iMovie Quality Playback

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Level 1

45 points

iMovie Quality Playback

I have made several iMovies and the quality is terrible. My pictures are 5 Megapixel or 2580 x 1950 when I drag them to the time line and play back full screen on my 20 inch Mac Cinema Display; all the curved or diagonal edges of people and objects are saw toothed. I have my monitor set at its highest resolution 1680 x 1050 resolution. The pictures are worse than those I view on the internet. They seem to be enlarged 72 ppi photos.
We have a group that meets each month to show travel slide shows. Most presenters use their camera slide show software to show their slides and they are superior to iMovie. I chose iMovie because I could insert video clips to play in sequence with the related slides. When I burn them to iDVD they look the same as they did in iMovie. This works great except for the Jagged or saw tooth edges. Most other presenters use Windows laptops and their shows are of better quality and they can add picture info at the bottom margin of the picture. I might try Keynote but when I open PowerPoint presentations in keynote I lose the sound and I have not found a way to import a folder of sides.
iPhoto slide shows keep picture quality and look great on screen but it will not play QuickTime movies
when I add a movie the show will not play it will import it in sequence be the slide show will not startup.
Any ideas other than camera software or iPhoto to create a reasonable quality slide show without spending a fortune on professional software.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Dick

PowerPC G4 Dual 1.25GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 1 GB Memory

Posted on Mar 20, 2009 7:38 PM

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Answer 1

Dick Deaton Author

Level 1

45 points

Mar 20, 2009 8:18 PM in response to Dick Deaton

I saved a frame to my desktop from a iMovie and the image is 72 ppi. Why do software companies continue to use screen resolutions that date back to the 512k Macintosh. We are in the 21st Century.

Thanks,
Dick

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Answer 2

Mar 20, 2009 11:34 PM in response to Dick Deaton

Hi

Did Your movie look OK when it was edited PRIOR You tried to do the DVD ?

My main guess is that You used "Share/Export to iDVD" from within iMovie and
probably not used Ken Burns project.

If so - then Your movie will look bad too. If You open iMovie and try to play it.

There is a problem with photos in iMovie due to how (bad) iMovie renders.

I do (or rather don't)
• I don't use Ken Burns Effect at all on any photos
• I DON'T use "Export/Share to iDVD" function in iMovie

I do
• Import my photos and edit them with my music and voice-over
• CLOSE iMovie (Don't try Share to iDVD - though it will harm the project)
• OPEN iDVD and either import the movie project (or just drop it into) iDVD

Now iDVD will do the rendering and so much better.

Alt. is to in iMovie use Ken Burns effect (on all photos - I think/guess)
• This is a way I don't have adopted - at all.

IF You have Used Share/Export to iDVD - Then
• You'll have to RE-Import the photos to Your iMovie project
• Re-edit them into Your SlideShow. The old ones is harmed and have to be exchanged.
• Now try again.

The amount of material is NOT the problem - my kill of Vacation movie made in iMovie
was >> 5 hour movie and >> 500 photos to a duration of more than 6h 20min

No not to DVD - but out to a VHS-tape in LP-mode.

The only thing of importance when dealing with Mammoth-projects are
• free space on internal boot hard disk >> 25Gb recommended
• space for material and movie on any FireWire Mac OS Extended formatted hard disk
eg my >>6hour project needed >> 200Gb free space + 25Gb

This was 4x3 standard TV-video (miniDV tape)

IF 1920x1080 HD then You'll need to multiply with about 5 at least.

Yours Bengt W

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Answer 3

Dick Deaton Author

Level 1

45 points

Mar 21, 2009 1:25 PM in response to Bengt Wärleby

The problem is in iMovie the slides look bad after I drag them to the time line. The photos become 72 ppi at that point. I play iMovie through a video projector using Mirroring and the slides look worse than my Cinema display; but look awful on my Mac as well. I don’t use Ken Burns affect because it randomly cuts off heads and only about 75% of the picture is in the safe zone. I always edit my pictures before I begin to use iMovie. The slides are high quality and are the same size, 5 megapixel 484 ppi 5.33 in by 4 in. or 3 x 4 ratio. It doesn’t matter if I make the picture full page the results are the same. The picture in iMovie is 72 ppi when I save a frame.
iPhoto retains the original resolution when I save the image to desktop. I can drag a photo from my iPhoto library to the desktop and the image is the same high resolution it was when it was imported.

Dick

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Answer 4

Brie Fly

Level 5

7,925 points

Mar 21, 2009 9:58 PM in response to Dick Deaton

I don’t use Ken Burns affect because it randomly cuts off heads and only about 75% of the picture is in the safe zone.

I assume you are not aware that iMovie has Ken Burns controls that allow you to pan and/or zoom to any extent and location of your choosing.

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Answer 5

Mar 22, 2009 7:54 AM in response to Dick Deaton

Use iPhoto and QuickTime Pro to build your slide show "movies".
Build your image only show in iPhoto and "Export" it to QuickTime (no music or transitions). You can then edit this movie with QuickTime Pro to add your true "video" tracks and audio.
Older versions of iPhoto also allow the use of transitions. To save a copy you "Share" this slide show with iDVD and let iPhoto build the video. It will convert your still image files into "video" (a slight loss in image quality). When iDVD launches just quit the app and don't save the Project. The QuickTime "video" file made by iPhoto will be in your User/Movies folder. Open and edit it using QuickTime Pro to add your other videos or audio tracks.
http://homepage.mac.com/kkirkster/Lemon_Trees/index.html
One of my QuickTime "videos" made from still image files.

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Answer 6

iMama

Level 4

1,505 points

Mar 22, 2009 8:16 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Dick, I did a lot of iMovies on iM4, and using iPhoto produced poorer quality images then, so I found I could use Keynote, version 1.1.1, to import full quality still images AND short video clips, which can be mixed into a stunning slideshow. You can export to QuickTime, PDF or PowerPoint. If you export to QT, you have a choice of all the codecs available in iMovie, including no compression and DV. Export to QT and import into iMovie or iDVD--depending on what you're trying to do. Your photo quality will be great--noticeably better than what you've been getting.

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