Poor Quality in iMovie 09 with Stills

I've read through many posts and found some solutions, but the question to begs to ask: Why, when doing a movie with pics from iPhoto, is the final output quality so freaking poor?
My pics are upwards of 9MB apiece originally. I realize they get compressed through the process. I can do a 15 minute video on a DVD, and iDVD burns it to about a third of the disk. Why can't the program (either iMovie or iDVD) calculate the pics and only compress to a certain extent?
When I play a finished product on my Mac, it looks pretty good. But when I convert it through iDVD and burn it to a DVD disc, the output on my HD (yes, I realize THAT'S part of the issue) looks horrible. Aliasing is ridiculous.
I tend to save the files to the highest output and put it on my media player. However, when I want to share the final result with friends on DVD, I'm slightly embarrassed. The quality is just too poor.
I'm open for any input. I realize you can't burn high def to a DVD, but surely there's a better solution. Maybe iMovie 11?
Thanks in advance.

I make slideshow movies using still photos exclusively. Here is the process I use when I want to make a DVD from an iMovie project.
In iMovie I set the ratio to 16:9 and I also crop many of the photos in iPhoto to 16x9 (HD) - this works best for pictures in landscape; it's not good for portrait photos. Also, cropping this way doesn't work for all landscape photos either: sometimes I lose details that make the photo 'good' and so just leave it uncropped.
When the project is finished I choose Share>Export using QuickTime and click "options". In "options" I use the following:
Compression: H.264
Quality: Best
Frame rate: 29.97
Frame reordering: yes
Encoding mode: multi-pass
Dimensions: 1920x1080 (HD)
Scale: Letterbox
I use either iDVD or Roxio Toast to create a DVD.
The issue of the quality of DVDs made from iMovie projects has often been discussed in this forum. The process and settings I use may not be strictly kosher, but I do get good quality DVDs this way and so I stick with them. My projects are usually between 20 to 30 minutes in length.
I hope this helps.
(I haven't tried iMovie 11 yet.)

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Pics still poor quality in iMovie HD

Hi, Trying to help a photographer to make a still image slideshow in iMovie 4, I discovered the images were of such poor quality as to be unuseable. I upgraded to iLife thinking that iMovie HD might use better quality. It doesn't appear so. The photographer doesn't think the Ken Burns effect does anything to improve the visual degradation of his images. Is this simply the case, or is there any way around it?

iMovie doesn't preview well, you really need to go all the way through the process of creating what appears to be a crap DVD to discover that.
To make sure you're not misunderstanding...
The problem isn't just that iMovie HD doesn't display the image as well as it might. The poor-quality image on the DVD is a real problem, which occurs when the slideshow is handled in a way that allows iMovie to add "jaggies" to the image on the way out the door to iDVD. Search for "jaggies".
Here's one:
Karl Petersen, "iMovie- Pictures become blurry after import" #32, 11:37am Apr 25, 2005 CDT
Done correctly, you should get excellent results.
Karl

Poor quality Photo printing with the HP Officejet 6600

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Welcome to the HP Support forums. I understand that printed photos from your Officejet 6600 don't have the quality that you expect.
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I imported a movie via Iphoto( its 16m big). It looks okay in I photo, but in Imovie it has very poor video quality. How can i fix this?

I make slideshow movies using still photos exclusively. Here is the process I use when I want to make a DVD from an iMovie project.
In iMovie I set the ratio to 16:9 and I also crop many of the photos in iPhoto to 16x9 (HD) - this works best for pictures in landscape; it's not good for portrait photos. Also, cropping this way doesn't work for all landscape photos either: sometimes I lose details that make the photo 'good' and so just leave it uncropped.
When the project is finished I choose Share>Export using QuickTime and click "options". In "options" I use the following:
Compression: H.264
Quality: Best
Frame rate: 29.97
Frame reordering: yes
Encoding mode: multi-pass
Dimensions: 1920x1080 (HD)
Scale: Letterbox
I use either iDVD or Roxio Toast to create a DVD.
The issue of the quality of DVDs made from iMovie projects has often been discussed in this forum. The process and settings I use may not be strictly kosher, but I do get good quality DVDs this way and so I stick with them. My projects are usually between 20 to 30 minutes in length.
I hope this helps.
(I haven't tried iMovie 11 yet.)

Poor quality motion tween with png image, tried "Trace Bitmap", but then it looks like a newspaper

Greetings all,
I've been a software developer for many years, but am not very savy in the design elements. So, much of what I'm going to say will probably sound "newbie", so please forgive me in advance.
So, I'm trying to get a transparent image to fly in from the side. So, I *thought* I was doing the correct thing by moving the "symbol" off of the visible portion of the stage, and creating a motion tween to move it onto the stage. The motion works, but the quality of the image in general (and the text in specific) looks pixelated.
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So here's the question: how can I make this image retain its quality, still have transparency, and a motion tween?
It seems like this is some set of characteristics that don't play well together, even though I see this type of thing online ALL the time.
I tried "Trace Bitmap" to convert to a raster image, and tried to follow some suggestions online, but when I do "Trace Bitmap", it ends up looking like it has a bunch of grayish dots on the image... definitely NOT what I was expecting.
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JPB

Go back to using the png, and set the smoothing allowance. That should take care of the quality. In Flash, a "bitmap" will often refer to any type of image element... .bmp's are probably dinosaurs (as in extinct) where Flash usage is concerned.

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Do you have the play back preferences set to similar settings. I use 1/2 screen for full playback in iM08 because of the large file sizes I deal with in converted AVCHD. In iMovie HD6 I use standard, which is not the highest resolution available. You may have iM08 set for a higher playback than iMovieHD.
I assume you just did an import to iMovie HD via browse to the clips from the iM08 events folder, so you are looking at the exact same clips.

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when I used iMovie '09 in Mavericks I ran into problems with the right edge of still being damaged by about 1 to 2 pixels on landscape images that were 1024 pixels wide.
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There is an iMovie discussion on this problem where I show the appearance of the damaged edge of the images.
No one has replied with a solution. I "solved it" by reporting that iMovie '09 is not supported by Mavericks.
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What do I have to do to show you that discussion?
I would love a solution!
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Hi there
I have a problem I cannot solve in iMovie (HD 6.0.3).
I am making a movie/slideshow of photos using very high quality photos imported from Aperture. I'm finding them incredibly BAD quality when it comes to the rendering of finished product, the most obvious problem being the pixellation (seen as wavy lines) when the Ken Burns effect is used. It looks the worst on a plasma television, which it is being made to watch on.
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Great output from iMovie with still photos

I have made a great movie using just stills in iMovie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Crs1Mx92js
Enjoy!
Ian

Just tried to be witty.
One starts to associate in a predictable way - some times. As my fellow student.
Have no AppleTV
Have no broad-band internet - still 50kb modem V.92
So my interest is howto get as good result possibly to share - and DVD or BD-DVDs
are the only solution I've got via iM'08 or 09 or 11
Else (iM6/FC) - I copy back To Camera or if small save out as QT on DVD or BD-DVD.
Wish I could figure out a way to get all funny things in iM'11 and over in HD resolution
on just anything.
- Will try if I can get it out on USB-memory - one way or another.
Yours Bengt W

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iPhone 5 camera flash stopped working when taking photos and poor Quality photos . Flash still works when in torch mode .

Hey there Jimbo,
It sounds like your flash has stopped working on your phone and you noticed a decrease in image quality.
I recommend a few troubleshooting steps here. Start with closing the running apps on the phone:
iOS: Force an app to close
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5137
Double-click the Home button.
Swipe left or right until you have located the app you wish to close.
Swipe the app up to close it.
When you have done that restart the phone and test it again:
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http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
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i am also having issues with my ichat video quality, and there is a delay on audio sometimes. i chat with my friend in philly; i am in brookyn, ny. sometimes the audio is in sync, and then sometimes we have a delay. but the video quality is so blurry on my end...i can barely see her. but her video of me is fine. my preview screen looks great, the connection doctor says everything is good.
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I placed about 150 jpegs as clips in iMovie HD (v.5.0.2). I made them all 3.25 seconds long and gave them all a short overlap transition. I set them to music and exported to iDVD (v.5.0.1). Once the DVD was burned, I viewed it with disappointment. Briefly, during the transitions the images are of great quality. But the actual image clips are very poor quality. I'm new to this and I find all the many options for making quicktime movies a little overwhelming. But, exporting to iDVD doesn't have any options. I thought it was supposed to maintain the quality.
What did I do wrong or what can I do right?

Karl Peterson said,
"If there are unrendered clips in the Timeline when we tell iMovie to Share (Export) a project to iDVD, iMovie will ask permission to render those clips. (Rendering converts the clips to video clips.)
These may include still photos, photos imported with the Ken Burns checkbox turned OFF. Photos imported with the Ken Burns checkbox ON are rendered by Ken Burns; iMovie won't ask to render them again.
If we grant permission to render clips, iMovie will render them with very poor quality, adding lots of "jaggies" to the photos. It's a bug.
To avoid the bug, do NOT grant permission to render when iMovie asks. Then iDVD will render them for us, which it does with good quality.
So, to avoid the bug do any ONE of these:
1. Import all photos with the Ken Burns checkbox ON.
2. If iMovie asks permission to render when exporting the project, do NOT grant permission.
3. Instead of sharing from iMovie to iDVD, drop the iMovie project into the iDVD project window.
Karl"

Poor quality still frames

Does anyone know why still frames are such poor quality?
I'm constructing a movie using stills, and if a Ken Burns effect is used, the picture changing to the next photo as soon as the effect finishes can be a little jarring on the eye.
To counteract this, I've been adding a still frame of 1-2 seconds either side of the main Ken Burns adjusted photo to act as a 'cushion' (like you can in Photo to Movie). You can see the difference in quaity in iMovie, so it does of course remain when you have exported to Quicktime.
Is there a better method of doing this than still frames? I notice that the overlap transition helps by hanging on to the end of the previous frame, but it's not ideal.
Any suggestions?
Quicksilver G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Programmes in regular use are Freehand, Photoshop, Freeway, Keynote, iMovie, iDV

Karl, I swear you live inside everyone's browser, with a manual the like of which the rest of us have never seen!
As usual, among the quickest to answer on these forums, and absolutely correct.
It worked like a dream - another major headache removed. Many thanks indeed.

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When I export from iMovie6 any moving image is very poor quality. I am using a Sony HDR-HC1 and trying to export at the highest possible settings.
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Your description of the problem - a 'comb' effect - sounds as if the "fields" which make up the resultant picture have been put together in reverse.
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[..A video picture's generally made up of two "fields" which each comprise half the number of lines down the screen: one field comprises the odd-numbered lines, and the other the even-numbered ones. Your exported video should be encoded with the lower (2nd) field first ..as described in this Apple document ..and the problem's mentioned here as well..]
However ..you said in your first post that "..I am using a Sony HDR-HC1 and trying to export at the highest possible settings.."
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Ah ..sudden thought: you mentioned that you exported thro' iDVD: "..I have used iDVD by dropping it into a DVD theme and it seems to work ok, although the playback is a little jumpy, not quite as good I would have expected.."
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Check your iDVD Preferences ..that may be the problem.

Poor Quality in iMovie 09 with Stills

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