rebuilt during import into iMovie.
Steve Jobs heralded 2005 - at MacWorld, you may remember - as the "Year of HD!" ..It became possible to import and edit hi-def in iMovie ..that is, the HDV version of hi-def, not the uncompressed 'professional' broadcast version of hi-def, of course.. but ONLY with a fast enough computer ..and many weren't fast enough to import and convert HDV to editable-format in real-time (..no mention of it being the year you would import at half, or a quarter, or an eighth, real-time ..ugh-ugh).
So HDV gets converted to AIC to make it editable ..and then what d'you do with it? ..Few (none of them?) HDV camcorders let you import HDV back to tape from iMovie. No Macs had/have Blu-Ray burners ..although you can burn about 20 mins of hi-def onto normal DVDs with a Mac's normal inbuilt SuperDrive DVD burner with the appropriate software ..DVD Studio Pro, or Toast, etc.
(..Once again, there was some omission from the hoopla ..yes; you can import HDV! ..yes; you can edit HDV! ..er, no, sorry; no mention that you can't burn a 1 hour hi-def home video onto a hi-def DVD with a Mac ..iDVD would/will only burn in standard-def, and there are no Blu-Ray burners built into Macs..)
Then came AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec; High Definition). This compresses video even more than HDV (whose compression is pretty much invisible, and is in regular use for broadcast material) by using a different method. And along came progressive hi-def recording, trying to supersede HDV's generally 'interlaced' 1080i hi-def.
But the problem with progressive, non-interlaced AVCHD is that if there's rapid movement in a scene - if you move the camera, or something rapidly crosses the picture - instead of the "creamy flow" of interlaced video, there's a jerky lurch from one frame to the next. And with the added extra compression of AVCHD this jerkiness can be (..to my mind..) even more horribly evident.
Anyway, unscrambling ..and then re-assembling.. hi-def interlaced MPEG-2 HDV is pretty much invisible - to me, anyway. The video looks sharp, moves smoothly, looks 'true-to-life' and doesn't have terrible artifacts and jerks.
Unscrambling ..and then re-assembling.. hi-def interlaced or progressive AVCHD (..which is sometimes described as MPEG-4 or H.264..) - I know that you know this, but I'm also writing for others here - isn't quite as simple as doing the same for tape-based MPEG-2 hi-def HDV. Here's all the gobbledegook about what AVCHD can consist of.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_AVC
..Oh, and here's a bit about the "usability" of AVCHD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
There are many more 'varieties' of encoding in AVCHD than in 'simpler' hi-def, such as HDV. There's less data sent in an AVCHD data stream than HDV (..AVCHD has jumped from 17MBits/sec to 24MBits/sec ..just below HDV's 25MBits/sec..) so the video is more compressed than HDV. And there are all sorts of video formats (interlaced, progressive, HD, 'Full' HD) which are recorded by different cameras under the all-embracing 'AVCHD' label. iMovie - or a Mac - has to work much harder to unscramble and convert the more-compressed AVCHD format(s) than uncompressing HDV. And has to work harder to compress the output of iMovie to H.264 (an AVCHD codec) than when re-compressing to MPEG-2 (the codec for standard-def DVDs and hi-def HDV).
To - finally! - come back to your question "..is there therefore no advantage in using DV tape-based vidcams for editing purposes.." I'd say that there ARE advantages in using tape-based vidcams for editing purposes ..using your two categories:
1. Non-hi-def tape-based DV is ..to all intents and purposes.. lossless. And the material can be imported in real-time, and be output - with no loss - in real-time, too, using any Mac from an old G3 onwards. Importing non-tape material into iMovie ..e.g; miniDVDs, or chip-based, more compressed video.. is more long-winded, and generally has to go through various external bits of software (..e.g; MPEG Streamclip or somesuch..) to put it into a format that's editable in iMovie. AVCHD can, theoretically - as 'AVC', without the 'HD' - be used for recording in standard-def, but there are currently few AVCHD camcorders which are built to record standard-def video as well ..there is the Sony HDR-SR12. But only iMovie running on an Intel-powered Mac will decode AVCHD, apart from separate standalone Mac software such as 'Voltaic'.
2. Hi-def tape-based recording IS an advantage on anything that's less than the fastest, or highest-powered, of Macs, because it needs less "horsepower" to "unpack" the compressed data and to get it into an editable format through recovering, or rebuilding, the necessary individual frames. I think it's an advantage in every case, as not only can tape-based hi-def be edited on older, slower Macs (including pre-Intel Macs) but also:
(a) HDV data's less compressed, and so motion is generally expressed - currently - more "fluidly" than with the more compressed hard-disc or chip-stored AVCHD,
(b) HDV original material is "self-archived" onto its tapes ..you don't have to "empty" a camcorder's hard disc or memory chips onto something else - such as a separate hard drive - in order to re-use, or continue using, the camcorder: you just drop in another cheap 1-hour tape,
(c) Tape-containing camcorders tend to be heavier, less lightweight, than fewer-moving-parts chip-based AVCHD camcorders. They're therefore inherently less "wobbly" and don't tremble so much in your hand ..that gives smoother, less "jiggled-about" recordings ..even taking into account the stabilisation built into most camcorders,
(d) Tape-based camcorders are less likely to lose an entire 'shoot' by being dropped or mis-treated. Material already recorded onto a tape will not be damaged if you drop the camera and its tape-heads thereby become misaligned. The data can be recovered by simply ejecting the tape and popping it into another camcorder. If a hard-disc camcorder is dropped, subsequent head misalignment may mean that all data already on the hard disc is irrecoverable. If a memory chip becomes corrupted, all data may similarly become irrecoverable. If a tape becomes damaged, it's usually only a few seconds' worth which be lost. (..I dropped a tape-based camcorder in the sea when I was trying to get shots of waves coming in onto the beach from an offshore viewpoint, and a wave washed right over me and knocked me down. The camcorder was a write-off, but I managed to prise the tape out, and recover the 30 minutes of movie I'd already recorded. I don't really want to test it, but I have doubts about whether I'd have been able to recover my video from a similarly-drowned hard-disc based camcorder ..maybe, in the interests of factual objectivity I'll try it some day with an old, no-longer-used 2.5" hard disc..)
(e) AVCHD camcorders - unless you're looking at 'semi-pro' or professional 'cost-a-plenty' record-to-chip camcorders, or that Sony HD12..
..are generally built for "point-and-shoot" amateurs. This means that AVCHD camcorders generally do not have the assortment of manual controls which you find on most tape-based HDV camcorders (..because the camcorder makers also aim, or aimed, HDV at low-cost broadcast users, too). There's usually far greater flexibility and more shooting options (shutter speeds, exposure, audio handling) on tape-based HDV camcorders than can be found on AVCHD camcorders. If you're just pointing and shooting, that doesn't matter ..but if you want to shoot good-looking video, there are generally - and it is a generalisation - more adjustment options to be found on a tape-based camcorder than on a chip-based or hard-disc AVCHD camcorder. In my experience - yours may be different - people tempted by AVCHD camcorders tend to buy (..and manufacturers tend to publicise..) high pixel counts (like "Full HD 1920x1080") and that magic word "progressive" (perhaps because it has the flavour, in English, of "futuristic" or "more advanced") rather than their being concerned with choices of apertures or shutter speeds and the clearest representation of what the camcorder's pointing at.
In summary ..at last!.. "..is there therefore no advantage in using DV tape-based vidcams for editing purposes.." Yes; the advantages, I believe, are that HDV converts fast into AIC for editing; my perception is that HDV delivers smoother action (onscreen movement) than AVCHD; and with a suitable deck..
..HDV can be returned back to tape, whereas it's more long-winded and needs more subterfuge to export AVCHD back to a chip, or a camcorder's hard disc, for in-camera replay ..and thence out to an HDTV.
As always, these are simply my opinions ..others may disagree.

Poor Image quality/Slideshow/iMovie to iDVD

I placed about 150 jpegs as clips in iMovie HD (v.5.0.2). I made them all 3.25 seconds long and gave them all a short overlap transition. I set them to music and exported to iDVD (v.5.0.1). Once the DVD was burned, I viewed it with disappointment. Briefly, during the transitions the images are of great quality. But the actual image clips are very poor quality. I'm new to this and I find all the many options for making quicktime movies a little overwhelming. But, exporting to iDVD doesn't have any options. I thought it was supposed to maintain the quality.
What did I do wrong or what can I do right?

Karl Peterson said,
"If there are unrendered clips in the Timeline when we tell iMovie to Share (Export) a project to iDVD, iMovie will ask permission to render those clips. (Rendering converts the clips to video clips.)
These may include still photos, photos imported with the Ken Burns checkbox turned OFF. Photos imported with the Ken Burns checkbox ON are rendered by Ken Burns; iMovie won't ask to render them again.
If we grant permission to render clips, iMovie will render them with very poor quality, adding lots of "jaggies" to the photos. It's a bug.
To avoid the bug, do NOT grant permission to render when iMovie asks. Then iDVD will render them for us, which it does with good quality.
So, to avoid the bug do any ONE of these:
1. Import all photos with the Ken Burns checkbox ON.
2. If iMovie asks permission to render when exporting the project, do NOT grant permission.
3. Instead of sharing from iMovie to iDVD, drop the iMovie project into the iDVD project window.
Karl"

IPhoto album to iMovie to iDVD, poor quality of projected images

I am preparing a slide show of digital photo images. The finished product shows poor quality images. I am import the images as an album to iMovie, add a few title slides, then export either to media file or directly to iDVD. The results remain unacceptable when projected on a flat panel HD TV. Where am I going wrong?
Marks 3

If you are using the Share ➙ iDVD menu in iMovie, don't. Use the Share ➙ Media Browser menu option and then drag the movie frome the Media/Movies pane in iDVD into the projects menu window. The Share ➙ iDVD route noticibly degrades the resulting movie. What size movie are you sending to iDVD? It should be Medium or Large.
What size images in iPhoto are you using? They shoujld be cropped to the 4:3 size ratio for iDVD before adding to either iMovie or iDVD.
Have you considered creating the slideshow in iDVD by adding the album of photos via the Media/Photos pane in iDVD. I've found I get better results that way. However, there is a 99 slide limit with that workflow.
What do you mean by poor quality. When going from a photo on your monitor to a TV screen the media gets resized and compressed/encoded down to 640 x 480 which can't duplicate the high resolution of the original image viewed on the monitor.
OT

Huge quality loss in iMove '11

Hello fellow iMovie users.
Yesterday I upgraded to iLife 11 to get the new iMovie and its "new" audio editing capabilities. I could ofcourse just buy it from Mac App Store, but I am principally against App Store and its strict rules, so I choosed to get it the old way.
Anyway, I liked what i saw. Finally the new iMovie was about as good as the five year old one, and had some neat features like chroma key and cropping.
So I decided to start practicing and create a short video based on some old DV-videos filmed with my Canon MV950 DV-PAL camera.
I imported the footage into iMovie, and noticed some significant quality loss after the import.
And it get worse. After I exported the video, it seems like it is heavily compressed, even if I'm exporting to QuickTime and selects the highest quality possible.
I have some screenshots to show you the differences.
This is the original DV-footage.
The imported video. Notice the higher compression and the choppy edges.
And this is the exported video. Notice the insanely bad quality, especially in dark areas.
Is there any way to fix this, or do I have go back to iMovie HD?
PS. Sorry if my post is a bit unreadable. I'm from Norway.

Steve,
While I agree everyone should have owned a HD camera by now, there are a lot of low-end SD cameras that are still being sold today. In this era of our economy, consumers are sensitive to prices; especially low or lower prices.
And unlike the video camcorder boom of the 80s with Sony introducing the Video8 handycam (shoulder mounted camcorder), people today do not video using traditional camcorders. Most either do it through a digital camera, DSLR, iPhone or blogger cameras and are already mostly in an acceptable progressive format. There is nothing wrong with DV style cam. Canon GL-2 and the Panasonic DVX-100 are still commanding such a very high price tag for cameras of older technology and still being repaired goes to show that there are people out there still using it.
If one can convert quality interlaced footage into quality progressive footage, you can use that footage and create good results using iMovie 11. I agree with you and Tom that iMovie 11 captures interlaced footage in full. But what's the use if it can't make a good product in the end that looks like what iMovie 6HD can do and when there are PC software out there including the free Windows Movie Maker that can do this with no problem.
Consumers, unlike some of us, only relate to past software used and are usually benign to the fact of progressive vs interlaced. I have dealt with some mis-informed customers that they believed FULL HD only means 1080p at 60fps; anything else is not. I digress.
With Mac users, they don't necessarily follow the same upgrade frequency as PC users either. Macs generally last a lot longer between upgrades compared to a PC because they don't have to run a barage of virus/spam/anti-malware growing definition files which ultimately slow an otherwise healthy PC down. Macs do not have to worry about this.

How can i make iMovie -- iDVD quality better??

I have search about the idvd quality in this site but i can't solve my problem yet.
I had a sony DV cam which is PC3, Pal. And I use the imovie..import...edit, then use "share" to idvd...then burn...
So I play the finished DVD in a DVD player, i find many many pixels, the quality of the DVD movie inside is like a VCD. In fact, my DV cam is not the lastest and fine quality, but i surpose the DVD movie should be same quality as my DV cam.
So I use another method to test whether my DV cam....(is model too old, something wrong with my DVcam...)
(1) In imovie, use "share" to my DV cam tape
(2) then i use another converter which is borrow from my friend, is like a DVD burner and player. which can convert the DV tape or VHS...directly convert and save in a DVD disc.
(3) after burning the file. the quality is fine, just like what i shoot from my DV cam.
So what's the problem?? Is the convertor between imovie and idvd not good enough??
Or I need to use other methods? for example, use the imovie export a quicktime movie, then use the toaster make the DVD or VCD is better ?
How can i make it better??

select Quicktime and sele4ct full-quality
That is an option, too, but I use that only when troubleshooting.
iMovie automatically creates a reference movie when it saves at iMovie_project/Shared Movies/iDVD/*.mov. Using the ref.mov instead of a full quality export saves time and HD space.
iMovie sends that ref.mov to iDVD when you press the "Create iDVD project" in iMovie's iDVD tab. BUT: DON'T let iMovie render still images if it prompts it: as a very old nasty bug, it will ruin your stills!!
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/iMovieHD_bugs.html#jaggystills
...how I wish Apple would finally fix that bug...
You can also use that ref.mov as an input for 3rd party apps. MPEG Streamclip and JES Deinterlacer can "see" it inside the package but with some other apps you may need to copy it out of the package 1st.
Notice also that some 3rd party apps (MPEG Streamclip and JES Deinterlacer do this correctly) may unexpectedly honor the deinterlaced playback setting of the ref.mov so you must uncheck that flag with QT Player before using it as in input. Otherwise the output will be deinterlaced.

Heavy quality loss in iDVD 6

Hi,
I made movies in HD standard (1440 x 1080i) comprising HD material (1280 x 720) and stills (1920 x 1080) and included slide shows (jpg´s 1920 x 1080 px, 180 dpi).
The movies and slide shows look fine on the screen (crisp & sharp).
After including the material in iDVD6 an rederering the stuff in "best quality" the result is absolutely disappointing: movies and fotos have lost a great deal of the sharp original resolution and look "muddy".
Is iDVD not capable to render HD material in an adequate way?

Hi
And there are two small points more.
• iDVD - update function = lot's of problems
• Photos in iMovie - then Send/Export to iDVD - gives a really bad result
First iDVD - When You done Your layout and assembled the DVDs content - DON't
go back to eg iMovie and change ANYTHING.
If You do - iDVD will notice and ask to update - THIS has a severe BUG that results in
a. All chapters will point to same place
b. Most probably quality issues too (my guess)
iMovie. When I include photos and are done with ediiting I
• Close iMovie
• Open iDVD and start a new project
• Import from within iDVD - so that iMovie can't do any rendering. iDVD does this so much better.
One more quality factor is
• low free space on internal boot hard disk - NEVER under 25Gb on my Mac
Yours Bengt W

How to burn a video produced in iMovie in iDVD: with gratitude for the advice received I used the "professional quality" setting in iDVD for a video which in iMovie is 1h 20min long. however this also failled. where did I go wrong, please?

how to burn a video produced in iMovie in iDVD: with gratitude for the advice received I used the "professional quality" setting in iDVD for a video which in iMovie is 1h 20min long. however this also failled. where did I go wrong, please?
the message sked me to alter the quality of the DVD as the content was too large for the quality sellected.
PLEASE HELP again,
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
MIchael

Check the Advanced ➙ Project Information menu option to make sure the playing time of the entire project, movie plus menu is below the 120 minute limit.
OT

IMovie to iDVD quality loss?

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