Video Quality Reduced in iMovie

Hello!
I am making a movie with HD footage I took from a video game. I imported the footage into the new iMovie, and it was still very good quality. However, when I exit the program and open it again, all of the footage is pixelated and low quality. I'm not sure how that happened. High quality was reduced to low just by re-opening the program...and I can't turn it back...
Thanks!!!!!

to teach Mac/Quicktime .wmv, purchase a licence for a plug-in at www.flip4mac.com (>49$) ...
avi/mov are just containers, no format or codec ...
iM is a DV-editor, meant to copy (=import lossless) from miniDV camcorders via firewire .. so, preferred codec is 'dv' (in your video standard)
iM is no player app, the preview is in a reduced quality,.. it is meant for TV delivery, means: NTSC, 720x480, 30fps, interlaced... (and PAL....)
to judge final quality, export to tape/use the live playout feature/burn a iDVD...
mpegs are highly compressed, a delivery codec, not meant for further processing.. due to the compression technology, you have ALLWAYS a loss of pic quality after any conversion..

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