iMovie- Pictures become blurry after import

I wondered about the Ken Burnes effect. I know that we should uncheck that box when we import.

It's perfectly okay to have the Ken Burns Effect checkbox ON when you import. No reason not to, unless you don't know yet what duration you want the slide to be and plan to adjust it later. Then importing with KB off will save a little time changing it later.

After it is in the clip viewer, can we put on the Ken Burnes effect without it affecting the image quality

I hope you haven't reversed something important here. Rendering an image to a video clip with the Ken Burns Effect is what you WANT KB to do. You don't want to avoid it. Turning on the Ken Burns checkbox causes KB to render the image while importing it, or when Updating it later.

On the other hand, you want to avoid iMovie HD ITSELF rendering the image later when you click the Create iDVD Project button. That can be avoided by previously rendering with the Ken Burns Effect.

Remember, when iMovie asks to render it may need to render OTHER types of clips too, not just imported images. It may be important to render those. That's why it's a good idea to render all your images with Ken Burns earlier. Then you can grant iMovie permission to render when it asks later without harming your images.

When it comes to doing its basic task, iDVD seems more profoundly buggy than iMovie, so it's hard to know what the problem might be. You asked earlier about exporting your iMovie HD project to QuickTime. Now is the time that might prove helpful. You may want to export the iMovie HD project to a Full Quality DV movie that you can simply drag into the iDVD project window. iDVD should be able to handle it easier.

But before you do, you may need to replace those poor-quality images with new copies. Once iMovie has rendered them the damage can't be undone. If iMovie has rendered the images and added jaggies they must be replaced with new imports where you've turned on the Ken Burns Effect.

I know all this is confusing -- bugs and workarounds often are. If you want to read more about it check out this long-running thread in the iMovie 4 forum, which predates iMovie HD. Most everything still applies.

Ellyn, "Best Method to Create a Slideshow?" #1, 12:51am May 5, 2004 CDT

Karl

Hi Susan,

Basically I do one slideshow using iMovie, with the ken burns effects, and drop that into an iDVD project, and within iDVD itself add a regular slideshow and drop in the same pics used in the iMovie project, and just set the navisgation to manual, and to include the forward/back buttons.

So the DVD menu would be something like :

Our Wedding Day

- View Slideshow
- Browse Photos

Works quite well, especially if you just have one slideshow, as it still created a DVD style 'menu', plus as I said before gives people the option to either enjoy the slideshow, or just browse through the stills.

Iain

PS you're lucky I saw your post - I was just hunting an old thread of mine about all my memory being gobbled, and trying to figure out where its all going!

Hi Karl-

Thank you for getting back to me. It is all confusing to me, so I can't say I understand but I appreciate you for clarifying because I was thinking the opposite. I thought you meant that the Ken Burnes had to be unchecked when importing. I will need to spend some time with it.

Thank you
Susan

Hi Iai

Thank you for the info about the movie and stills on the same DVD. I just have one stupid question - What program did you make your still slideshow in?
I know that is dumb, but all this is new to me.

Susan

Susan -

Just in iDVD itself.

Open up iDVD, and hit the customize button on the bottom left - from there you can pick themes, access all your music, movies and photos (under the media tab)

So to add a slideshow, just hit the 'slideshow' button, which will add one on the menu as 'my slideshow'. Click it to change the title, or to add photos double click on it. When you do, it should jump to your photos in the media tab - from there just drag and drop the ones you want. You can change their order by dragging them around, and apply various settings at the bottom - slide duration, music, show navigation etc.

its pretty straightforward once you get familiar with it.

Hope this helps.

Iain

Iain=

Thank you so much for the directions to add the slideshow. That sounds really neat and not too hard. I am excited to try it.

I relly appreciate your help.

Susan

Refreshing thread.

Refreshing thread.

Karl

Having bookmarked this post I want to bring it back to the top to stop it being dropped off.

Thanks Karl

Karl, you wrote:

"You might want to try creating a project using the HDV 720p format. You can't burn it as HD on a DVD, but it's very nice for viewing on the Mac."

I should make a 720p slideshow that must be viewed on a
HD (1280x720) videoprojector that is connected to a PC:
do you know if is it possible to export it in a "cross-platform" format that mantain the overall quality ?
thanks a lot in advance

elche99

I should make a 720p slideshow that must be viewed on a

HD (1280x720) videoprojector that is connected to a PC:
do you know if is it possible to export it in a "cross-platform" format that mantain the overall quality ?

Sorry, I have no experience with video projectors -- HD or otherwise. Anyone?

If QuickTime 7 is installed on the PC, the PC should be able to play any movie you "share" (export) from iMovie. HDV projects produced by iMovie HD use new codecs that ship as part of QuickTime 7. With those codecs installed, the movie should play fine. The Full Quality movie you export will be large, but it should play well.

Please tell us how the HD projection works out.

Karl

Thanks Karl for your reply.

The "HD" projection works exactly as a HDTV do: is only a matter
of resolution allowed (720x576 in std pal-tv , 720p or 1080i
in HDTV): the LCD matrix in the home-theater videoprojectors (vpr)
are now mainly with that resolution (1280x720).
If it was possible to connect my Mac to that vpr
I could directly send the iPhoto slideshow to the vpr
(simply connecting it via DVI-ADC cable for the video
and via std stereo cable to the amplifier for the audio),
but it is connected to a PC and then i need for some
solution that can be executed on a PC.
I've seen the specs required by QT7-HD on the PC side and they
are impressive:
"for 1280x720 (720p) video at 24-30 frames per second:
Dual 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon or faster processor
At least 1 GB of RAM
64 MB or greater video card"
...where dual processor with 1GB-RAM is not a so std pc configuration...

Anyway thanks again for your suggestion.

I've seen the specs required by QT7-HD on the PC side and they

are impressive:
"for 1280x720 (720p) video at 24-30 frames per second:
Dual 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon or faster processor

While considerable horsepower may be required to play HDV at 24-30 fps, your slideshow may look fine with less. By coincidence, a couple minutes ago I exported a 720p iMovie HD project containing slides I shot yesterday to an H.264 movie at 25 fps. The movie plays at just 12 fps on my Dual 1-GHz G4, but the Ken Burns zooms and pans look fine. With slides it may not be crucial for the computer to deliver the ideal frame rate. The movie may look fine nevertheless.

Karl

Hi Karl,
Your "Ken Burns solution" helped me avoid the jaggies with previous versions of iPhoto/iMovie/iDVD. (I learned the hard way about not letting Ken Burns render the stills I include in my DVD productions.)
I've upgraded to iLife '05 and I'm getting ready to start a new DVD project. I've read (OK, skimmed!) this entire "new" thread and haven't been able to determine whether I should follow your old directions for setting the KB elapsed time/zoom. Seems to me it takes a very long time dealing with stills in iMovie because of this. Is there a simpler way to import stills (most of which I'll want to last about 2 or 3 seconds) without having to wait for each to render?
Thanks,
Roger Holtman
I

Is there a simpler way to import stills (most of which I'll want to last about 2 or 3 seconds) without having to wait for each to render?

Yes, it takes some time to render the video from stills. Import a bunch, then go for coffee?

Images don't have to be rendered, of course, but then you run the risk of iMovie adding the jaggies later. I prefer the quality and reliability of Ken Burns-rendered clips.

Karl