Picture quality from iDVD

OK, I made my first DVD of travel pictures using iDVD. These are the same pictures I use as screen savers on my 23 inch Apple HD Cinema Display. I took these shots at the highest resolution possible in the best conditions possible and they give me great detail, colour, contrast and 'snap' on the screen. However, these exact same files are LOUSY when transferred to iDVD. What have I done wrong? If iDVD can't give me the same quality as my screensavers and iPhoto projects, what can? The pictures were set to a 'normal' 4:3 screen ratio, not even the 16:9 HD one. All suggestions welcome.
PM G4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

The present DVDs that we can create with applications like iDVD have LOW RESOLUTION video images- less than 640x480 pixels NTSC (768x576 pixels PAL). In addition, they are interlaced which can cause flicker when the images are viewed.
NTSC video resolution is less than 0.3 mega pixels! How could you expect such a low resolution image device (video DVD) to compare with with your high resolution digital images on your 23" HD display?
When we finally get TRUE HD DVDs things will get slightly better.
BTW, although you can produce 'HD 16x9' DVDs with iDVD 6, they are NOT true HD DVDs - these discs only squeeze the 16:9 format to fit the 4:3 format of the present DVD system and the squeezed image has to be 'un-squeezed' to view on a HD display.
>If iDVD can't give me the same quality as my screensavers and iPhoto projects, what can?
Nothing. As I said, the current DVD system doesn't make that possible. Sorry.

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I'm making about a 10 min sequence using nothing but still images (jpegs mostly) and edited text using FCX to make a slideshow displaying my artwork. My question(s) are when I burn the dvd how does a computer display the movie? when I display my movie while working on my tv the images are cropped about 10% all the way around while on the computer its being displayed the way I want it to be. Also on the tv the images are good quality but on the computer they are not. When all the data from the movie goes on the dvd will it look good as far as picture quality AND NOT be cropped? the cropping on the tv pretty much ruins most of the images since they are perfect on my computer. Thanks

"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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http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv250
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SDMacuser
(3) G4 PM's/(3) S-Drives/Sony TRV900/Nikons/6FWHD's/PS7/iLife06/FCPHD/DVDSP/etc. Mac OS X (10.4.8) My ichatav AIM account is: SDMacuser1 (Please use Text chat prior to video)

Question about DVD quality from iDVD.....

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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.....
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Any other options/ideas for getting these photos to the players?
Thanks in advance for any more help anyone could provide.....
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Hi
There are no HD version of iDVD till yet.
SD version is equal to old TV standard and that is max from iDVD
To get HD You need
• Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro incl Blue-Ray component
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My collection on this
*DVD quality*
1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
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• 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)
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4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't
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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.
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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

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IDVD picture quality is poor

Regardless of method chosen, (professional, best or whatever the third option ius) all DVD's I create, the pictures are blurred, cannot be ceaned up, and look bad.
Meanwhile, burning pictures to a CD, are fully pixeled, mainain the original resolution and look great on a monitor or TV screen.
Why must this be?
If I can take full resolution pics from iPhoto and burn them to a CD, or for tht matter, play them as a slide show, with music, they are knock dead gorgeous.
Why would iDVD degradation, be so evident?
Documentation to this issue is so confusing or off-point, I'm now as confused as I am puzzled,
Ken

iDVD encodes media to video standeard definition which is 640 x 480 pixels for NTSC. It's always going to be less that a full sized image viewed on a Mac's high res monitor. It's not iDVD but the accepted DVD video standards that dictate that size.
How are you adding the photos to iDVD? If you're creating the slideshow in iPHoto and then sharing to iDVD that converts the iPhoto slideshow into a moive file and imports that.
I've found that creating the slideshow entirely in iDVD, using only the transitions available in iDVD and the standard "classic" theme I get the best final image quality. The downside to that is there are no alternative themes to use nor the KB effect.
If you create the slideshow in iMovie use the Share ➙ Media Browser menu option istead of the Share ➙ iDVD option. This will give you a much better quality movie exported to iDVD.
Also follow this workflow to help get the best quality final iDVD disk possible:
Once you have the project as you want it save it as a disk image via the File ➙ Save as Disk Image menu option. This will separate the encoding process from the burn process.
To check the encoding mount the disk image and launch DVD Player and play it. If it plays OK with DVD Player the encoding was good.
Then burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality. Always use top quality media: Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.
OT

Why are burned DVD's poor quality from the IDVD?

I made a slideshow in iphoto and exported to IDVD so I could burn copies. The show lloked great on screen but the first copies on dvd's were terrible. The quality of images are very poor and seem to be depixilated? Why would the copies be so poor? Does the widescreen or standard have something to do with it??
Help

Hi
There are levels in h*e*l*l*
iDVD - is same as DVD Standard - Interlaced SD-Video
Feeding iDVD progressive or HD material will not improve result but degrade this as from
- iMovie'08 to 11 - as they can not deliver - but only every second line of the picture
- iDVD downscaling from HD - is doing a bad job
So by using a program that can deliver - best possibly DVD is the result
- iMovie HD6
- FinalCut any version
- FotoMagico™ - (for SlideShows)
If this is not enough - then DVD is no option as HD-DVD is rare and needs special HD-DVD-players - alt
• Blu-Ray e.g. from Roxio Toast™ but still needs BD-Player as PlayStation3 etc
• out in high quality to USB-memory to be played on device that can do this
• Play via MacBook and out to a HD-projector/TV
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

How to get good picture quality on a burned DVD slideshow using IDVD?

After producing a slideshow on IDVD from either jpg or psd photos, it looked great when I played the project. Picture quality was excellent. When I burned a DVD to share the slideshow with a friend and when I played this on the same computer, it had lost resolution and looks awful. I am using best quality but this made no difference. On a hdtv using a standard player, the quality is mediocre. Is there any way to get a decent picture quality. I have also burned a DVD and CD from the IPhoto album, and the quality is better. IPhoto will not burn a slideshow or at least I do not know how to. Can you produce decent quality DVD using IDVD or is there a better application to produce decent DVD of photo slideshows?

....or is there a better application to produce decent DVD of photo slideshows?
Yes. It's called DVDSP (apple's top of the line DVD Authoring application). It has a much longer learning curve than iDvd and is more $$$ but it does work well. The Help Menu alone is over 640 pages long. However, is this app significantly better than iDvd solely in terms of visual quality?.... No.
But it does offer many more tools to address visual artifacts on the finished DVD, more audio control, much better control of durations per slide, audio, buttons that work as expected, among other things. (for additional examples of this see chapter 12 of the DVDSP Help Menu / starting on p. 373).
Short of DVDSP, and much less money, you can also try these 2 third party apps which come highly recommended on this iDvd Forum:
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/overview/
At the moment most macs do not yet support burning to Blueray (which does offer much better results). Once this technology is more commonplace, then I believe we will see a significant improvement in what you are trying to do above.
Hope this is helpful but if not just come on back.
Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in this topic. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information above at your own discretion.

What kind of picture quality can I expect from a Mini DVI adapter to Scart?

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-Doug

Poor Image quality in iDVD from iMovie

After creating a video in iMovie using photos, video clips, transitions, music, and Ken Burns, things look great. Everything looks fine in iMovie ('09). I then export it to iDVD to create the menus, etc. So far so good. After burning the disc, the picture quality is really horrible, especially the photos using Ken Burns. I do not know how to describe it....wavy, pixilated, something. The video used, taken using a digital camcorder is tolerable if I remember to deinterlace. What do I have to do to get these pics to look right? IF I export in iMovie using Quicktime, the resulting .MOV is fine....looks great. After exporting to iDVD, it looks awful.....Any help would be appreciated....thank you.
jrsorte

Chris,
not using any de-interlacing
Both iMovie 08 and iMovie 09 only use one field of a DV video frame. iMovie 5 and earlier used both frames. I'm not sure that using just one field makes a lot of difference when the content goes through mpg-2's heavy compression to make a DVD in iDVD.
As far a still images are concerned, the best sizes for NTSC DVDs are 720x540 pixels for standard video and 854x480 pixels for widescreen. Going to larger image sizes can actually reduce the image quality on a DVD.

IDVD picture quality poor

When I burned a movie of photographs in iMovie06 to play on both computers and TV my movie looked lovely. Now in iMovie09 it looks bad. What am I doing wrong?
Once I burn the movie onto a DVD the picture flickers. I am frustrated by poor quality movies that I no longer want to share with friends and family. I love the new map features and enjoy using the Ken Burns effect but I am not proud of my finished projects anymore. Does anyone have a suggestion about this problem?
I will appreciate your help.

kathydenise wrote:
When I burned a movie of photographs in iMovie06 to play on both computers and TV my movie looked lovely. Now in iMovie09 it looks bad. What am I doing wrong?
Once I burn the movie onto a DVD the picture flickers. I am frustrated by poor quality movies that I no longer want to share with friends and family. I love the new map features and enjoy using the Ken Burns effect but I am not proud of my finished projects anymore. Does anyone have a suggestion about this problem?
I will appreciate your help.
Kathy,
I assume you're talking about SD video? If so, download the free application MPEG Streamclip. Load your source video file there first, and do and "Export to Quicktime", which will create a Deinterlaced source file for iMovie 09 to work with that has the original quality from the source. iMovie 09 does throw away data on import. It is something I have reported to Apple and provided them with all the information to show what's happening. Until and unless they come up with a fix, you have to use either an older version of iMovie, or provide a different source to iMovie '09. The extra step through MPEG Streamclip is pretty painless and I can provide you with the parameters I use when setting up SD footage to be edited in iMovie '09.
Jay S.
There's also an excellent PDF file available called "The Ins and Outs of iMovie '09" which does an excellent job of explaining how to get the best out of iMovie '09. It also talks to the issue of iMovie '09 throwing away every other line of data.

Picture quality from iDVD

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