Importing Movie using DV

Question

Hi Guys.
I have a panasonic NVGS230 video camera & when I import the movie using DV the quality is crap.
When I burn a dvd & play it its very jittery. Even watching it in imovie, its bad. Any ideas?
Regs
D

Answer 1

Hi
Yes as Ziatron writes
• iMovie'08 & 09 - Reduces quality of interlaced SD-video material
But
• iDVD - There are no HD-version of iDVD yet
• Brand of DVDs, Type of DVDs, burn speed and free space - also plays a vital role
• What kind of material You put into iDVD eg. .avi, .wmv, .mp3 etc can give problems
• What encoding quality chosen. Dep. on Duration = Movie time + Menu (can be up to
or more than 15 min - I select an as simple possibly)
My list on DVD-Quality
1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality (movies up to 120 min.) - BEST
• Best Performances (movies less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) (movies 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) Disk Util tool.
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.
• 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.
• 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
Yours Bengt W