Importing old/low quality film

Hi. newbie here. Thanks to all you folks for helping out.
I am importing footage that was converted from vhs. When I insert it into the timeline it apears in a small box in the middle of the screen. When I try using the zoom function on camera view the picture fills the screen but becomes distorted. When compared with the original footage (that was already converted) it is distorted and of much lower quality. What would be the right way of importing the footage?
Thanks!

Hi
In the media bin window drag a clip onto the new icon or select a clip right click and select new sequence from clip.
Can you also check the properties or your clips and list them.
If the VHS tapes were where cine was captured to you would be better getting the cine professionally digitised in HD.
Col

Similar Messages

Imported Media Looks Low Quality - Why??

Hi. I just got Priemiere Elements 7.0, Before I was using Windows Movie Maker under Vista. When I import DVD movie files into that - they look just like on the DVD - really good quality. However I just imported the same files into Premiere Elements and they look low quality and a bit blocky. What do I need to do to get them looking normal. Thank you very much
Rich

Rich,
What you are seeing in your workflow is twofold. WMP (Windows Media Player) is playing the MPEG-2 file directly, while the Preview in PE is playing a DV-AVI Type II file, which is what PE needs to work with. As you also found, the red line indicates that one needs to do a Render to get better playback. Also, if your Program Monitor is set to "Fit," the quality of playback (remember, this is just an emulation of the playback of the file), it will be slightly degraded. A setting of 100% will get you closer to what you will be seeing in final and should be used to judge the final output - though it is STILL just an emulation.
Now, the better workflow would be to go back to before that source DVD was created. The source footage will be better, as that DVD has been compressed to MPEG-2 and image data lost forever. You rip the MPEG-2 files to something else, or maybe directly to MPEG-2, then bring into PE, which will convert them into DV-AVI Type II. Though only slightly compressed, it cannot restore the lost data. Then, if you Export back to DVD, you are re-compressing to MPEG-2 once more. The quality of the original source footage will be many times better, if you can go back to it. If not, then you are stuck with the quality hit. The best that one can ever do is to use an editing program that will edit the MPEG-2 files natively, and not re-Transcode anything that has not been altered. However, most of these will offer limited editing functions.
What you are doing is akin to taking a film negative, and printing it to a "silk finished" 4x6 print, and then scanning that print to bring into Photoshop. It will never be as good, or as sharp, as that original negative. However, sometimes we just cannot go back to the source and have to live with what we've got.
Good luck,
Hunt
PS, I think that Steve addressed your other question. Let us know if you now have all the necessary info.

Import old film photos as tif, capture date set to 12/31/03 (1903)

Lightroom 5.5 on Mac Mountain Lion, 8gb memory, files on external usb 2.0 hard drive.
Imported old film images as tifs. Looking in metadata the capture date on all images shows as 12/31/1903 (12/31/03?). Where did this come from as there is no capture date in the original film tif image. Is there a setting someplace I missed? Is this a bug?
TIA for assistance/answer provided.
Milt

The date created metadata within the document is hosed, I've seen this with files in the past, not sure what causes it. Why that old date, who knows but it's a common issue:
Files/Folders with a Date Created of Dec 31, 19... | Apple Support Communities
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=502924
You'll have to use LR's Edit Capture Time command to fix it.

After import from Iphoto some pictures are of very low quality. The original file in Iphoto is very good.

Final cut Express
I imported several pictures by using Iphoto. Some of them, not all, are of very low quality even if the original file is of a very good quality.

It sounds as though you may have imported the thumbnails but I can't imagine how.
It all depends on what you mean by very low quality.
Your iPhoto pictures will be around 4,000x3,000 pixels but when they are imported into a standard def timeline they will be around 720x540 which is a tremendous reduction.
They should still look OK but not as good as the brilliant hi-res originals.
Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

Prior to importing photo's should the thumbnails be of a low quality such that they are blurry?

Prior to importing photo's should the thumbnails be of a low quality such that they are blurry?
I have recently started to use lightroom and when selecting a folder to import from my hard drive the thumbnails are of (in my opinion) very low quality. Once they are imported they are fine, is this correct?

The import dialog is there to help you locate And identify the images that you want to import. They are not high quality previews. You shouldn't consider using the import dialog to determine the quality of any image. Use it to identify your images and get them imported. Then let Lightroom generate its own previews.

Importing high quality video through a lower-quality camera

(Final Cut 5 in a G5, 10.5.8)
The camcorder I'm using to shoot video for my Final Cut projects is a Panasonic PV-GS400, a good 3-chip mini-DV camcorder that shoots high-quality DV (original price $1500).
I would prefer not to use this camera to play the video into Final Cut, to save wear and tear on its tape drive (with tape, of course, one hour of recorded video takes one hour to play into Final Cut).
I have an inexpensive little Canon Elura 100 Mini-DV camcorder (original price $400) that could be used to play the tapes from the Panasonic into Final Cut, but if I did that, would the higher quality of the Panasonic's video be degraded to the lower level of the Canon's video when passing through?
To put it another way, can a Mini-DV tape with high quality video on it be imported through a relatively low-quality camera into Final Cut and still retain its high quality?
Thanks for any help.
Tom

Thanks much, guys. Yes, I'm using firewire. Glad to hear there's no loss of quality when the video is strained through a lesser camcorder on its way into Final Cut.
So now I'll go ahead and use the little Canon Elura as my playback/ingest camera with no worries.
I appreciate the help!
Tom

How can I replace one low quality source with another high quality one ?

Am I really this dumb or is it really this hard ?
I have one timeline / project / edit that essentially references one long source clip / event / file.
I have a newer higher quality transcoded version of the same source and want to replace the original lower quality version and end up with the same edited result just with better quality images !?
It's the same frame rate and image dimensions but "relink" tells me the new file is not "similar" enough and won't do it !
Why is this so hard ? Is there a way to export a good old fashioned edl and then just reconform using the new source ?
What if I wanted to to replace low res offline footage with finished colour-corrected material and output a finished master - would that be this clueless as well ?
Please let me know the problem is between the chair and the keyboard - not between the hard disk and the power cord !

Guessing that when you created the higher quality media, it was done outside of FCP and probably changed some important metadata that the app is looking for. Or perhaps there is a difference between the original audio and the new audio.
Anyway, Luis' advice about the replace edit seems like the easiest solution.
a_mumford wrote:
What if I wanted to to replace low res offline footage with finished colour-corrected material and output a finished master - would that be this clueless as well?
The usual way to do offline online is within FCP – creating the proxies and then using Preferences to switch back to and from.
If you sent it out for grading, the Relink should work fine. If you haven't seen this kb doc, it's worth reviewing.
Russ

IDVD08 lower quality video than iDVD06

I'm not a pro video guy, so I really relied on the "simple" Mac apps and associated iLife (mainly '06). There were MANY changes from iMovie/iDVD '06 to '08 and maybe I'm missing something.
With a recent import of DV tape into iMovie '08 and sharing it with iDVD, my wife and I immediately noticed lower quality video in the films (let alone the lack of chapters, sigh). Reading these (and other) forums, I found the iMovie '06 download and proceeded to use it for another movie and sent it to iDVD '08.
Using the same quality (professional -- I don't mind the lengthy time), the output DVD was definitely better looking than the previous work flow (iMovie 08, share, iDVD 08).
Has anyone else seen/noticed this?

Hi Andre
There is another aspect too.
If You add photos to Your movie and use "Share/Export to iDVD" from versions up to iMovie 6
then You'll probably get a lousy result what ever coding scheme.
If You done this and let iMovie render - two problems occures:
• iDVD performs badly
• Your original iMovie movie is harmed and You need to re-import Your photos and re-do the edit.
Then close down iMovie. Drop the movie icon (with a Star on it) into the theme window in iDVD.
Now iDVD will do the rendering and so much better.
Most probably this goes for iM08 and iDVD08 too.
Ps. I used Pro Quality on a small project and got a very good result - but may be I just was lucky Ds
Yours Bengt W

High def on my iMac, but low quality on MacBook :(

I did a screen capture and exported it as HD. Imported it into iMovie for some editing and then exported as HD. Looks crystal clear on my iMac and really low quality on my MacBook Pro. Both computers are new within the year, not old. These are for my Photoshop tutorials which I sell. I claim that these videos are crystal clear and will play sharp as a tack on your computer. Will they or will they not? Help!

P.S. Could it be that I did the screen capture on my 21" imac and then finished the editing in iMovie on my 15" MacBook? I recorded on a big screen and edited on a little one? I can't figure this out! Didn't happen with any others.

IDVD low quality slideshow

Hi There,
I start a new project slideshow of a wedding I shot with my Canon DSLR and decide to make a slideshow DVD with iDVD. I shoot my pictures in RAW and convert them to JPEG in Adobe PS the RAW image is 24MB each and when convert to JPEG they go to 7.9MB. The Issue is I make the presentation and it looks fabulous in my iMAC but when i view the final product in my dvd player the photo's looks out of focus like if the convertion decrease the quality a lot,also i burn the disc in professional quality and Best performance with the same results,i little lagy using Best performance. Anything else i should try? Any advice?
Mike

Hi
And here is my "un-sorted collection of thoughts about DVD-Quality" read if You can take it - It's long !
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

Why is it that when I connect my iPhone 5S to my Windows Vista computer, the photos made with my iPhone are all of very low quality and most of them are turned upside down?

Why is it that when I connect my iPhone 5S to my Windows Vista computer, the photos made with my iPhone are all of very low quality and most of them are turned upside down?
On another note, the iPhone tells me that it's ''busy'' when opening a photo on the computer.
(I tried restarting my PC, connecting via another USB port, importing using PhotoStream, etc...)

Are you using the front or rear camera? When you say they are low quality, are you referring to file/pixel size, or how the picture looks? As far as upside down, how are you holding the phone? Older versions of Windows have issues reading the Metadata from the pictures and will not display the same.

Can I add an extra lower quality music library to iTunes for iPhone syncin?

Hi
I currently have my whole iTunes library in Apple Lossless format as I like the high quality for my AppleTV and don't mind the extra HD space it takes up. However, it means that the files are really too big for the limited 8GB capacity of my new iPhone.
Question - can I set up a seperate area/seperate Music Library/seperate folder (whatever), where I can duplicate my entire current iTunes Music Library at a lower quality setting, specifically for use when syncing to my iPhone?
1. How would I duplicate to a lower quality?
2. How do I set up a seperate area for these lower quality files that will sync to iPhone?
3. Could I automate the CD ripping process so that it placed a file in each of the seperate areas (big ask that one)?
Kind regards,
Garglon

1. Go to iTunes Preferences>Advanced>Importing
Select Import using <AAC encoder> Setting <Custom>
Select the music you want to duplicate and add it to a playlist so its easier to find
Select all music to duplicate again right click and select Convert Selection to AAC
2. Close iTunes. Open iTunes holding the option key
It will ask you if you want to create a new library or open an existing one. Select create library
Add the new lower quality songs to the library
You can add the original songs first to this new library >>> then convert >>> and after the conversion remove the original songs from the library(just from the library do not move them to trash)
You can also just create a new playlist with the lower quality songs but then you would have duplicates in your library
3 You would have to import the songs from the CD twice
a. Once in the good quality library(by changing the import settings back from the low quality)
b. Then open the new library change the import settings and import again
An easy way to find the newly created files is adding a new smart playlist with the rules:
Playlist is Music
Limit to <how many songs you are duplicating> <items> selected by <most recently added>

Just upgraded, low quality warning on all photos?

Hi All,
Hoping someone can assist me here. Just upgraded to iPhoto 6 and was experimenting with the greeting card function. Apparently, all of my photos (unretouched & uncropped) which are 1704 x 2272 at 180 dpi are too low quality to print reliably. I'm trying to print the images at 5x7 or smaller, and as far as I understand 1704 x 2272 should be adequate, but I get the low quality warning on every picture in my library. I use a Canon Digital Elph S400 at maximum resolution/quality, am I going to need a higher megapixel camera to produce images of sufficient quality for the online printing services? Any advice appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Jennifer

Jennifer:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Sound like somethings broken in iPhoto. First run Disk Utility and repair disk permissions. Then, if needed, go to your User/Library/Caches folder and delete the iPhoto folder there.
Next, log into another account on your Mac and see if you can create a card and not get the warnings. If so then your primary account has some incompatibility with iPhoto. If you get the warning then it's probably iPhoto and you'll need to reinstall iPhoto. If you do have to reinstall iPhoto you'll have to delete the current application and all files with "iPhoto" in the file name that reside in the HD/Library/Receipts folder. Be sure to repair disk permissions after the installation and updates.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.

Upgraded to CS5.5. Images in Indesign are displayed in lower quality after being saved in PS

Hello,
i upgraded to the Creative Suite 5.5 today and detected a strange behaviour. I work on a document which has been generated on another system with an older version of the Creative Suite. Everything is
fine until i open and save one of the images which are used in an Indesign-Layout in Photoshop. After doing this the saved image is displayed with lower quality than before while all other pictures
remain at the same preview quality level. Of course i can change to »Überdruckenvorschau – maybe overprint preview« (Sorry - i do not know how this is named in the english version) or change to the high quality view but
this is a little bit too much for working.
Do you have any ideas?
thank you so much,
tm

I suspect the old High Quality preview was retained (like the text layout will be retained on a converted file until you touch the story in some way, at which point it will be recomposed using the new text engine) and when you replaced the image a new prview as drawn using the current view settings.
Enable High Quality Display if that's the view you want.

Low quality export for stop motion animation stills from Canon 5D Mark ii

Thank you very much beforehand to anyone who is willing to look through this issue, it's been a long and frustrating process so far...
I am attempting to put together a stop motion animation in Final Cut Express but my exports are always either low quality, or medium quality and stretched. I am shooting on a Canon 5D Mark ii set to take pictures at 21M 5616x3744 [999] (though I'm not entirely sure what the 21M or 999 mean).
When I first assembled my stills (unedited or altered in any way) and exported, it looked like this:
A relatively drastic loss in colour and quality. This was achieved exporting through quicktime conversion using the following settings:
Compression Type: H.264
Compressor Quality: Best
Size: 1920x1080 HD
Preserve aspect ratio using: Crop
Deinterlace source video: unchecked
Unhappy with the result, I went through hours of testing and researching which only yielded a result after I discovered the control-Q Easy Setup menu. I tried setting up as an apple intermediate codec using HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i60 at 29.97 fps. I kept the export settings the same as above, but knowing that I was now working with a canvas that keeps to the 16:9 proportions, I tried cropping one of my stills in photoshop to fit that 16:9 ratio.
I then imported my 16:9 cropped still and an unedited JPEG version from my camera and exported the resulting 10 second video. The result was better quality, but still noticeably degraded from the original stills. More importantly, both the cropped 16:9 and the unedited JPEG were stretched out of proportion as seen below (16:9 version):
Of course I forgot to note the original settings on Easy Setup so I can't figure out how to get back to the original lower quality, yet undistorted image (not that I want to do that). I tried numerous different sizes for the export including changing the Crop (when necessary) setting to letterbox. Nothing worked.
The canvas, however, immediately looked 100% better after switching the Easy Setup to HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i60 at 29.97 fps. It held the improved quality without distorting the image:
I'm not sure if there's any hope of having a great image quality, but at very least I would like to be able to export at the decent quality of the second screenshot without the stretching and cropping.
I need to have this resolved ASAP for work, I've already wasted too much time here. Any help is so appreciated, I'll be active in providing whatever additional information that I can to responders, though please keep in mind that I'm relatively new to all this, I don't know where to find everything

I've decided just to try to get back to the export that I showed in the first screenshot. That result came before I started tampering with the Easy Setup. Like I said, when I changed the setup the canvas quality improved drastically and the dimensions seemed to fit much better, but the export was vertically stretched and cropped. I just reset my FCE settings and it turns out the default setup is DV-NTSC, but it's giving me a terrible quality still...
I just want to get back to that second screenshot's quality.. Could someone suggest what I should switch the easy setup to for importing stills from my Canon 5D Mark ii to yield the right results?

Importing old/low quality film

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for