Photo Quality in iDVD

I work with still photos only. Want a slideshow that maintains photo image quality. iMovie coverts to video file & degrades the quality. Changed to FotoMagico. Maintains photo quality in slideshow & offers transitions, KB effect & title slides. It exports to iDVD or Roxio Toast to burn DVD. After the burn in iDVD, the images are distorted and the transition movements are very choppy. Is iDVD coverting this to video images, thereby degrading the photo quality? Is there a way to use iDVD and maintain quality? Would Toast be better? My goal is to produce a photographic quality "still photo" slideshow using transitions, KB, etc. I am selecting NTSC 4:3, best quality in both programs. Getting very frustrated trying to output the quality I can see on my display in a DVD...any suggestion?

Hi,
I feel like I am back at school...
1. I have the BETA version because when I tried to export or burn a DVD neither worked. They knew that was a problem & sent me the BETA fix. Now I can burn or export.
2. My problem is whatever I do with the burn results in loss of image quality. I have been corresponding with Werner at FotoMagico who has been very helpful. He says image quality from still photos which have been authored & burned can not maintain image quality the technology just doesn't exist unless I go to a pro DVD lab and have them work with compressions per frame. He specifically said it is due to limitations with the MPEG-2 stream, which is standard in DVD playback. The little I have read on this is over my head.
3. Right now I will forgo the idea of playback on a TV. Let's just deal with computer. When I burn to DVD as my option and it opens in iDVD it results in degraded images. I don't know what to select in iDVD and or FotoMagico to change this result or if it is even possible. I run a G5 with a 23" monitor, most current software on ALL prgrams. Picture files are digital froma Nikon D200 and a mix of negative and slides scanned in with a Nikon CoolScan 5000 and moved into iPhoto via the scanner or a transfer from Adobe. I am having the problem with all these types. What do you mean by resolution in iPhoto?
4. I transfer from FotoMagico to iDVD by selecting 'Burn DVD' and it opens to 'iDVD'. I have left all settings on FotoMagico and iDVD at default settings and Werner said that should be okay. FYI - I have tried changing slideshow setting from display reolution to 23" monitor to NTSC. Nothing seems to change image quality.
5. I would like at this point to be able to maintain image quality for transer in Quick time, upload to .MAC web account, etc. Help me there I am lost.
6. Someone on this discussion also suggested burning to iDVD using the data portion only of the DVD using disk utility. I need help there. Also will that reproduce sound or only the photos. I understand that TV's and DVD players will not accept this mode and that is okay until someone figures out a way to maintain image quality for TV w/o an expensive lab.
7. Werner said this is possible but they suggest copying the entire package (document as well as images and audio) and move it to iDVD or Toast. On the target devise install a FOtoMagico demo version & run it there. or if the target machine is not a Mac & FotoMagico can 't be nstalled there, you can export manually to a QuickTime movie by selecting 'export' frpm the File menu. Use 'HD preset or 'QuicltTime' & burn the resulting file to a DVD. My husband & I will work on this (with a tech if nec) and maybe you have some thoughts as well.
At the end of this I think I will know more about video and FPS and MPEg's than I ever intended. Oh well, a little knowledge never hurt anyone!
One last thing, what is a BETA for NTSC. I hate to bug Werner again without knowing what this is!

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Photo quality on IDVD

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What can I do to improve quality?
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Photo quality is poor when IDVD is shown on TV,
What can I do to improve quality?
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we have the same problem, however when we showed them on a friends High def TV -they looked great?
if you find out anymore info I too wuld like to know
IMac Mac OS X (10.4.6) G-4

IPhoto library slideshow - to iDVD photo quality

Hi,
i'm new to Mac computers, just got my first one - and I've created a photo slide show with iPhoto and exported/burned it with iDVD with my own menu and everything and all went well, except the photo quality is AWFUL. The pictures are jagged and not as sharp as they appear in iPhoto. I checked and watched the mpeg file it created in order for it to go to iDVD, and that was great - is it the Mpeg2 encoding that is ruining the quality?
I tried creating it in iMovie and it's the same thing.

I am trying to create a project for a client. It is a slideshow with music. Seems simple??? NOPE!
I thought to use imovie and burn it to a CD, but am I crazy?
I have questions and need answers please!
-best program to make a slideshow in with about 150 CD's able to burn onto CDR with music
-have to be compatable with both mac and pc's
-and every time I am importing good quality pictures into imovie they look like crap. pixels gallore and cant seem to make it better.
freaking out a bit, have a deadline...
please help!!!!

The SOLUTION to bad iDVD Photo Quality

I have been a fairly silent member of this forum for a long time now, and have seen many supposed "solutions" with the known issue of how iDVD compresses, and ultimately destroys, image quality in DVDs. Granted, much of this compression is normal, considering a full-quality photo from iPhoto looks quite different after being smashed into the standard NTSC 720x480 format of a DVD and compressed to a variation of MPEG-2. That being said, this workaround has been well-tested, and will give you a very high quality slideshow that you can play on your TV. (take note that low quality TV will come into play in making the final product look bad, not the slideshow itself!)
NOTE: I only tested this in iPhoto 6/iDVD 6 on a 10.4.8 PowerMac G5. I would love to get confirmation it works on Intel Macs and other machines.
1. Select an album or group of pictures in iPhoto
2. Go to File > Export and click the Quicktime tab
3. You will have several options...
- Width/Height: Defaults to 640x480 (4x6 image). This will result in about 100kb per image file, which gives you over 90 pictures for a 10 MB slideshow that you can e-mail to your friends.
- Display image for: Obviously controls how long each image is displayed in the slideshow.
- Background: Can be an image or a color. This is what you will see as a border if the slideshow image is smaller than the window.
- Music: This is actually kinda complicated. What is the "currently selected music?" When you select an album and press the "Play" button to do a quick slideshow, there is a tab for Music. Whatever is selected here will be added to the slideshow when you export it.
4. Click 'Export', choose the filename and location, and then save it.
The resulting Quicktime file will be quite small, while still retaining the quality of your images. It uses a default crossdissolve transition that can't be changed. It keeps this quality when you drag the Quicktime file into iDVD and burn a disk/save a disk image.
Downsides...
- no ken burns
- can't use different transitions
- no other advanced slideshow options
But it gets the job done! If you're wondering why this works while other methods don't, it's all in the .Mov container that's created. If you open the file in Quicktime and got to Window > Show Movie Info, you will see that it lists each JPEG within the package, along with a transition component. It doesn't compress the images into a video file, but rather references the original images within the .Mov package! Cool huh?
Let me know if this works for you guys. I've offered this advice to many people with good results, which is why I'm posting it here.
smi1ey =)

Smiley,
What you suggest isn't really a SOLUTION to bad iDVD photo quality, because you aren't creating a DVD that can be played back with a DVD player.
You are simply suggesting an alternate approach for distributing slideshows which requires the receiver have a computer. iPhoto/iMovie give you several options on prepairing slideshows/movie for various methods of distribution (CD, email, etc).
Some DVD players will also play jpg files from a CD or DVD and that avoids the mpg-2 compression quality loss, but a TV set image is still a TV set image.
which gives you over 90 pictures for a 10 MB slideshow
A lot of email programs aren't happy with a file that size, and of course, since you have created a QuickTime movie, your PC friends will also need to install QuickTime. The Flip4Mac Studio application will let you convert your QuickTime movie to a WMV movie for those with PCs.
I'm glad you found an approach that you are happy with.
If you open the file in Quicktime and got to Window > Show Movie Info, you will see that it lists each JPEG within the package, along with a transition component. It doesn't compress the images into a video file, but rather references the original images within the .Mov package
BTW, there are several different CODECs that can be used in the .MOV file container - Photo JPEG is just one.
QuickTime Pro offers more saving options than the standard version, so I recommend you invest in QuickTime Pro. You will be able to create your slideshow directly in QuickTime Pro.
F Shippey

Poor iMovieHD quality in iDVD

I have an iMovie (iLife 05) composed of still photos and music. When I share it to iDVD and burn the DVD on my LaCie burner the quality is poor when it is played back on a DVD player. When I save the movie to Quality using expert settings, the quality is excellent. Is there any way I can get Quicktime quality using iDVD?

Hello, wmas,
Welcome to the discussions.
How are you getting your iMovie into iDVD? Are you using the 'Create DVD' button from within iMovie?
If so, try closing iMovie, launching iDVD, deleting your movie from iDVD (if you want to use the same theme) or making a new iDVD project. Then, use the 'custom' tab to navigate to 'media' then to 'movies.' You should see your movie in that panel as one of your choices. Just drag and drop it into the iDVD screen and see if the resultant DVD is of better quality.
IMovie does some rendering when it sends the movie to iDVD, and it can render some of the still photos in a way that you do not want.
Try this and see if it helps.
Post back if the images are still poor.

Crappy quality in iDVD...

I tried to make a DVD containing some pics and a movie, all from our holiday. But the quality of the final product, especially the pics, was really bad... The pics didnt scale out on all the tv-screen neighter. Its better to just show them from the PS3...
Why is this? Anyone?

Hi
Yes that's a correct observation and due to many things
• DVD is as standard only - Interlaced SD-Video when at it's best (whatever DVD authoring program used)
• Feeding iDVD - HD or Progressive material will not give a better result - but a worse one as Downscaling is done badly
• Feeding iDVD alient Video-Codecs - also can result in bad DVDs or other strange Errors
• Using iMovie'08 to 11 - will be even more degrading as when material goes from Event's to Project's it drop every second line - resulting in a big quality loss and this can not be repaired on Export (any way chosen)
But by assembling the SlideShow in
• iMovie HD6 - or -
• FinalCut any version
• FotoMagico™
Will keep 100% Interlaced SD-Video quality over to iDVD
And if Higher quality is of need then
• Blu-Ray
• Or as You do - USB-memory ---> PlayStation3 - The way I do too
• OR I use my MacBook and connect this to HD-TV or Projector
Else
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 DeskTop/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

Crappy photo quality when inserting images, how to improve?

I work extremely hard on the quality of my images and when I use iDVD they don't look to bad, but when I insert images in between video clips in iMovie the quality of the images is degraded something terrible and my professional images look like they were taken on a cheap camera phone. Exporting the videos at the highest quality helps a little, but it seems to be the import quality which is reducing them down - least that is what it appears to me.
How can I improve the photo quality in iMovie?

Hi,
Defcom has listed the main fix.
You could also try the Bandwidth setting in iChat > Preferences > Video section > Bandwidth Limit drop down.
We would suggest 500kbps for some ISPs
Using Little Snitch does show that Bonjour Video chats do use the Internet
It is probably done so that the SNATMAP Server that helps connect Video and Audio Only chats knows you are busy.
9:34 PM Tuesday; July 28, 2009
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Photo quality follow-up questions

I read OT's response to a photo quality question and had some follow-ups I'd like to ask. Aside from cropping photos to 4:3 format does increasing the dpi of the photos have any effect in improving the quality of the final image in iDVD?
I'm making a dvd of family photos for my wife. Some were taken with a digital camera, some are photos scanned by myself and some are photos given to us by relatives that they scanned. I'm putting them together in iMovie, leaving them static - no pans or zooms, keeping the image size at a value of "1", setting the duration at 5 seconds and grouping them by subject using chapter markers so I can get around the 99 photos limitation. (I have over 1500 photos.)
I've already burned on dvd and was disappointed by the "jaggies" on most of the photos when viewed on my cinema display. Haven't looked at the dvd on a regular tv (CRT, not flat screen/digital). The images looked great in iMovie. It occurred to me that increasing the dpi - most were at 72 dpi - to 300 might improve this issue all other things remaining the same. I can do that easily in Photoshop, but was wondering if that would be a waster of time - especially if no improvement would be realized.
Thanks for any thoughts/help that anyone can offer.

iMovie HD 6.0.3 and iDVD 6.0.4
As far as I know - this will give max quality possibly when making a Video-DVD
resolution: 72dpi or 300dpi
depends on size
A small picture 200 x 300 pixels - will be worse than a 1200 x 1600 picture.
Resolution doesn't matter as I see it.
iMovie and/or iDVD will try to scale it to fit - and up or down-scaling
will not be done kindly.
Still using my 2016 × 1512 - usually give good result in iMovie
but if I Share to iDVD (iMovie HD6 6.0.3 or 4) - BAD RESULT
I just close the iMovie project
Drop the iMovie project icon (With a black star on it) into the iDVD application (menu window).
Result best possibly for a Video-DVD - DVD standard is the limit.
Else that determine the final quality on the DVD
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 DeskTop/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

Resolution (ppi) impact in quality on iDVD

I am creating slideshows of family photos. I scan the photos into Photoshop at a resolution of 300ppi. However, many of the photos sent to me by family members from their cameras and over the internet come in at a resolution of 72ppi. If I increase the resolution either the file size decreases dramatically or the quality decreases. How much impact does the resolution have in quality on iDVD - i.e. will the pictures at 72ppi look worse, better or the same as those at 300ppi?

Any images get "dumbed-down" in iDVD. And they will probably look bad to you once they are encoded and put on a DVD and viewed on an LCD screen. So you'll need to see what works for you.
From iDVD '08 Help:
*Preparing images for iDVD slideshows*
You can use photos, movies, presentation slides (created in a program such as Keynote), or other image files in a slideshow created in iDVD. iDVD works with any image file that is supported by QuickTime (including PICT, JPEG, TIFF, and PDF.) You can also use photos directly from your iPhoto library.
Images and movies in a slideshow are scaled to fit the standard DVD window size, but the aspect ratio is preserved. For example, a picture taken vertically (also known as “portrait format”) may have black bands on either side of it to fill out the screen. If you want an image to fit the DVD window exactly, use an image-editing application to resize the image before bringing it into iDVD. (It is not possible to resize movies.) Resize to these dimensions:
◼
720 x 540 pixels for standard video in NTSC format
◼
854 x 480 pixels for widescreen in NTSC format
◼
768 x 576 pixels for standard video in PAL format
◼
1024 x 576 pixels for widescreen in PAL format
You can also make sure images in iDVD are always scaled to a size that will fit within the area visible on most TV screens, or the “TV safe area.”
*To fit slides into the TV safe area:*
Choose iDVD > Preferences.
Click Slideshow.
Select the checkbox labeled “Always scale slides to TV Safe Area.

Question about DVD quality from iDVD.....

I've just created my first DVD using iDVD (7.0.4), and I'm not happy with the quality of the photos. They look great in Aperture. They look great in iDVD when I play the project directly on my Mac. The problem is that I burned some DVD's of the project, and when I play the DVD on my Mac (or TV, for that matter) the quality of the photos aren't anywhere near what they are in Aperture or when I play the project directly on the computer. It's useable, but is it normal to have the photo quality fall off pretty noticeably when burning it to a DVD?
(FYI - I'm using the DVD burner that's built-in on my iMac, using Sony DVD+R DVD's, and I don't see any "quality" settings that I'd be able to change before burning.)
ANy help would be greatly appreciated, as - after burning about 20 DVD's - I'm unhappy enough with the quality that I don't even feel like giving them out now.)
Thanks,
Tim

Ah - That makes sense. Thanks.
As I said, I've never done anything with iDVD before. In fact, I've never done anything "digital" with photos before. I process them in Aperture, and then make prints and that's it. Which leads me to another question then.....
What I'm trying to do is get the 150 or so photos I've taken of my son's high school baseball games onto some type of media so that I can give one to each of the players. Not knowing anything about the degradation of the photo when turning them into a DVD, I put together a "project" in iDVD where I split the photos into two groups, added two songs, and made a presentation out of it. It sounds like if I want to do something like that Blue-Ray would be the only option to maintain the quality of the photos?
If that's the case, are there any other options? Can I just drag the photos onto a CD, or does a CD compress the photos as well? As I said, I've got about 150 photos that average between 9 - 13 MB's each. Will they fit onto one or two CD's? (I'm not sure how much a CD will hold.)
Any other options/ideas for getting these photos to the players?
Thanks in advance for any more help anyone could provide.....
Tim

How to get best picture quality using iDVD to burn a movie from iMovie?

I would appreciate any guidance on options to choose and approaches such that I get the best picture quality when I view an iMovie product on a wide screen HD TV using a DVD burned with iDVD. Choose wide screen or standard format in iMovie? Best Performance or Prof. Quality in iDVD? ...

Good Morning,
My computer is using Snow Leopard 10.6.5 and has ilife 09 installed on an imac. I have been reading it is better to use imovie 06. When I tried to do a custom install from the 06 disk imovie and idvd were grayed out but had a checkmark. It would not let me deselect idvd. Not really knowing how to do this I quite the process. Can you or someone please advise me on how and what exactly to do in order to accomplish a custom install of imovie 06? Should I delete imovie 09 first? If so how is this accomplished. Perhaps it would be less complicated to purchase photo to movie? Really do not want to spend unless it is necessary since I only know a little about what I'm doing but enough to be dangerous to my computer
Thanks,
reverseimage

Photo quality in Imovie

I have Imovie HD 6 and Final Cut Express. I am creating the typical slideshow with photos from a digital camera and adding transitions and music, blah, blah.
When I export in each application I get the same quicktime export screen. No matter what I do I get crappy photo quality in the imovie export and amazing photo quality in the FCE export. Are they not both using the same quicktime export? Why is there such a difference in quality?
I did notice that if I render the imovie video as "uncompressed" ir in HD I get ALMOST the same quality as the FCE render on a typical MP4 export.
Just wondering why this is since they seem to both just be using Quicktime to create the compression.

I don't own FPE (or have any "video" camera) but you're mixing apples and oranges when using image formats in "video" apps.
iMovie is a DV editing app and converts your single image into 30 similar files per second (.dv). The same is probably true with FCE but it may be set for "high quality" which may appear better. And the newer option to use MPEG-4 does make a bit of difference.
Neither is appropriate for using still image files because of this conversion.
First rule would be to use the appropriate dimensions for your destination. Standard definition video would be 640X480 and not your multi megabyte source files.
I would add (scaled) the 640X480 sized image to a few seconds of audio (you decide the duration), extract the new video track and then export that as DV Stream (.dv) using QuickTime Pro.
Same as if it came from a DV camera.

Photo Quality horrible in iWeb....any ideas?

Hey everyone. I just finished making my website. Its very early, and Im just working out the kinks until worrying about making it a bit more appealing. Anyways, one of the issues Im having is photo quality. I am taking my photos on an 8mp camera. When I import them into iWeb they look compressed and horrible when viewed (once enlarged through slideshow or just clicking). If you want to check out the website to see what I mean, the adress is:
http://web.mac.com/jon_leibowitz/iWeb/Site/Home.html
go to gallery and click on any of them. The main aim of my website is my photography, so its crucial for the photos to look top notch. btw, Im using high resolution pictures, imported them into iPhoto, and then used the multimedia button to import them into iWeb. Thanks!

Hello Jonathan!
Really nice photos! You, no doubt, have a much better eye than I do for details and such and it's no wonder that various compression artifacts would be more noticeable to you! Your photos look very acceptable to me.
The downside to the iPhoto-to-iWeb one-click automatic process is that you the photographer lose control over two things... the quality of resolution scaling and the quality of jpg (re)compression. Preprocessing of your images in something like Photoshop would definitely give you more control over these variables and would most likely allow you to see more acceptable images as posted online.
For your information, the max resolution for the Apple enhanced slideshows is 800x600. If you import a photo at any higher resolution, iWeb will take over again and resize and recompress your photo. So my recommendation to you would be to preprocess your images to make them look good at 800x600 and prevent iWeb from doing anything else to your images.
I hope this helps.

Crunmmy photo quality in Safari

I get poor quality photos quality using Safari in any site.No problem with Firefox.My daughter running e-Mac with same Mac system no problem with Safari. New to Mac and a bit disappointed,I thought Mac were the tops for graphics & photos.Any ideas please. Many thanks

Hi Tools,
Try turning off the accelerator, I'll bet that is the culprit.
The accelerators usually downsample the picture quality to reduce the filesize of the images at the expense of quality, but improving speed.
I think they usually work by directing requests to a proxy server - in firefox you normally have to set this manually which may be why it appears to work fine, but Safari doesn't.
Enjoy your sleep and catch you tomorrow...

Maintaining Photo Quality In iMovie

Question for one of you brilliant guys using iMovie.
I have my movie for the veterans almost finished, but I have a question on maintaining photo quality when publishing or finalizing the movie.
I did a test and exported my movie to hard drive, but the photos have piilation in shaded areas like the photos were taken with a Dollar Store throw away camera. The original photos are good quality. I exported as 720 HD. How can I get the best quality if I want to put the movie on DVD?
Thanks so much.

Sorry for the Typo, I meant "Pixilation, Spottines" generally poor quality

Photo Quality in iDVD

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