Video quality differences in one movie

I'm new to this whole thing, and wondering if someone has some wisdom for me. I have been shooting video for my first project in 1920x1080p. Then I ordered a new SD card, which couldn't handle high quality video and didn't figure it out until I was in the middle of a shoot! So I had to knock it down to 640x480p. Now I'm trying to make those 2 video qualities work in one video. Would you recommend sizing the 1080p video clips down to a lower res? I'm not sure how I would do that. They also don't match width-wise, so that looks awkward. Any ideas?
Thanks so much!!

Sorry to hear that. Put the 1080p into a sequence created from your 640X480 footage and scale it way down. You won't be happy about it, but at least the resolution will all match.
Or, you could create a widescreen version using 854X480 and put something behind the 640X480 footage rather than have black bars on the sides. Perhaps a scaled up and blurred copy of the same footage.
Just accept the fact that you have now learned your lesson, and that nothing is going to work to keep the quality of the work from suffering. Your best bet is to now do all you can to minimize the damage, not eliminate it.

Similar Messages

Video quality differences (3G DUN vs Road Runner)

I've always used iChat from my RoadRunner connection and accepted the subpar video quality. The other day I was connected to my 3G (HSDPA) phone and browsing from the airport and fired up ichat and did a test video call to one of the apple3utest IDs... the incoming video was near perfect. There were no jaggies and it looked so perfect. i have taken my home router out of the mix and connected my mac directly to the cable modem and still can't get the video to be comparable. the latency on my 3G tethering connection is good (good for tethering), its usually around 250ms (where as my RoadRunner conneciton is under 100ms).. i just dont' understand why this is such a big difference between the two.

Realistically it means changing ISP.
You could try changing the iChat Preferences > Video section > Bandwidth Limit drop down to 500
I presume you have changed the System Preferences > Quicktime > Streaming tab to 1.5Mbps ?
2:58 PM Monday; September 17, 2007

IMovie HD and FCE 4: video quality difference?

Hello,
I imported 20+ hours of video and organized it in FCE4. However, as a novice amateur video artist, I find it far easier to work in the older iMovie HD than FCE4. Do you lose video quality in any way by working in this simpler application?
iMovie HD allows you to save files at "full quality" as a .dv file, but this is still compressed, right?
If I should just suck it up and learn Final Cut in order to not lose video quality, please let me know. Thanks...

The quality for the most part will be the same. Do not try to mix the two applications. They work in different formats. Either work in iMovie or learn FCE, which, if you know how to use it is, is much faster. The more complex the program becomes the faster it will be in comparison to iMovie.

VGA vs S-video - quality differences?

We're thinking of buying a MacMini to connect to our 640x480p plasma screen.
It would be easy for us to connect it via S-video. It'd be a bit of work to get a VGA cable setup, but doable.
Anyone have any experience and opinions on the difference in quality? (We're likely to have some progressive source material from digital TV reception, if that makes a difference.)
Thanks all!

Hello,
Thanks both of you.
You're welcome.
I will look at the cost of running the VGA cable
through the wall, maybe I can pull it through using
one of the existing cables.
Keep in-mind the VGA signals can only span short distances without a signal booster / amplifier. I think the safe range is 10 feet. Beyond that, perhaps 15-feet total before the drop in quality really starts to suffer terribly.
I've never pushed it more than about 10 feet myself. And, I could see minor degradation at that point.
They do have a variety of means to move VGA signals much further. Some are just boosters, others are VGA to Ethernet solutions like:
http://www.networktechinc.com/vga-extender.html
I've been checking out the progressive vs interlaced
issue too - it appears that s-video can only be
interlaced (?).
I do believe you are correct that S-Video is Interlaced.
I assume that the Mac Mini will read a DVD,
de-interlace it since computer monitors are never
interlaced, then re-interlace it when converting to
S-video. Is that right? If so, that must affect the
quality!?
That sounds perfectly logical to me.
You might also find this short discussion of some use:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread/t-37537.html
And, if you move up to the root level (main level) of the forum in that group, they may have some other helpful information as you browse around.
I hope this helps.
Let us know if you have other questions.
P.S., if you'd like, go ahead and click the "Helpful" or "Solved" buttons on any of the posts / replies above if you feel they were helpful or adequately answered your question.

Video quality when playing a movie

Hi there
my home theatre set up with mac mini (latest os, latest QT pro, 1GB ram) is pretty swell. One thing that is bugging me is that when watching DVD using front row, the player skip a few frames every 20-30 secondes. I first thought it was a Netflix crappy quality DVD thing but it's not. it's doing it regardless of the source of the DVD. old or new.
Doesn't do it when using the dvd player app.
any ideas? suggestion? setting changes?
thank you in advance.
cheers
[a]
iMac 24", MacBook, MacMini Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Okay, here goes... Log back into your main account. Drag your "Preferences" folder from this location out to the Desktop:
<Macintosh HD>/Users/<your user name>/Library/Preferences
Then log out and log back in. Of course, everything will be reset to the defaults and a brand new "Preferences" folder will be created in your user's Library folder. Make sure your DVD Player application is running smoothly. Then, you can start to drag, one, two or three at a time, your preferences from the folder on your Desktop to the new one in the Library folder.
For example, the preference file that sets your Dock items was probably not the one causing the trouble, you might move that one back in first. It's called "com.apple.dock.plist". (You might need to drag the new one to the Trash before you can drag the old one into the new Preferences folder.) Then log out and log back in and make sure things are still running smoothly. This way, you may be able to discover exactly which file was causing the trouble.
Or you can just put all your applications back in the Dock, select your Desktop picture and re-build all your preferences from scratch. Doing this will not affect the music in your iTunes or your pictures in iPhoto.
-Doug

Dw cs5 FLV video quality difference between web play and local play w/same flv file

When I play a flv locally on my pc with adobe media player.. it looks great.
i build a page, insert it in the page (dw cs5) use auto size detect. upload all..
then go to test it out using FF and the video is not a sharp ( the text titles are especially ratty looking http://www.centroidcnc.com/cncvideo/centroid_digitizing_cs5.html ).
how can this be? its the same file. what am i doing wrong? thanks in advance for any tips.
here is a screen capture of the 480 wide flv playing in adobe media player... reasonable text clarity
and the same file playing in firefox.. with rattly looking text.
is the browser trying to scale it up or something?

Test page looks pretty good but you still have dimension problems.... notice the black bars on the side of the video. Black bars on the sides mean the height is not great enough. Because that version of the player has the controls below the video, you have to ADD that number of pixels to the height.
height: 360, width: 480
so width needs to be video height (360) PLUS height of controls ...15 or 20 or so... may need the trial and error thing again.
The JW Player will play mp4s on the iPhone.
I'd suggest using QuickTime Pro to convert. QT Pro has an excellent "Export for Web" option that exports beautiful video (m4v).
QT will open many file types but if you only have the .flv version, you can use Handbrake to convert to .mov or .mp4:
http://handbrake.fr/
It's free and does a pretty good job. But I still do the final convertion with QT because the finish video comes out so nice.
For example:
http://exploreolympics.com/reports/?p=3499
videos play in iPhone as well as PCs (JW Player with controls over video)
Check for other/newer version of player with controls over video.
Of course JW Player is just one of many media players available. FlowPlayer is another:
http://flowplayer.org/
or get a Flash developer to create one for you... as on the Home page here:
http://www.exploreolympics.com/index.html
This page uses our custom Flash player with fallback to the JW PLayer (using swfobject).
So there are many solutions to your problem, but the reason the text is fuzzy is that the video dimensions are not correct.
Best wishes,
Adninjastrator

Video and Pictures in one movie

I have movies from my digital camera that look best smaller than full screen to keep the pixilation to a minimum. When I string these movies together in iMovie they look great because the video is a small square in the centre of the screen - as soon as I add a photo(s) in between the video clips the entire project changes to full screen and the video looks not as good. What am I doing wrong?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. if it's the titles in movies (that were created by iPhoto) then create a standard slideshow in iDVD and add the movie file(s) to it. That will scale the movie to the TV safe area like iDVD does with still slideshows.
OT

QUALITY - .MOVs to Encore, but video quality horrible -- DVD

Hello,
I am a newbie to Encore and video processing, alike - I'm hoping that someone can enlighten me in the ways of High Definition/working with conversion to DVD in Encore.
I'm currently working on making a DVD with a main menu which links to a main feature, Previews, Contact screen and chapters. All of the items for these categories were originally .SWFs and have been converted to .MOVs (using the Moyea SWF to Video pluggin). Not sure if that makes a difference, but the DVD has been completed without any problems, works well in the preview, comes out in the specified 16:9 ratio and links properly. Here is where I feel like I'm walking around in smoke: I would like to build to DVD so that it can be viewed on the Computer as well as TV. But I really want High grade quality video. It seems to me that their was a slight loss of quality from .Swf to .MOV, so I've tried experimenting with everything from the Encore Settings, reading numerous posts on this site and using different conversion formats (MOV, AVI and VOB). I loved the quality when I took the .SWFs to .VOB (however Encore still transcoded and in the end I lost the amazing clarity). After building, when I play the DVD on the computer the quality is a bit hazey (even exchanging the .VOBs for .MOVs.) As of now, my setting are as follows:
PROJECT TRANSCODE PRESETS:
MPEG2-DVD
High quality, VBR transcoding for progressive-frame content (max bit rate =9)
25 fps (the .swfs were built at 24 fps - does this matter?)
quality 5.0
192 kbps, 48kHz, Dolby Digital
VBR, 2 Pass, Min 1.50, target 7.00, Max. 9.00 mbps
Field order: none (progressive
16:9
min bitrate: 1.5
target bitrate: 7
Max bitrate: 9
M frames: 3
N Frames: 12
Video Noise Reduction has been checked and pushed to 100
Deinterlaced was also checked
(what am I doing wrong?)
Right now, I'm so determined to get the best quality - So, I've begun exporting the entire Encore project to .SWF to see if this will do the trick. In the meantime, how can I build to DVD with the highest quality possible?
Than you all in advance.
AC

This is correct, the .swf/.flv files are so compressed that you will only retain the quality of the origional file at best. I've tried this for months and about a Terabyte of files and have found only 1 way to get a good quality DVD from an .flv/.swf.
Connect 1 computer to a TV to play the .swf/.flv. Connect the out connector from the TV to another computer with Premiere installed via the graphics card and then capture the video as it is playing in premiere in the highest quality you can. This can make 30 minutes of compressed .swf into a 10+GB DVD video file. Then after capture, edit and send/export to Encore, make your DVD and then encode like normal.
This has been the highest quality DVD from .swf/.flv that I have been able to achieve.

Is it possible to sort / group movies by video quality?

I'd like to sort or group my movies by video quality. I am not sure if it's possible in iTunes -- if it is, I certainly can't figure it out.
I can certainly see the info when I click "Get Info" on individual films, but I don't see a way to sort or create a smart playlist with such info.
Can I do this, or is it just a dream?
(I'm on iTunes 11. Up-to-date.)

Thanks for the info. I'm specifically interested in splitting 1080 and 720 HD movies, so I'm probably better off just creating non-smart playlists and dropping the movies in each accordingly, as it probably requires as many steps as editing the tags for each film.

How can I blend two video clips where they join side by side in one movie?

Hello Marvelous Movie Making Minds,
I am working with Adobe Premiere 6 on a Windows 7 machine.
How can I blend two video clips where they join side by side in one movie?
I know how to place two or more video clips together in the same movie, but how can I give them a bit of a blend just where they join?
I have a PDF instruction manual and the built-in web browser instructions. In the instruction manual in "Chapter 7: Superimposing and Compositing" it talks about the transparency of any video clip, and I understand that... but I don't want to make one or the other video clip transparent anyplace except where the two video clips join together with perhaps a bit of overlap.
I'd like to make a little blur just where the two videos join in the middle... is this possible?
Thanks,
digi

Aha that kind of blending.
Have not used 6.5 in a loooooooong time.
So this is from memory, hope i get this right.
Set the two clip on top of each other
Make a matte in Photoshop and superimpose this over the two clips.
Go to the Transparancy Settings and set the top clip in video 2 to Alpha key.
Screendump for matte:
The right side is made black just for the forum but should be transparant.

Hello, i have a question. I've got one .mov video and one .mp4, both 3 minutes long. Now I want to burn them on one single dvd, and a menu (if possible) so i can choose between them. Is this possible?

Hello, I have a question.
I've got one .mov video and one .mp4, both 3 minutes long. Now I want to burn both of them on one single dvd, with a menu (if possible) so i can choose between them.
How can I do this?

You could use iMovie if you own it. Look here for an example...

Is there a difference in video quality shot on MiniDV tape or HDD ?

Now that the new Macbooks lack a firewire connection, and following on from Steve Jobs comment that there are many HDD camcorders available I just wondered if there is any difference in the quality of the end video between that filmed with a MiniDV camcorder and that on a hard drive based camcorder. I have a Panasonic 3CCD camcorder that is still going strong and I think produces very good footage so I wasn't intending to replace it until it dies, but when I do replace it I want to improve on it rather than take a step backwards or sideways. If hard drive camcorders can produce better quality footage and are not just better for convenience sake I can see the point of dropping the firewire connection.
So could someone clarify this for me, and also maybe tell me what the format choice of the professionals would be?

The answer is that HDD has nothing to do with video quality. It is just another media on which the video is recorded. The selection of media has its own pros & cons independent of the video 'quality'. That said, most tape-based cams record in DV or HDV whereas most HDD based cams record in AVCHD.
Quality is subjective. You can read all about the relative merits of DV, HDV & AVCHD on the net and in this forum. HDV and AVCHD are much more highly compressed than DV but they enable hi-def, 16:9 video.
If you're an average consumer you would be hard pressed to see significant differences between these formats in the finished video other than the obvious 4:3 vs 16:9 aspect ratio difference.
As David said, you will be better off spending time looking for camcorders that have the best lenses, and learning how to shoot top quality video, then worrying about the codec or the media.

How to add Audio Formats and Video Formats in one movie?

Now that FCP X will not allow different settings how would I change the Audio Format and the Video Format to one movie in Compressor 4?
When I change the Audio to ACC I have a sound file and when I change the Video Format to HD 720 I get the movie but with the original sound.
Any help is always appreciated.

Sorry for this one also. Just finally searched the Inspector windoe in Compressor 4. It is already there.

I got my New iPad in the mail yesterday. I imported my photos and videos to make a short movie. The photos had lost all their original quality. Is there any way to import photos without losing quality?

I got my New iPad in the mail yesterday. I imported my photos and videos to make a short movie. The photos had lost all their original quality. Is there any way to import photos without losing quality?

If you mean "optimizing for iPad," no.

Movie trailer video quality needed

I've got uncompressed video from AE and Premier. When I
encode to flv and run a presentation from my hard drive or CD, the
quality is great; however, once I post it to the web, the quality
of pixelation irks me. Movie trailers (such as 300 or Transformers)
have excellent quality and are in Flash sites. Does anyone know
what format they are using (.mov, .avi?) and the embedding (or
better yet) call process for displaying these in a Flash website?
I'm guessing that the site is only partially in Flash and then they
are loading the movie in a pure html section. Am I correct?

Well, it seems that Apple's h.264 codec is the only solution
to the video quality that I need to deliver over the web. However,
this poses another problem. Does anyone know how to layer and lock
a .mov file over a .swf?... I suppose it is a html or Dreamweaver
issue, but does anyone know if it even can be done?
Thanks...

Video quality differences in one movie

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for