QT degradation in iDVD

I have created a sales presentation with Keynote and inserted audio clips from Audacity. To maintain high quality of the images, I found the best way to get the best movie was to use Snapz Pro to create the Quicktime movie. Exporting to QT from Keynote did not yield as good a result.
Here is my problem, the resultant .mov file has very acceptable quality, bu when I import the movie into iDVD, the quality of the fonts and graphics have noticeable degradation. I really want the professional look and feel of an iDVD menu etc. But I just can't eliminate the degradation with the preferences, professional setting.
Any input will be appreciated.
Michael

As you have seen, this can be problematic within iDvd.
http://homepage.mac.com/profpixel/texttest.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306305
It is much less of an issue in FCS 2 / DVDSP (apple's pro apps) but it is also somewhat costly. Hopefully others on this iDvd forum will chime in with a few third party apps that are much less expensive than DVDSP.
Good luck.

Similar Messages

IPhoto/iDVD Slideshow Software Options?

I have been unhappy with the resultant quality of slideshows that I have created in iPhoto and exported ('shared') with iDVD. The iPhoto quality is outstanding but I find significant quality degradation in iDVD in terms of clarity and smoothness of Ken Burns effect motion. This poor quality carries-over to the iDVD burned DVD-R.
Does anyone have recommendations for alternate slideshow software options that produce clear, crisp and smooth motion slideshow DVDs?
Message was edited by: MikeyM

Have you asked over in the iDVD forum also? Any DVD authoring program will not be as sharp as what you see in iPhoto or on your computer because all media is reduced to 720 x 540 pixels. The same goes for videos. Smaller videos are scaled up and that's where you can lose image quality.
The two links below are to Apple KB documents on preparing stills and videos for iDVD.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/7.0/en/6732.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/7.0/en/6675.html
Photo to Movie has received good reports in this forum. When using the KB effect you need to use the largest image available. Not so much with just still photos. As far as videos with motion you did use the Professional Quality setting, right?
In finishing up the iDVD project are you saving it as a disk image first? Then you can check the encoding by playing it with DVD Player before burning. Burn to disc with Disk Utility at the slowest speed available to assure the best burn quality. Always use top quality media: Verbatium, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.
OT

IDVD degrades quality ALOT?!?!?!

First of all, I just want to say I appreciate any help I can get on this matter, and I am honestly very sorry if this has already been discussed and answered in this forum, I am just running into some time constraints and I have a deadline of TOMORROW.... so i appreciate any advice you can give....
Okay so, I produced a 10 minute video in HD, and edited in Final Cut Express, and made it look all nice and everything, and I exported it using the quicktime export feature. And that is supposed to keep all the quality (which it did). Because when I look in finder and find the file, it says the sixe is 5.87GB, so I know it kept all of the quality, but then when i just tried to put it into iMovie, it says it only takes up like 500MB or so on the DVD, but i burned it anyway cause i figured its worth a shot, and I was right.... It looks like crap, and i dont know what to do...
Are there any other programs out there (hopefully for free) that can burn in higher quality? or is 500MB the normal size for a 10-minute HD vid??? idk... please help, thanks in advance

No. If the movie is over 60 minutes you'll need to use the HIgh Quality instead of the Best Performance. The HQ encoding does two passes, the first to determine which portions of the video can sustain the greatest amount of compression (stills, portions with minimal movement, etc.) and which needs less compression. Then it encodes into the available disk space. This is a only very elemental description of the process. The real gurus of this forum can describe it in much better detail.
There's not a lot of decision to make. You can use Professional for all projects, High Quality for all projects or Best Performance for those under 60 minutes. Some of the more advanced users believe that there's not a lot of difference between BP and HQ for projects under 60 minutes. BP just lets you pre-encode assets while working on the project. Since getting iDVD 8 I've used the Professional Quality always even though I'm using stills almost exclusively. I've only dabbled in video a little bit so can't comment much on improving it's quality. Although I did learn one valuable trick from this forum. When adding an iMovie project to an iDVD project drag the iMovie project file into the open iDVD menu instead of using the Share->Send to iDVD menu option. This lets iDVD do the encoding of the movie instead of iMovie resulting in only one encoding of the assets and improving the end quality.
Another feature I ran across with iDVD 8 is that if you add you movie to an iDVD slideshow instead of adding it to a menu the movie will be scaled to the TV Save area instead of succumbing to the TV overscan phenomena.
OT

Multiple iDvd creation issues

Howdy,
I've got multiple questions I've been meaning to address for awhile but I'm always forgetting so while I'm sitting here at work thinking about them I'm just gonna throw them all into one big post (I never tend to think about this stuff when I'm actually at home in front of the computer). Any help will be appreciated.
First let me note that I'm using one of the flat panel 17" imacs. It's like 3 years old now but it's served me very well so far. I've added more memory & an external hard drive & am using iLife 6.
DVD-R:
The only dvds (besides movies & the like) that the superdrive recognizes are DVD-R's. Has anyone ever come up w/ a way to use DVD+Rs or better on these old machines?
Continuous Play Music Video DVDs:
My goal is to make music video mix dvds. This means I want to burn music vids on a dvd that can be accessed separately or you can just pop the dvd in & click play & it will run through the whole dvd. Problem is I haven't found any kind of continuous play option in idvd. So the obvious choice is to convert all of the videos into one long movie in iMovie (broken into chapters) but of course I've been unsuccesful at this. Even though I've converted the videos into the proper format (arrived at through research on this forum) the videos don't load into imovie correctly...at least 3 out the 4 I tried didn't (tried multiple times on each). It would condense the video into like a quarter of the screen & leave everything else black space. So anyone got any suggestions on how I can get this done?
SD on Widescreen formatted disc:
I have burned a music video DVD a little while back & ended up w/ something interesting. I formatted the disc for widescreen assuming the standard def(4:3) videos would all just be letterboxed on the side but the result was that some were & some weren't (in fact most weren't). This means they are stretched out to widescreen. This isn't a huge deal since I can use the tv itself to letterbox them but still I'd like to know if there is a way to deal with this in the creation of the disk. Any suggestions?
Forgive me if I've missed anything obvious. I have tried at various times to research each of these topics but haven't found any answers. Thanks.

Hello Farrell,
for this kind of project you'll need to get your workflow straightened out - and I think at the moment you're "mixing apples & pears".
The only dvds (besides movies & the like) that the superdrive recognizes are DVD-R's. Has anyone ever come up w/ a way to use DVD+Rs or better on these old machines?
DVD-R media is actually your best bet compatibility-wise. The only other option would be Double-Layer DVD+R, but that would mean getting an external burner in your case. If your content doesn't exceed, say 90-100 min. I would stick with the DVD-R.
Even though I've converted the videos into the proper format (arrived at through research on this forum) the videos don't load into imovie correctly...
You might have converted to the correct format, but obviously the sizes don't match. DV video is 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL), so if you want to fill the screen, you'll have to convert to the proper size. On the other hand, if you have some web clips at 320x240, up-rezzing them might degrade the quality to a point that the whole thing becomes unwatchable.
I formatted the disc for widescreen assuming the standard def(4:3) videos would all just be letterboxed on the side but the result was that some were & some weren't (in fact most weren't)
If you want to burn a widescreen DVD, you'll need to start off with a widescreen project in iMovie. As you have quite mixed footage, the best thing would be to turn on "auto letter & pillarboxing" in preferences. This will preserve the correct aspect ratio of your clips.
but still I'd like to know if there is a way to deal with this in the creation of the disk
Widescreen DVDs created in iDVD 6 are set to "auto letterboxing & pan-scan", meaning it depends on the setting of your DVD player how the disc will be displayed - but as you found out, you can easily toggle the view option on your remote.
If you want to force letterboxing, you can re-edit your final DVD with a little app called myDVDedit (http://www.mydvdedit.com/).
hope this helps
mish

Can I Save My Movie in a Format that iDVD Doesn't Need to Re-Compress

I am looking to output 3 videos from AfterEffects (or some other app) and I want to save them in a format that iDVD won't compress or convert. In other words, I am hoping I can choose a format that allows iDVD to pretty much just grab my three videos and bundle them all up into single DVD (letting iDVD create menus so the individual videos can be selected through my DVD player). I just don't want iDVD to have to do any transcoding which could degrade the quality.
Or, should I save my movies with absolutely no compression (as in a "None" setting) and let iDVD have its way with them? I just don't want to run my video through 2 codecs.
I am in the U.S. so I need NTSC format. The disc will be standard def, no need for HD or anamorphic widescreen.
I am not finding the answer I need on Google or here, but I am sure it exists out there somewhere! Mostly, I have only found outdated FAQs and iDVDs very simplistic directions. Thank you for your time.

One can import mpeg 2 content into the pro apps / DVDSP /FCS 2 usually without any issues.
However, this is Not the case with iDvd'08.
To quote Sascha Segan of PC magazine:
Pros: Creates beautiful DVDs. Many themes and button styles.
Cons: No support for high-def content; no support for MPEG2 or DivX files.
Bottom Line: iDVD is an effortlessly easy, yet surprisingly, flexible way to create good-looking, standard-def video and photo DVDs.
Also worth reading:
http://safari.oreilly.com/9780596516192/avchdmpeg-2_and_other_suchjargon
http://www.dvcreators.net/how-do-i-export-a-high-quality-movie/
http://www.geniusdv.com/newsandtutorials/2008/06/creating-chapters-in-idvd.php
Hope this answers a few questions but if not just come on back.

Under SHARE, IDVD is grey, what step am I missing? Only MEDIA BROWSER and ITUNES is active?

I'm unable to SHARE my IMOVE since IDVD is grey and not active, only MEDIA BROWSER and ITUNES. I'm using ITUNES '11.

Hi
A. I don't know
B. I think that THERE ARE A MUCH better choice to do - ! ! !
As Share to Media Browser is OK
(I NEVER use Share to iDVD from within any iMovie versions as the result will be bad to even worse)
Use this and Share as LARGE (Not HD - also degrading result)
Now Close iMovie and Open iDVD and Import movie from Media Browser - This will result in as Good result possibly when movie comes from iMovie'08 or 09 or 11.
If You want even better result then use
• iMovie up to HD6 - or -
• FinalCut any version
So that the material exported over to iDVD is fully interlaced - as DVDs are so and as SD-Video quality is so as Standard. (There are no HD-DVD quality (but academic - very rare and needs special players))
Yours Bengt W

FCE4 and iDVD Anamorphic Ken Burns

I created a 60min movie in iMovie8 using three media: 1) NTSC Anamorphic DV from a Panasonic PV-GS80, 2) JPEG 2816x2112 stills from a Panasonic DMC-FX3, and 3) 848x480 motion JPEG video from the DMC-FX3. An iMovie 8 project in 16:9 aspect was burned to DVD by iDVD and viewed on a 16:9 LCD TV with no problems encountered and pretty decent quality.
However, frustrated by the lack of basic features in iMovie, I purchased FCE4 after speaking with an Apple rep at Best Buy who assured me that it could import iMovie8 projects. Although I was carrying a disc with my iMovie project, I wasn't allowed to verify this in the store. Unfortunately, Apple's claim that iMovie8 projects can be imported into FCE4 is grossly misleading at best. They say "With iMovie ’08, putting together a great movie is as quick as drag and drop. When you want to add professional polish to your project, simply export to Final Cut Express 4 and edit like a pro." In fact, contrary to the FCE4 manual, iMovie8 projects cannot simply be opened: Incompatible files. Apple tech support told me iMovie8 projects must first be exported as XML.
The truth is that iMovie8 projects must be tediously recreated for FCE4 because it can't use MP3 audio files (must recapture from CD's), it doesn't recognize transitions (must recreate Ken Burns effects from scratch), and DV NTSC video clips are captured by iMovie8 at a mysteriously bloated 6.4 MBps rate rather than the 3.6MBps they should be (must recapture all DV). Apple must retract its claims or fix its products to enable upwards migration.
Nevertheless, having recreated 10 minutes worth of movie in ten days of experimentation and reading most of FCE's 1152-page manual, I have yet to produce acceptable output from FCE. Besides the frustrating discrepancies between the manual and actual FCE4 operation, my biggest problems have been to maintain the 16:9 aspect in iDVD, and to render still images (with modest Ken Burns motion) with any semblance of quality in the final output.
The FCE4 project settings are DV-NTSC Anamorphic 48KHz. Anamorphic video from the PV-GS80 is captured at 720x480pix, 29.97fps, DV/DVCPRO NTSC, 3.6MBps, 16-bit audio, NTSC pixels, Ana=Yes, Field=Lower (even). Stills are imported at 2816x2112pix, 29.97fps, Photo-JPEG, Square pix, Ana=No, Field=None. Motion JPEG is captured at 848x480pix, 30fps, Photo-JPEG, 1.6MBps, 8KHz x 8-bit audio, Square pix, Field=None.
All these media appear correctly in 16:9 aspect within FCE4. However, unlike iMovie8, when FCE4 exports as QTMovie, the movie is not recognized as anamorphic by iDVD, so it is burned in a horizontally compressed 4:3 aspect. Why are there no options or controls when exporting as QTMovie, which seems to be the only way to avoid unnecessary processing and image degradation?
Experimenting with FCE4's Export Using Quicktime Conversion, I was able to export the movie at 848x480, but at a huge cost in time for unnecessary transcoding and the resultant degradation in image quality.
Experimenting with the Anamorphicizer third-party software that this BBS recommends to solve the incompatibility between FCE and iDVD, I found that the anamorphic aspect is recognized properly by iDVD, but still images are now unacceptably stretched horizontally. This seems like a poor solution to a simple problem of incompatibility within Apple's own products.
Most recently I stumbled upon the observation that if a FCE4 sequence begins with a few frames of anamorphic DV from the Panasonic PV-GS80, this sequence can be exported as a QTMovie which iDVD will recognize as anamorphic, resulting in a DVD with the correct aspect. This doesn't always work, e.g. if the audio is removed from those few frames, or if their opacity is set to 0% to hide them. It reminds me of the Auto Conform feature in FCE4, but my Preference/Edit/AutoConform=Ask, and FCE4 has never asked. Furthermore, this works even if AutoConform=Never. Unfortunately, I don't want to start my movie with a DV clip but with a still, and this results in a 4:3 movie in iDVD. Furthermore, this "fix" doesn't seem to stick: after editing, the sequence can revert to 4:3 in iDVD for unknown reasons. I can find no mention of this behavior in the docs, and FCE4 shows no differences in properties between these sequences, so I don't know why it happens. Nevertheless, it seems preferable to Anamorphicizer, because still images are not stretched. Can anyone tell me why this happens so that I can control it predictably?
My biggest remaining issue is that FCE4 renders still images with Ken Burns slow pans and zooms unacceptably poorly. First, some images but not others seem to have gross interlace distortion throughout the clip, as if the JPEG were interlaced. It seems like this problem develops after editing even for stills that once looked OK. Adding the Deinterlace filter merely softens the distorted images. Oddly enough, adding the Deinterlace filter or the Shift Fields filter and then deselecting it seems to fix the problem. I've tried changing the Field Dominance setting on stills from None, but no help. Since the original JPEG is progressive, this seems like an FCE bug. How can I avoid this distortion in the first place?
Finally there is the issue that Ken Burns style pans and zooms create unacceptable aliasing and shimmering in the output, even if the motion is minimal. Easing zooms by changing Scale fast at first then slowing down doesn't help. Easing pans by changing in several steps (because the Center parameter can't have Bezier controls) makes the aliasing even more noticeable by changing the rate of shimmering in discrete steps. When still images contain significant detail and linear edges, there seems to be no level of Ken Burns motion that will result in a reasonable image on DVD. Why are these artifacts so much worse than with iMovie?
As a newcomer to FCE4, I am very disappointed in Apple's failure to ensure a reasonable migration path from iMovie. Perhaps they have forgotten how the basic "bait and switch" strategy is supposed to work! I hope someone here can help more than two hours of hold time with Apple Tech Support helped me. I would be interested in any recommendations for other vendors' products that produce better results with less aggravation. If not, I am about ready to get my money back for FCE4!

"This will explain what you can do about this..."
I shouldn't be required to purchase QTPro just to fix the anamorphic bit in the movies exported by FCE, especially when iMovie8 sets the bit properly. Seems like an obvious FCE bug to me. Tom, any thoughts on why a segment with an anamorphic clip first is handled properly?
"Where are you seeing the image degradation? Are you looking at the output on a video monitor?"
I'm editing using a 21" ViewSonic LCD monitor, but then I burn DVD's to view on an LCD HDTV. The artifacts are apparent on both displays.
" Changing anamorphic values after the material has been edited into the sequence will result in image stretching."
I assume you mean setting the Anamorphic bit on my JPEG stills: I haven't done that. I'm saying that after using Anamorphicizer, some still images were definitely stretched horizontally. I created these by simply dragging a folder of JPEG images to the FCE browser. Other than setting the still duration default, I don't know what else I should do.
"If you add motion to the images interlacing will be introduced. "
I understand, but it is much worse on some images than others, so I'm trying to understand how I can minimize the ugliness of aliasing and shimmering. On some still images, FCE seems to me to have started with two mismatched frames, so that very exaggerated aliasing appears consistently throughout the clip, seemingly independent of the motion. I suspect data corruption in FCE, and I remember a warning in the manual about corruption being caused by copying sequences too many times, but can't find it now. Could this be my problem?
I've also found that even though FCE claims to be a reference editor, not touching the original files, there is a problem with handling portrait versus landscape JPEGS. After importing JPEGs, sometimes the FCE image matches the file in the Finder, and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, I have found that if I rotate the Finder file, Save it, then Rotate it back and Save again, FCE will finally get its version rotated correctly. This never works by only changing the source file one time: I must do it twice.
"If you're uncomfortable or unhappy with the application you might be better off using another one."
I am mostly disappointed that FCE seems to be so out of sync with other Apple apps, and perhaps buggier than many. My guess is that iMovie and FCE are on a collision course instead of a rational product relationship. I would be happy for any recommendations, because I feel that the time I've invested in learning to use this seemingly overly embellished software may not have been well spent. On the other hand, if someone can correct my misunderstandings, I will be very grateful.

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!

Final cut express to idvd

Hey guys,
I have been having a problem with the picture quality of the DVD's I made with final cut. I export them to a "Quicktime movie" from the file menu; which is what Apple said to do. So I went to my local Apple store and had the guy in final cut express, do what i did, export to quicktime movie..., Then with Final Cut express again, we used compressor (ONLY available in FC pro, i don't even know why it an option: it will only be un-grayed out if you have Compressor) We selected "Mpeg-2 best quality DVD" we exported and it looked a heck of a lot better than the quicktime movie one( which is all i have available). I was wondering if any one has the name for a mpeg2 encoder, for mac, that is a plug in for quicktime so that i wont degrade quality doing quicktime movie and the exporting in a different program (if its a Quicktime plugin, i can do it directly within FC express. Please help!! Thanks so much!

(I'm not sure whether I understand your problem but here goes. Maybe there is no problem after all?).
Basically iDVD wants .dv or .mov -- it insists on encoding MPEG2 itself.
So: if your source is DV from a camcorder, you should use a DV stream .dv file (or DV-encoded .mov file) as an input to iDVD so there are no lesser quality intermediary codecs (like MPEG2!) ruining the final output to MPEG2.
Notice also that by default QT Player has a low resolution playback of DV files so don't judge the quality by that! You can turn on high quality playback via QT Player to see all quality (and maybe also those interlacing comb lines that are normal...).
BTW, AFAIK a long time there used to be an Apple MPEG2 encoder plug-in for QT but AFAIK it doesn't work with new Mac OS versions and has been superseded by Compressor. And if you use iDVD, you don't need either of them anyway.

IDVD won't recognize imovie project

Hello people.
I have an 09 Mac desktop computer. I have now made seven iMovie projects ranging from ten minutes to almost two hours. Each time I shared the project with iDVD to burn the finished product to disc. Each time I made sure I could play back the movie on our DVD player.
I was able to play back each of these movies on my computer as the files ( I am assuming they were files ) were automatically stored in a movies folder right after they were shared with iDVD from iMovie. Since they take up space on the hard drive, I decided to store the files on an external hard drive. I believe each one copied to the hard drive. Once each one was on the hard drive, I made sure I could play it back. Then I trashed each file on the computer, again making sure right after that I could still play each file on the external drive. They would open in iDVD and I could play them. All was good.
Recently I made another iMovie project of my children's high school play. As I did before, I shared it with iDVD and it appeared to be working as usual. It was to take approx. 30 minutes to create the movie from the project. HERE IS MY FIRST PROBLEM! Usually after the movie is created, it then opens in iDVD and from here I can burn to disc. iDVD did not open! I tried a couple of times and nothing. I then tried a short 30 second clip from iMovie with no titles or transitions or anything. This worked. iDVD opened after creating the short movie. My project is an hour long. Consequently with this project I shared it with the media browser and made it into an avi file. I then used a program ( Toast ) that came with my Roxio Converter ( VHS to DVD ) software to burn the movie to disc.
HERE IS MY NEXT PROBLEM! I went to view the movies on my hard drive and iDVD won't recognize them. It says it can't find the missing audio and video files. Can anyone help me with this?
Thanks

Hello darrenfromnanaimo
Cross your fingers for a satisfactory answer to the "NEXT PROBLEM." When you copied the iDVD files to your external drive and deleted them on your computer -- hopefully you just deleted the iDVD files and not the iMovie files. If that's the case, you can reconnect the external iDVD files to the original iMovie files and you're back in business (open the external iDVD project and use it's browser to find the original iMovie files). If the iMovie files were deleted, that's a more difficult problem -- you'll need to recreate the iMovie files (re-import from the camcorder and re-edit), or you'll have to "rip" your DVDs back into an electronic file (which gives you only the finished product of your original editing, with slightly degraded video resolution).
John

16:9 DV sequence in iDVD shows up as 4:3 - Apple's workaround =Quality loss

Hey guys,
Capturing and editing anamaphoric 16:9 from a DV Camera in Final Cut Express, then exporting using Quicktime (not conversion) gives a file that iDVD does not see as 16:9 but squeezes it to 4:3. After esearching this quite extensivly, Apple's workaround is to do the following:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1611
Which works fantastic but my simple question is... because I now have to use Quicktime conversion (as stated in the link above) does my quality of the video suffer at all?
Any help greatly appreciated,
Jazzy

To be honest I didn't try it yet, but at a first look the procedure described in your link doesn't seem to degrade the movie quality. In fact, even if you use QuickTime Conversion, that procedure simply uses the same codec as FCE (DV/DVCPRO-NTSC or DV-PAL); the Aspect Ratio and Dimensions parameters should only affect the "presentation" of the movie, not its intrinsic resolution, which should remain untouched (720x480 or 720x576). Then its effect should be the same as changing the Scaled Size in the Visual Settings of the property window in QT Player (but only if you have QT Pro), which does not touch the video encoding but only the way it is displayed.
But other posters might know more about this...
Piero

Anamorphic 16:9 in FCE squeezes to 4:3 in iDVD '09 - Apple's solution...

A Movie imported and edited with FCE from a Anamorphic 16:9 DV Camera cannot be imported into IDVD '09 without squeezing the image into 4:3. Apple's work around is to export the file from FCE as a 854x480 instead of the native 720x480. This seems to work so far except my question is... does changing the aspect ratio before exporting like this degrade video quality of the final DVD?
Any help would greatly be appreciated.

And here's the best part ...
Don't have QT pro, and the snow leopard quicktime can't seem to do the resizing either. So I was going to just do the resizing under "export using quicktime" where just checking the "16x9" option makes it work correctly.
The only problem is I can't export chapter markers that way! So iDVD can either have correct aspect ratio or chapter markers, not both!
I'm pretty sure the timeline is set to anamorphic...

IDVD - 16:9 video appears as 4:3

Hi everyone,
I know this has been a problem for many but i'm yet to find a fix that works!
If i import any 16:9 video into iDVD, it appears as 4:3 video in the preview and when burnt to disc! If i play the files in quicktime they appear correctly however...
I've gone thru numerous 'fixes' on the net, from opening with QT7 and checking resolution output and aspect ratio. Have tried the anamorphicizer program also. All to no avail.
If I choose "share with iDVD" from iMovie however, the videos work in 16:9. I don't want to do this however - i want to keep things in DV format to minimise the amount of processing between apps and the degradation in quality.
I can't understand why there would be such a glaring issue like this in a machine that is supposed to take away alot of the complications around this sort of thing. Especially one that's supposed excel at video work!!! I'm back to editing DV on my PC at the minute!
HELP!?

I have the same Problem and the same Opinion.
What's the Problem to apple to fix it. It's Part of the PAL 16:9 Standard that the Resolution for 16:9-Material is stored in 720x576. With the PixelAspectRatio the players know how to present it in the right Ratio. Theres no need to reencode the Movies, it's just a flag in the container, that has to be set.
Hey apple, what's the Difficulty changing that. I have a DV-Video in 16:9 that contains the right PixelAspctRatio and confirms the Standard so I will not buy quicktime pro to fix it!!!
Please, do your job right!

Poor sound quality in iDVD

When I previewed my music video in iDVD it looked and sounded exactly right but when I burned it to a DVD and played it on my home DVD player, the sound quality was not "CD quality". It sounded crappy like a cassette. I played the DVD on the built in DVD player in the computer and it played back perfectly. When I play commercial DVD's on my home player the sound is fine, CD quality.
So far I have not attempted to play the DVD on other DVD players but I will do so although I doubt it will help. A friend of mine claims that this is all the MAC can produce at this level and that IDVD5 is only good for "consumer" applications like family slide shows and home movies. I disagree. I feel that the music recorded on an iMAC should sound extremely close to the quality that you hear coming out of the computer itself. There has to be a reason for that much degradation to occur in the audio upon burning a DVD. Has anyone else experienced this problem with the audio? I may try to bring a data copy of the video to a production house and burn it there, bypassing iDVD. My feeling is that even home movies should have CD quality music. Otherwise there's no point in using MAC at this level if the sound quality sounds terrible on all players except the MAC. As a pro songwriter, I wanted to try my hand at making music videos at home. Well, the video looks great but the audio sounds terrible. HELP!
iMAC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.4) 20"

Thank you for those reassuring words. I'll try to give as many pertinent details as I can. I created the project in iMovie and exported it to iDVD. The song was taken from my professionally recorded CD and was loaded to iTunes. It was recorded at a pro-tools studio at a 24-bit rate. It sounded perfect when played in iTunes. The DVD I used was 8X DVD+R. (pro-media brand) They were pretty cheap. Could that be the problem? I didn't actually change any export settings. They seemed to have all been pre-set (checks in blue boxes) to "highest quality". When I first opened iMovie I simply clicked on "audio" and chose one of my songs from iTunes Library. If you have any other questions, let me know. Please point out what to click on to find the answers. Access to the cool people on this board has given me new hope about getting the most out of my iMAC. It's an incredible tool that has inspired my creativity far beyond my expectations. (Garageband is a great bang for the buck..kind of like Pro-Tools Jr.!) I think I may take classes at the Apple Store in NYC. The "missing manuals" are really of very little value when tackling specific problems in detail.

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

QT degradation in iDVD

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