DV video quality

So how do you import best into iMovie from DV? Which application should I use to get the native DV converted to a format that does get processed right in iMovie '09?

Perhaps I upgraded to iMovie '09 too soon... money already spent is no driver to do anything about such issues.

With kind regards,

Stangg

I would like to know this too. I want to edit my footage in iMovie 09 but I want it to be in decent quality before I even start editing.

OK Joerg. I understand. I don't particularly worry about the quality too much while editing hence why I'm probably not seeing the degradation in the viewer.

Stangg wrote:
So how do you import best into iMovie from DV? Which application should I use to get the native DV converted to a format that does get processed right in iMovie '09?

Both iMovie HD and Final Cut Express do process DV very well. iMovie HD is of course end of life (or at least no longer current) and Final Cut is a more expensive and complicated solution so not ideal I appreciate.

It is a shame that iMovie 09 has this lack of quality issue as it is serious enough to render it less useful for many.

I don't think there's a way to work around this but maybe some of the others here may know a way.

Message was edited by: David Schultze

Thanks for your comments.

It appears to me that the first thing you try to do with an application to work on something, is to import it unmolested.
Than you allow the user to molest it to their liking, but not introduce "features" to molest it some more without the user knowing.
Than finally you only convert it in he last possible step, and of course only as a copy.

In any case, it should be possible to import the created avi's from another programme, like Adobe Premiere, I guess, thus skipping this vulnerable step in iMovie '09 At least we can than still enjoy the features which were sold to us. Hopefully image stabilization etc doesn't screw up the source by stabilizing it but at the same time only deliver half the lines back...

Doubts are in my mind...

If you set it to "optimum" (don't know the exact name in the english-version)

iMovie 06, USA version: Preferences > Playback > Highest (field blending)

I can't disagree Stangg. For whatever reason Apple chose to change the way they process their video for iMovie 08 (and 09) and who knows what led to that design decision.

David Schultze wrote:
who knows what led to that design decision.

Wasn't it the ability to see real-time effects on your project with no rendering necessary? I must admit I'm no technical expert here but that was my assumption through the discussions I've read.

I maybe off the pace here but I've also read that converting DV content to AIC (Apple Int Codec) helps alleviate the quality problems of moving DV content to DVD. I asked a question myself about converting DV to AIC, ref link below.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1891925&tstart=0

Is that any help at all? Search the forum for AIC and DV for further info.

Luke

Luke - you may be right about what led to the decision. I must admit I wasn't that close to the original issues or the details behind what caused this issue.

For me the key thing for iMovie is to provide a simple way to quickly put together a movie as for more in depth projects I use Final Cut Express.

The information you've provided is very helpful though.

David Schultze wrote:
For me the key thing for iMovie is to provide a simple way to quickly put together a movie as for more in depth projects I use Final Cut Express.

I absolutely couldn't agree more, but like others I plumbed for FCE and found it a bit too indepth to get on with quickly. It sits on my HDD waiting to be used while I fell back into the comfy armchair that is iMovie HD6... I thought I'd be able to get to grips with it without losing hours of my life but it hasn't work out that way thus.

I don't profess to know much about video editing, but to my mind the function of any editor should be to honour the quality of it's source material, if it can't do that the issue shouldn't be shrouded and hidden, it should be stated up front in big black bold letters.

I have no real need to share my stuff to Apple products (iPhone, iPod, etc.) so if the ultimate goal of iM09 is to only give you the necessary toolset to share quality to those products then, with my next machine, I will seriously consider a move back to Windows based PCs.

When you look into these issues you can see why Apple have such a small share of the market, and overall if they carry on like this, that market share is always destined to stay niche to all those people who are happy to be Apple-ised in their life 🙂

Cheers!

Luke

Like you Luke I also had FCE on my machine for literally months on end before I finally got to using it. But now I've got to grips with it I like it. It's actually quite a simple concept once you get the hang of it but the beauty of iMovie is that it gives you instant creativity. With FCE you have to make your own creativity.

I'm not sure I'd go back to PC for the moment. I use PC's all day and Macs all evening and still prefer the Mac. Some of my friends edit on PC and our problems are dwarfed by some of the stories they tell me 🙂

I really can't believe it!

This is by far the worst video quality, if have seen since Microsoft MovieMaker.
I have plenty of MiniDV (PAL) Tapes which i have imported to iMovie 09 to make nice movies of my children, just too see, that iMovie completely waists the picture quality by loosing every other line from the source material.

This is not acceptable and a shame for Apple.
And to honest, i don't expect to see a fix for this, because it was the same in iMovie 08.

I am really disappointed.

See Steve Mullen's latest post in the long Deinterlace thread. He claims to have found a way to use DV with no loss of quality at all. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks interesting.

This seems to be some related but not the same problem.
iMovie has problems with interlaced video.
I tried converting the input material to prograssive DV, but this doesn't change anything.

I realy hope, Apple will fix this.

Message was edited by: JvdL

Are the formats of Events imported/captured using iMHD and IM09 the same? IOW, if the Events are captured/imported with IMHD or IM09 but used/edited in FCE, will the results be the same?