Movie picture quality - newb

I'm sure this has been asked / answered many times, but I can't find it.
In iMovie, I've created my movies at what I think is the highest quality (H.264), and they look great when I play them on my Mac. They're huge files, but they would fit onto a DVD.
iDVD is clearly compressing them when I add them to a disc, as I have room for more than I'd expect. When I play them on a DVD player onto a TV, the quality is worse. I see digital artifacts and what appears to be compression problems.
So -
1) Is there a way to turn down the compression done in iDVD?
2) Is there a better way I should create the movies in iMovie to retain good quality?

...I hate sauerkraut.....
german wordfilter >> Pling!! >> wot?!
TorsoBoy,
you add a lossy inbetween step, which creates the artifacts...
the iApps are meant to work with miniDV-imports.. which use "DV" as codec; that codec is esp. made for editing and processing video-files.
h264 is a smart, good looking codec - but for playback only! means, iDVD has to convert it again>> lossy process >> lossy pic quality..-
so, stay with DV... avoid lossy (and useless) inbetween conversions; drag'n drop iM project direct to iDVD (or choose from the media pane)...
final word:
the pic quality of an iM or videoDVD can only be judged on a TV... (interlaced, 720x480).. a computer can only "emulate" TVmovies...
back to my beer&sauerkraut... in short leathertrousers.. and a gamsbart... in halfwooden house in Heidelberg, with a view to Neu Schwanstein... (did I left any stereotype?) ;-)))

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Hello All,
I am new to the Mac world moving over from windows.
Hooking up my dv camcorder (non high-def) to my TV gives a pretty good picture.
If I use iMovie to import from my camcorder and then iDvd to burn a dvd and play the DVD the picture quality is significantly reduced (looks worse than VHS!).
I am reading that this is uncorrectable through any settings available in iMovie or iDVD. This to me is unfathomable!
Being a newbie in the Mac world I don't know what my other options are.
I read about iMovie HD and Final Cut Express but don't know how they position and can I achieve better picture quality preservation.
I want my camcorder picture quality better preserved. I’ve certainly gotten much better results on windows with various packages (but have little experience).
I came into the Mac world believing that this sort of thing is what Mac was great for so a bit surprised.
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My home movies through iMovie and iDVD look embarassing for circa 2009!

I convert my imported dv files to AIC at 1080p before editing.
There is a small quality drop using this approach, I find it acceptable but some others don't.
I have added an original dv movie clip, two exports in different formats of the same clip as prepared in imovie 09 and another of the same clip exported to back to dv as prepared in imovie 6, to a disc image of a DVD created in iDVD.
I don't feel the differences represent the differences some here are reporting they see themselves, see what you think
Source Comparisons (580 MB)

Mid 2009 13" MBP iSight camera bad picture quality in photo booth

My daughter's stock mid 2009 13" MBP 2.26 ghz intel core two duo has a problem with the isight camera. The isight camera is built in to the screen. The isight camera works some of the time flawlessly and other times it comes out real grainy and with small colored pixels all over the screen like colored static (about 20% to 30% of the photo booth screen is affected but the rest of the screen outside of the photo booth app is unaffected). She only uses it in photo booth but we've tried the iChat app and the same thing happens there too, once she couldn't get the MBP to connect to the isight camera (it just showed a black photo booth screen), so she closed the lid of her MBP and reopened it and it worked. All of the software and firmware is up to date and we've tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC, it didn't do anything to fix the problem. It seems like there's a wire loose in the computer from the screen to the computer base, only because I can move the screen back and forth and the picture quality changes, the amount of static on the picture will move, go away or get worse. I had the screen changed in early 2010 (January or February) (the MBP was about 5 or 6 months old then) at the apple store under warranty due to dirt under the screen's glass (manufacturing defect). The photo booth picture static problem comes and goes, but here lately it comes more than it goes. The screen in general is in good shape and doesn't have any detectable problems with it, it has a good picture and no dead pixels, the problem seems to be only isolated to the isight camera. Can some one help with this problem? How long of a warranty is given on the warranty repairs (like the screen change they did in early 2010)? If apple does a repair on it and finds a wire that has rubbed the insulation off of it on a hinge causing a short and the isight problem, as a result of a sloppy repair from the first warranty repair, will they cover it under warranty again even if it's been over a year since they changed the screen? Also how honest will apple be if they do find out it is a problem caused from the first screen replacement, will they own up to their mistake? If I don't agree with apple's repair decision, can I get a second opinion from an outside source, third party, and if it's diagnosis different than apple's and can be proven, can I still get apple to do and pay for the repairs and labor if it turns out to be their fault from the first warranty screen replacement?
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Thanks for any info and advice anyone can give.

Hi,
As a personal note I find long posts like this hard to read if they are not broken up in to paragraphs.
As I say it is a personal thing.
I can give you some information about the camera and laptops over the past few years.
Basically in early Laptops of the MacBook Pro and MacBook range the cable did tend to fray at the point where it passed through the hinge. It did take a well used laptop that had the lid open and closed frequently to cause this. (your 2009 model might just be in that group - I have no firm dates or models I am afraid)
Later models have this rerouted so that this does not happen.
However the cable has then tended to get pulled from the camera end and become loose.
This On Line Self fix site has pages about some models (The one I have linked to may not be yours)
I have linked in to later pictures in the sequence but there are navigation points to work back to the start.
Note:- they use pretty specifc specialest tools as well in these pics.
Doing this would certail Void any Warranty you have left.
From Posts mainly in the iChat and the iSight areas I have gathered that it seems common for Apple to replace the Screen as a whole rather than fiddle with getting solely at the camera.
Apple has this article on Trouble Shooting an iSight
Basically it says try several apps then try logging in on another Mac User account to see if it is App based or User based or in fact System wide.
If System wide then resetting the SMC/PMU is the only suggested fix. (Which I did read you had done)
In addition to that I would add that testing should be done in different lighting conditions.
Lighting in the evening or dark that is good enough to read buy is not always good enough for the camera or is not illuminating the right areas.
Some people have reported that Starting the computer in Safe Mode (then Rebooting afterwards) seems to help. (it clears out some caches and starts up with reduced extensions)
As to actual Repairs and any Warranty that may still be in place I cannot say.
I can say that when people post about problems with repairs a certain stores someone else will tend to post that their experience was different.
You seem to report two different experiences with the two computers yourself.
10:24 PM Thursday; July 14, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Why is the picture quality so bad? It just doesn't take good picture it's blurry.

Why is the picture quality so bad? It just doesn't take good pictures it's blurry.

Hi there Amitabhavin,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
iPhone: Hardware troubleshooting
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2802
Camera isn't functioning or has undesired image quality
If the screen shows a closed lens or black image, force quit the Camera app.
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Try turning iPhone off and then back on.
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If your iPhone has a front and rear camera, try switching between them to verify if the issue persists on both.
-Griff W.

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I bought a new HD camcorder last year the the Sony Hc7. I made a movie with FCp and Color, you can view it here:
http://www.vimeo.com/1949150
But still the picture quality is not as good as I want. Anyone know if I will get a significantly better picture if go for a prosumer camera , perhaps the Sony fx7 or even the new Fx100? I really want my images to look good enough for National Geographic , that may be an impossible dream for a non pro , holiday film maker, but will such a purchase get me significantly closer?
Anyone knowledgable about the camera market that can give some good advice on this one ?

National Geographic is a big jump up from (as you put it)holiday movies but just to give you an idea:
I have a JVC trade newsletter that features the GY-HD100U being a work horse for National Geographic and BBC shoots its speced as an entry level HDV camera
cost £6000 / $ 14000 for camera lens battery
http://www.jvcpro.co.uk/getResource2/jvchighway2.pdf?id=6201
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Help¡¡¡¡¡¡

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums.
Sounds rather strange, there is nothing that I know of that would degrade a picture due to its location. What photo management software do you use, are you sure you moved the correct files to the harddrive.

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I'll bet $1000000 and a house that the channels you're watching are SD (standard definition). That's why they look so bad. You saw an HD signal in the store. To get that picture quality, you'll need to subscribe to Dish Network's HD package.
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"I suppose I'm slightly screwed if anyone wants to view it on a tv... "
More or less.
"If I want people to view it on a computer since thats whats typically going to happen (color is better, etc) is it going to be cut off or will it look like it does in the canvas? and it will be good quality right?... like looking at the photos through photoshop or something but simply fitting the screen at max. ?"
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Does the "new iPad" output better picture quality to an HDTV (via HDMI adapter) than the previous iPads? Or is it pretty much the same?

I'm currently using the iPad 2 to review photos and I also mirror it to an HDTV (via HDMI adapter). Does the "new iPad" output a better picture quality using the same connection method? This is mainly in reference to mirroring and not for watching movies/video.

Wundrbr3d-
I expect that video will be higher resolution since there is also a new HDMI adapter available for the iPad 3. I do not know if it is required for a lower resolution source, but probably is for higher resolution.
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Shane's Stock Answer #2: Blurry playback
ONLY JUDGE THE QUALITY OF YOUR MATERIAL ON AN EXTERNAL NTSC MONITOR, OR AT LEAST A TV.
1. Disable overlays on the canvas
2. Make sure you've rendered everything (no green bars at the top of the timeline
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Thanks

I think Running Panther might have something to do with the video quality also. Correct me if I am wrong. I think Panther is using iChat 2.0 and i believe it does not support h.264. iChat 3.0 uses h.264 and the picture quality is better. If your daughter's eMacs is still running Panther, maybe this is the reason why you're not getting good quality picture because her Mac did not encode the data using that codec?
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ichat/

Pictures quality

It is strage but I can not obtain very good pictures quality after iMovie slideshow export. It is codecs independent. Bad quality is visible in dark parts of photo for example water surface in shadow. There are colour spots instead of soft shadings. It makes iMovie useless for semiprofessional presentations. It looks that pictures are simplified before they are transferred to codec.
Have you got any ideas about it?

I did a lot of experiments about that.
My final conclusion is that there is impossible to obtain good quality slideshow made of camera images with iMovie (even HD resolution), really surprising !!!
It looks like iMovie imports pictures and at the same time simplifies them to have real time speed edition and playback possibilities. Unfortunately export option does not take original pictures to make rendered movie but takes this simplified version and I think that is the reason why final movie slideshow has terrible spots visible in dark parts of pictures (regardless of the sorce picture format, codecs, resolution options, bitstream etc.). In my opinion it is software bug.
Am I wrong?

BT Sport Picture Quality has the quality been set ...

Hi
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Can BT please comment on this please?
If the quality can be improved a little more I would appreciate that.
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john8123 wrote:
- do have HD channels 101 to 104 but thought they were delivered via Freeview; there is no problem with the picture on these channels.
No, on a BT Vision+ box channels 101-104 are HD channels delivered over the Infinity broadband connection. You can see the 'bTV' symbol displayed after the channel name for them when you change to them. On the BT Youview box then come over the aerial as Freeview HD channels.
If you are getting a good picture for channels 101-104 over Infinity then surely that proves that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the HomeHub, the BT Vision+ box or the cabling.
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This is what Comcast HD was like, and this is why I switched.
Verizon FIOS HD Picture Quality has gone down the tubes -- very much contrary to the claims of the advertising.

Glenn,
Well, I disagree, so I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
There are going to be occasional glitches in anything, be it the TV or my car or my house or travel or elections or even my darling wife of 45 years...I have had FiOS TV for 3+ years, and over that time I have very rarely seen pixellation on any channels. I agree, tonight there is some on NFLNet, but I have had the new channels for several weeks now and this is the first time that I can remember anything more than one or two times in maybe 30 minutes. I don't see this as anything more than an unusual occurance that will probably happen again some time in the future, hopefully a long time in the future; I certainly don't see it as a trend, at least until I see it happening regularly.
Just curious, have you reported this to the FSC? I hope you and others have, otherwise Verizon may not even realize there is a problem.
Here is a link to a dslreports.com thread discussing this same issue: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21388668-HD-Thr-Nite-Football-on-NFLNET-HD-Pixelating
I guess TV is not just that important to me to worry about a little pixellation. I watch a lot of TV now as I am retired and have some health problems, but gee, it really is only TV.
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
IMG 1.6.0, Build 06.89
Keller, TX
Message Edited by Justin on 11-06-2008 10:21 PM

Movie picture quality - newb

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