Poor quality in Imovie

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.)

Similar Messages

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

Very poor quality with imovie

hi all
i have a canon hf200 that records mts file. 1920x1080
when i export my movie with imovie the quality of the video is very poor,i export as quicktime movie and i lose a lot of quality.
need i to convert mts file before import it on imovie?
ps:sorry for my english

To increase the quality of a video, one of the things you can do is by instead of exporting the video using Quicktime just select 'export movie...' from the share menu. You can then select what level of quality you want, after selecting what you want to name your movie and where you want to save it.

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.)

Why is MPEG4 HD 1920x1080 so poor quality on iMovie 6

I am importing MPEG4 HD 1920x1080 footage to iMovie 08 and it looks amazingly sharp and crisp, but the program continually crashes on me so I have imported the same files to iMovie 6 but they look very average and much lower quality than the same clip in 08.
Any reason behind this?
Scott

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.

Help please -My HQ photos are being rendered in very poor quality in iMovie

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.
I have burned it at the highest quality I can find, but there is still no improvement. Can anyone help please? I'm doing this as a gift for my parents, but don't want to send them something of inferior quality.
Thanks!
Carly

if you've burned it to DVD, then its probably a standard definition iMovie project which means that is 480 lines interlaced. it makes no difference how high quality the originals are, they'll still be re-sized down to 480 lines and since its interlaced, that means that you're only ever showing every-other line. and because standard definition alternates between the odd and even numbered lines, you'll probably see lots of shimmering in the highlights. it will look worse when you try to stretch it across a high-definition TV because there's interpolation going on to up-convert the whole thing back to the 720 or 1080 lines of high definition.
in short, you'll never really get super-high quality from a standard definition TV and you'll only get good results on a high-def TV if you keep everything high def (720p or 1080p) throughout the entire workflow. and until Apple updates its software to handle Blue-Ray or HD-DVD authoring, it'll be very expensive to master those kinds of discs!
best of luck,
scott
PowerMac G5 2.5GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8) MacBook Pro 2.0GHz

Poor Image quality/Slideshow/iMovie to iDVD

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"

IPhoto album to iMovie to iDVD, poor quality of projected images

I am preparing a slide show of digital photo images. The finished product shows poor quality images. I am import the images as an album to iMovie, add a few title slides, then export either to media file or directly to iDVD. The results remain unacceptable when projected on a flat panel HD TV. Where am I going wrong?
Marks 3

If you are using the Share ➙ iDVD menu in iMovie, don't. Use the Share ➙ Media Browser menu option and then drag the movie frome the Media/Movies pane in iDVD into the projects menu window. The Share ➙ iDVD route noticibly degrades the resulting movie. What size movie are you sending to iDVD? It should be Medium or Large.
What size images in iPhoto are you using? They shoujld be cropped to the 4:3 size ratio for iDVD before adding to either iMovie or iDVD.
Have you considered creating the slideshow in iDVD by adding the album of photos via the Media/Photos pane in iDVD. I've found I get better results that way. However, there is a 99 slide limit with that workflow.
What do you mean by poor quality. When going from a photo on your monitor to a TV screen the media gets resized and compressed/encoded down to 640 x 480 which can't duplicate the high resolution of the original image viewed on the monitor.
OT

Internal mic poor quality when recording in iMovie

I noticed exceptionally poor quality of internal mic when recording acoustic guitar piece on iMovie, with the built in iSight camera. Technically, the sound is called "Phasing" - it sounds like a slow 'whoosh' over all of the audio.
After investigation, I have found the cause to be the Ambient Noise Reduction algorithm added by Apple.
To remove this - go to:
System Preferences
Sound
Input
*uncheck* 'use ambient noise reduction'
Problem solved....
Now my question - does anyone know how to use the iSight (built in) and simultaneously and synchronously record audio using an External Mic - eg the Blue "Snowball" - which is a USB mic.
In theory, the mic should plug in and then show up as an external device, but when I select iSight camera as my video source - the Powerbook automatically assumes that I want to use the internal mic as my audio source.
Have tried to go to Sys Prefs and change 'Input' to USB - but no option to do so
All help appreciated
SK

Hi thanks for the response
unfortunately, it's got nothing to do with MIDI (which is just a series of controller information)
The Blue 'Snowball' External mic is essentially a 'USB Device' and should be recognised as such by the Mac. The data will come in as 16bit, 44.1khz AES bit stream and then be assigned a destination.
The problem is that iMovie does NOT allow me to separate the iSight camera from recording with 'internal mic'
I want a way of finding how to seperate them - and then assign the USB mic to be associated with the iSight camera - giving me iMovie/iSight videos - with PROFESSIONAL sound
sorry if i didn't make this clear
thanks again
sk

Poor quality exporting from iMovie to iDVD

When I export a dv movie from iMovie to iDVD, the quality drops significantly. A nice clean movie imported from a dv camcorder to iMovie becomes horrible pixelated mess once exported into iDVD and actually burned into a DVD. No matter what quality settings one uses.
It seems like many people experience similar problems, judging by postings (unanswered, as far as I can tell). It also appears that basically everyone using iMovie has this problem, but most people are content with poor quality DVDs, or are they?
Does anyone know why this is so, and if there is any workaround? You know, the simplest way out is to switch to a PC and use one of their standard movie editing software, but isn't Mac supposed to be better for this purpose?

Hi
A.
If You included photos into Your movie and used Share/Export to iDVD. iMovie
asks to render the material = Destructive in two ways:
• Losy iDVD project
• Original iMovie IS HARMED: Photos needs to be re-imported and re-edited.
• Re do the import and editing.
• Close iMovier
• Open iDVD
• Drop iMovie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD
Done.
B.
There are a major difference between a Mac Monitor and a Standard TV (much less
sharpness due to 525 - 625 lines (NTSC or PAL))
I connect my Camera to my Mac (via FW) and analog out to a TV so that I can monitor
the process during iMovie editings. (iMovie preferences set Playback via Camera)
Yours Bengt W
Yours

Poor quality iphotos in iMovie / iDVD

Hi,
I am very frustrated, I have always had good quality DVD movies out of IMovie. Following an upgrade of Mac I now have HD iMovie. When I import still photos (of high quality) the iMovie degrades the quality on the screen. I perserved in the hope the final quality DVD (having dropped the finished product into iDVD) would be better. How wrong I was!. Why has the quality deteriorated soooooo badly?
(the only thing I know I did wrong when I started up the iMovie for the first time was select NTSC as opposed to PAL but this can be corrected as the process continues can't it?)
Any views?

(the only thing I know I did wrong when I started up the iMovie for the first
time was select NTSC as opposed to PAL but this can be corrected as the
process continues can't it?)
If your iMovie project is NTSC but it should be PAL then Yes, that can cause image problems. Try creating a PAL project to see if that works better.
If not, there are many topics here discussing image quality. Here are a few:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3088918&#3088918
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3254897&#3254897
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3390925&#3390925
Karl

Extreme poor quality in full screen preview and exported movie

I have spend evenings and evenings to create the content of a project.
After dealing with error -108 and extreme poor quality in full screen preview and in exported movies (extreme stuttering) I decided to install my iMac new again.
The error -108 disappeared, but the extreme stuttering still remained in full screen preview and in exported movies.
If I make the preview screen in the iMovie browser as big as possible there is nothing to see of any stuttering.
Now I am getting pretty annoyed and have no clue what to do anymore (how to solve this problem) .....
Anyone any suggestion ?
The orginal video was recorded with a Panasonic HD camcorder.
I do have a mid 2011 iMac with 16GB ram and 256GB SSD and 1TB HD with a complete clean installation
of OS X Lion and iLife. This configuration should be enough to create a proper movie :-(

mantralightroom wrote:
why is it this option disabled? do the generate monitor sized previews increase a lot the cache a lot!
Potentially, yes. The standard Preview is 1024 pixels, longest size. Some people (like Omke) have displays 2560 pixels longest side, potentially increasing file size by over 500%.

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.

Poor Quality

I've just used iMovie HD on my MacBookPro for the first time. While creating a opening using the Theme, I noticed the poor quality it became once added to the movie. The font is fuzzy, and the photos are disastrous. I've used iMovie before on an iMac and the quality wasn't as bad. I have the quality setting at the best there is.
What could the reason for such poor quality be? If I were to get iLife '08, would this help the quality?

No one answered my question, but I received iLife '08 for Christmas and now I have great quality movies.

Poor quality burns

My burnt discs are of poor quality. Some images are fractured around the edges. Others are simply not sharp. I have tried using both +R and -R discs but the problem remains. Very disappointing as I have been working through Final Cut Express HD for the first time. Any ideas?

Hi
Just to add to Kasas good answers.
1. iDVD 6 has two levels of qualities.
• Best Quality (movies up to 120 min) - slightly lower quality than - se below
• Best Performances (movies less than 60 min) - Highest quality on final DVD
2. From FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov
iMovie - Don't use Share/Export to iDVD = destructive even to movie project and especially so
when the movie includes photos.
Instead just drop the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
3. I use Toast™ to make an as slow burn as posibly eg x1
4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disc. iDVD can't
use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc).
Yours Bengt W

Poor quality in Imovie

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for