Streaming dvd picture quality vs dvd disk

I was going to download a hd/blu-ray quality movie from itunes to be watched on my big screen tv via Apple TV, but I'm not sure if I will notice a difference in picture quality between that and just watching the movie on my blu-ray player via the actual dvd disk. My router is in the other room, so ethernet connect is not an option.

I've tried DriverCleaner, but to no help: I was still getting a foggy picture. Then I noticed that playback of a previously recorded Tv-show did show a good quality!? So that guided me to the fact that the problem wasn't caused by the Nvidia drivers but perhaps by the InterVideo WinDVD player. Reinstallation of the program completely solved the problem!
Although you didn't provide the answer, thanks for your help anyway Dr. Stu.
JaDi.

Similar Messages

Picture quality of DVDs and iTunes HD video on my iMac less than other macn

Hi,
This might be difficult to help with, but I've been concerned about this for some.
The picture quality of DVDs (retail movies) and iTunes HD video look far superior on my mother's and sister's laptops than on my iMac. Even a movie I just recorded off TV looks way better on our old CRT TV than on my Mac.
I can't find any way to adjust settings.
Can anybody help? What info do I need to give to help you help me?
Regards

I'm not exactly sure what you are describing, but you can consider the following...
Laptops have smaller screens, with higher pixel density (smaller pixels). Also DVDs are typically something line 720x480 resolution. When you spread those pixels out on a larger iMac screen, especially one that is 24-inch 1920x1200, it will look less sharp. The screen may be larger, but the quality of the video image stays the same.
A 8"x11" photograph, may look fine at that size. But if you blow it up to poster size, it will probably look terrible.
iTunes HD is usually 1280x720. That should look pretty good on an iMac's larger screen. But if you are comparing (side-by-side) how sharp the same video looks on a small laptop screen, it will look sharper on the small screen with less area and smaller pixels. But if you back up a few feet from the iMac when you are using +full screen+ mode (to TV viewing distance), it should look about the same.
Even a movie I just recorded off TV looks way better on our old CRT TV than on my Mac.
CRT TV's are optimized to show motion, with a technique called interlacing. If you freeze a frame (pause), it will look terrible. Since an iMac's display will not use interlacing, the same video will not look as good, especially when the size is increased. The quality of showing the same video on an iMac will be impacted by the method used to transfer it to the iMac. If it is encoded to a digital format, there will be loss of quality in that process.

DVD picture quality, Instant-On vs. InterVideo

Why is the quality from the Instant-On DVD player so much better then the picture received from InterVideo Home Theater under Windows XP?
Are there any settings to get the same picture quality?
What DVD software are you guys using?

I've tried DriverCleaner, but to no help: I was still getting a foggy picture. Then I noticed that playback of a previously recorded Tv-show did show a good quality!? So that guided me to the fact that the problem wasn't caused by the Nvidia drivers but perhaps by the InterVideo WinDVD player. Reinstallation of the program completely solved the problem!
Although you didn't provide the answer, thanks for your help anyway Dr. Stu.
JaDi.

Can improve picture quality in Dvd Pro?

I just made my first DVD in DVD Pro! Just a simple DVD with first track start.
I am disappointed about the quality.
I took it from 2k clips, assembled them in FCP, exported to Compressor, choose (MPEG 2) best quality max 90 min (Footage is only 2 min) and burned it. I am a bit ashamed to give away so soft images.....I was told, a dvd con only hold SD and not HD.
Is there any way to improve the quality?
I shot it on 4k. But most dvds I have seen have a better quality.
Dorian

no, I have not looked at a TV. Don't even have one... haha.
Only monitors. But I see all other dvds on my computer monitor.
Well, of course, it is downgraded to 720x480. But is there a way to tweak the quality a little bit? I used already 2 passes setting, all others are default settings in Compressor.

IDVD picture quality

Just wondering I just made a dvd from tape on my camcorder which is min dv. The picture quality of the dvd is not as good as when you play the tape onto the TV using the camera. In other word the dvd picture quality is not as good as the mini dv is this normal even when the encoding quality is set to prof. Thanks Rob

.....is this normal even when the encoding quality is set to prof.
The DVD is highly compressed data. so yes the the .dv (or minidv tape) will always look somewhat better than the compressed version.
Hope this helps and good luck.

Picture Quality Degrades On DVD

I am creating a dvd using photos from i-photo. All the photos are 5meg to 10meg. The pictures look fantastic in i-photo but when I burn them to a dvd the quality of the photo becomes much less. Does anyone know any tricks on how to keep the good photo quality on the dvd. I have tried different quality settings as well as different aspec ratios.

Klaus' method of producing high quality slide show movies/DVDs:
There are many ways to produce slide shows using iPhoto, iMovie or iDVD, but they all have one thing in common: they reduce the quality of the photos to that of a movie still frame and sometimes limit the number of photos you can use.
If what you want is what I want, namely to be able to use high resolution photos (even 300 dpi tiff files), to pan and zoom individual photos, use a variety of transitions, to add and edit music or commentary, and to end up with a DVD that looks good on both your Mac and a TV - in other words end up with and end result that does not look like an old fashioned slide show from a projector - you may be interested in how I do it. You don't have to do it my way, but the following may be food for thought!
Firstly you need proper software to assemble the photos, decide on the duration of each, the transitions you want to use, and how to pan and zoom individual photos where required, and add proper titles. For this I use Photo to Movie. You can read about what it can do on their website:
http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php
(Other users here use the alternative FotoMagico: http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/homevspro/ which you may prefer - I have no experience with it.)
Neither of these are freeware, but are worth the investment if you are going to do a lot of slide shows. Read about them in detail, then decide which one you feel is best suited to your needs.
Once you have timed and arranged and manipulated the photos to your liking in Photo to Movie, it exports the file to iMovie 6 as a DV stream. You can add music in Photo to Movie, but I prefer doing this in iMovie where it is easier to edit. You can now further edit the slide show in iMovie just as you would a movie, then send it to iDVD 7, or Toast, for burning.
You will be pleasantly surprised at how professional the results can be!

I am attempting to convert 8mm video cassettes to dvd using a video cassette player, elgato video capture with rca/usb connections to the mac, editing in imovie and burning on idvd. The picture quality is awful. What can I do?????

I am attempting to convert 8mm video cassettes to dvd using a video cassette player, elgato video capture with rca/usb connections to the mac then editing in imovie and burning dvd-r using idvd. The picture quality is awful. What can I do??????

At what point is the video quality bad? Is it bad on capture? I would recommend using an s-video 1394 firewire converter instead. They capture the video at a higher bit rate. If you have a lot of 8mm tapes to capture, invest in a stand alone DVD recorder. They capture and compress in one shot. If you need to rip it back from the DVD into iMovie again, I would recommend using DVDxDV.

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.

Lousy DVD video quality on high res photos!

I need some help. I am new to using iMovie and iDVD.
I just created a 15 minute video with a lot of high resolution photos (anywhere from 1920x1200 to 4256x2828). These photos are sharp and look superb on a computer monitor. Once processed through iMovie and iDVD the photos look terrible - low res noise all over the place - pixels are swimming - when played back on an HDTV with a nice upscaling DVD player. (I've tested on three DVD players - one on my MacBook Pro - all DVD output looks terrible.)
The process I used from iMovie was Share Export to iDVD. While the Share Export to Quicktime output looks great in the native 960x540 playback in QuickTime - even full screen on an HDTV. But quality of what is on the DVD is terrible - particularly at showing the still pictures!
Question: If I want to optimize the image for highest quality DVD playback is there a resolution I should process the photos to with Photoshop prior to importing to iMovie (640x480 for example?) Is this just one factor? What about the method of getting the iMovie product to iDVD - does THAT matter?
How do I get to a quality, hi res. image during DVD playback if I'm using iMovie and iDVD for a slide show?
Note that most DVD players are upscaling to an HD monitor with resolution of 1080i or 1080p.
What is the secret?
Thanks!!
Terry Tigner

Hi
Still just thinking.
What file format was Your photos ? .jpg, .tiff, .psd, .bmp else
Free space on internal boot hard disk way over 25Gb free - I hope.
4x3 SD video standard or 16x9 HD - iMovie project ?
Make a small 4x3 SD DV iMovie project with a few pictires - no Ken Burns
Close iMovie
Open iDVD - import (This should work - if not the problem is more severe)
Here make a DiskImage
Close iDVD
Open the image
Play with Apple DVD-player
How does this play.
as Standar DVD ? If so we have a start to work from.
Else on DVD Quality - Unsorted list of thoughts.
*DVD quality*
1. iDVD 8 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality (movies up to 120 min.) - BEST
• Best Performances (movies less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) (movies up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
2. 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 this can also be set)
This can also be done with (Apple) Disk Util tool.
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).
5. Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
6. 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.
iDVD quality also depends on:
• 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.
• 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 iDVD08
Pro Quality (only in iDVD08)
Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)
Best / High Performances (most often my choise)
1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD08
2. Project info: Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD08.
Region codes:
iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere
DVD Studio pro can set Region codes:
1 = US
2 = EU
Yours Bengt W

DVD quality with DVD SP

I have been using iDVD to produce DVDs and would be interested in using DVD SP if the quality of visual playback for single sided DVDs over one hour in length (or dual layer DVDs longer than two hours) was significantly better than with iDVD.
With iDVD scenes with rapid motion are significantly degraded when producing DVDs over one hour in length. Does the compression used with DVD SP produce less artifacts with longer times?
Thanks,
Jim

Hi James:
You have more control over the final result of your finished disc in every way possible when comparing DVD Studio Pro to iDVD.
DVDSP bridges an interesting gap between what iDVD is - an easy application for drag and drop DVD creation - and what high-end DVD authoring applications like Sonic Scenarist (what most Hollywood feature films are authored on) are.
If you're using DVDSP at the "drag and drop" level, you are using the application presets for encoding your video to MPEG2 (the format that it must be in prior to being multiplexed - or "muxed"). This image quality is, well, "goodish".
For better picture quality results, you'll want to encode your source video to MPEG2 prior to importing it into DVDSP.
Compressor, the application that ships with DVDSP and/or Final Cut Pro Studio (is DVDSP still available as a stand alone product?) for transcoding digital video has very good presets for MPEG2.
There are several other Mac based products for encoding MPEG2 for DVD authoring (Autodesk Cleaner, Flip4Mac Episode, etc.); however, these all use QuickTime under the hood. When it comes to software encoding it's really a question of what level of control that an application gives you over the numerous settings when you want to tweak the presets. That, or, which application has the best presets.
If a DVD-Video disc is disctributed by a major studio, the picture is typically hardware encoded to MPEG2 (often with the Sonic SD2000 board - about $25,000.00 - but there are others) from Digital Betacam video tape.
While there's still some debate over this, a software encoded stream can look just as good as a hardware encoded stream. For years, the difference has been which one gets the job done faster. A PowerMac G4/400 can encode 10 minutes of DV-NTSC footage at Compressor's "best" settings in about four hours while a PowerMac Dual G5/2.0GHz can encode the same source at the same setting in seven minutes while a MacPro Dual/3.0 Duo Core can finish in thee minutes. Hardware encoding, by contrast, is the run time of the video (actaully, three times the run time of the video allowing for an analysis of the picture, encoding of the picture, then encoding of the audio). And, of course, you have to start with good picture quality to begin with.
If nothing else, it's worth learning DVDSP just to have direct control of the button flow on your DVD menus.
Hope this helps.
-Warren

Touchsmart IQ 500 / Watching DVD / Bad quality - shivers

Hello everybody
Just bought a new Touchsmart, and I am satisfied, BUT....now today was the first time I intended to watch a dvd,
the dvd slot is quite noisy and the picture of the dvds on the screen will shiver...
Is this normal? Watching a movie on an online stream is okey, but the quality of any dvd is unacceptable and
poor, for example. if a car is driving in a movie and the camera is moving too then the edges of the car will change and move around...
like it would be a poor quality dvd rip...
Has anbody experienced the same issue? Is it the dvd drive? Kinda disturbing.
I am thankful for every advice.
THX, cheers Forseti

Hi,
I'm from germany so no 'best buy' but I think I will lock around sleeve/bag for a different product with same measures. Any tip?
The clear plastic case is not what I want. I would like to use the player without such protections. I just want a sleeve to protect the player while its in my jacket/pants.
Btw, i have bought this version: Creative Zen (maybe european version?). I also doesn't seem to have your mentioned sleeve. I also couldn't find it on the website.
Anyway, thank you,
Chris

Quality Portable DVD Player

The iDVD slideshows I've made look great on my television, but when I play them on my portable DVD player they look really bad. The picture quality just isn't there on the portable screen.
Can anyone recomend a quality portable DVD player that works well with iDVD.
Photoscene

Hi P
Don't think it is Your portable.
How to test ? Try a commercial DVD movie.
Still bad - You got a bad player
Good - You observed the diffrernce of play-back a DVD on a CRT-TV resp LCD (flat) screen. Nothing easy to do but:
- Make Your movies less than 60 min and select - BEST PERFORMANCES -
- Best quality is for > 60 min and < 120 min movies and the quality is
not as good as above.
To get even better quality You might first:
- make a disk image and burn it with Apple Disk util tool at lower speed (x1 - 4)
- I have observed that the quality degrades if You have less than 20Gb free space
on the internal hard disk (where this work should be done)
or
Buy DVD Studio pro ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$) Huh !!
Yours Bengt W

Photo Quality Difference - DVD Slide Show vs iMovie

I have seen a marked difference in quality of photos in iDVD slide shows vs photos I've incorporated in iMovie. The iMovie rendered photos are very high resolution and fill the screen, whereas photos rendered as a slide show in iDVD are of poor resolution and don't fill the screen.
Any thoughts?
Gil

All iDVD produced videos are 'Standard Definition' - that is 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high (give or take). Therefore, all of your megapixels are being reduced to 0.3 megapixels on the screen. There is nothing you can do about this - SD video is this size. The only thing you can do is make sure the necessary 'downscaling' is done as well as possible. For my still picture presentations on DVD, I use a program called 'Photo to Movie' (LQ Graphics), along with iDVD. It seems to do a better job of the downscaling process, along with having some neat features not in iMovie. I have produced many 'slideshows' that are certainly not HD, but are pleasing to view on an HD TV (pillarboxed). Others use 'Fotomagico' for the same purpose, but I have no experience with that program. HTH.
Frank (not associated with LQ Graphics)

DVD Display Quality for Mac Mini Core Duo

I'm moving from PC to Mac, starting with a Mac Mini Core Duo as a media server.
The spec looks great, but I'm concerned that the CNet review says that on their test machine:
the DVD- and video-output quality was marred by false contouring (banded or splotchy colors), moiré patterns (line distortion), and jagged diagonals
I can't find any mention of this problem in this forum, so perhaps CNet had an early version, or a manufacturing defect, or was poorly configured.
To put my mind at rest, can anybody confirm that the DVD player works fine for them on this system? And if so what exact configuation they have?
Mac Mini Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.6)
PC (Toshiba Tecra) Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Yes, large display - I'm outputting to a Panasonic
AE900 projector and putting up a 90 inches diagonal
picture.
nice setup.. OSX with Front Row is a good platform for HTPC. Unfortunately the picture quality is not as good as what you can obtain with PC's. but it is still plenty good. Then again, if you will watch DVD's only, I would recommend getting an upconverting DVD player (Oppo is a good brand for 200 bucks aprox). Again, check out the avsforums, you'll find plenty of useful info and very helpful people.
Gmas.

Poor DVD viewing quality

This may be the wrong forum as I am not trying to burn or create a DVD, just play regular movies.
The quality is atrocious. I can barely see the movie, it's all dark and cartoonish. Also, videos on YouTube are virtually unwatchable.
Overall, the image quality is the worst I've ever seen on any computer. Is this just the way MAC's are, or is there something wrong with my particular notebook?

Hi
Sounds strange.
What kind of material did You feed iDVD ?
.avi, .wmv, .mpg4, .mp3 etc - or -
streamingDV from miniDV tape Camera
QuickTime .mov from iMovie or FinalCut ?
Else read my unsorted list on Quality
*DVD quality*
1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality (movies up to 120 min.) - BEST
• 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. 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)
This can also be done with (Apple) Disk Util tool.
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).
5. Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
6. 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.
iDVD quality also depends on.
• 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.
• 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)
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
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

Streaming dvd picture quality vs dvd disk

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