iMovie- Pictures become blurry after import

Well the same process on the 255 8MP files returned the same ripple effect

Please say more about what you see in the image. What do mean by a ripple effect? Is the image moving? Or do you mean the image acquires "jaggies", stair-stepping of pixels along sharp edges?

Forgive me if you've already said (I can't find it) but how are you now preparing these images? Cropping before importing to iMovie? To what size? Or cropping with Ken Burns?

What is the play-time of the DVD? (Is it possible the variability you see is the result of iDVD encoding the movie differently as the movie length changes?)

If you can capture the flawed image, I'd like to see what you see. For my email address, click my name to the left.

Karl

I will send you a few images when I get home. As far as what I see, an example is that leaves in trees seem to move, watter seems to move bricks seem to move on the TV screen, much like what I see on the iMovie playback. I have cropped the images in iPhoto to the 4x3 DVD and imported and also just imported using the KB effect. I have also imported with the KB effect set to 1 on start and end for no movement and still the movement or ripples as I call them. I have made several DVD samples some with the full time taking up 3.8GB and including movies and other and some for tests that were just less than a GB for these experiments. I will send you some of the unaltered images in email tonight - the best description of the ripple effect would be like bad blue screen work where you almost see static through parts of the image - it is not the entire image, just parts.

Thanks for describing the ripple effect you see, ziwi. That helped.

So you know, although I'm familiar with what you describe I can't "nail" the problem. It's my understanding two factors cause this to occur: 1) the image is very sharp and 2) interlacing may affect how DVD encodes the video.

Another word for it -- or a similar effect -- is "shimmer". Certain parts of an image may appear to "glisten".

Imagine you are the encoder trying to create a compressed MPEG-2 video of the image. The source image contains a line (or edge?) that is just 1-pixel thick. You don't know it's a line, of course, so as you encode the video sometimes the line ends up in row 100 of the video and sometimes in row 101. That causes movement of the line as the user watches the video.

Of course, usually the line is part of the image. Where the line is an eyelid I've seen the person's eyes appear to blink. Where the lines are waves I've seen the water appear to move. Very weird.

One solution, I believe, is to soften the image just a bit. You might want to try iMovie's Soft Focus special effect. Tiny amount. That delivers a thicker line to DVD, which helps it handle the line better.

It's my understanding that third-party products that create Ken Burns-like clips (Still Life, Photo to Movie) sometimes soften the image a bit to avoid this problem.

Deinterlacing the rendered clip MAY help too. You might want to try JES Deinterlacer. You would change interlacing of the rendered clip, then re-import the modified clip to iMovie. If Matti is listening -- he knows lots more about interlacing than I -- he may be able to offer specific advice.

Looking forward to seeing your images.

Karl

The images are quite large unless I shrink them. I was sending one good example that was 7MB and was too big. I reduced the size of the image in PS to 40% or effectively an 8x10 and that seemed to do the trick in that experiment.
It seems strange that when taking pictures one wants as sharp as possible, but can not get that on the DVD - I guess this is where the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will come into play - to get more life like images. So in the end I would attribute the issue to a size problem as reducing the size seemd to correct it. Also in reducing the size the pictures did not seem as sharp. It is quite an interesting conundrum - reducing the quality of your pictures for a pleasent presentation. Perhaps I could try in FCE and deinterlace it. I was just hoping that the ease of iMovie would be there...I guess when I got my new camera at 8MP that may have made life harder for me 😉

Thanks again for all of your help.

Ed Z

Karl,

You are quite a resource!

After attempting to create my first DVD for TV of a IMovie slideshow and experiencing the same disappointments in image quality as a previous photographer expressed, I am about to try it again with the knowledge gleened from you and this thread.

My questions for now are:

1) Is QuickTime Pro needed for production purposes or only for playback and
proofing purposes.

2) What is the best and yet most inexpensive device to use to connect a G5
to a TV for image prep and proofing purposes and do you consider this
ability to be necessary, crucial or a luxury?

I may have many more questions soon depending on the results of my next attempt. Thanks for your commitment to this issue!

Jeff

Deinterlacing the rendered clip MAY help too [to avoid interlace flicker on a TV].

That will take care of the flicker but IMO that degrades the video's vertical resolution too much (it is halved). I think the unfamous and eternal iMovie still rendering bug treats the stills much in the same manner: the the images don't flicker but they are jaggy and ugly instead.

So only a more subtle vertical blur is needed to remove the flicker:

I have had good results with Photo To Movie's higher quality setting, for example.

I've also heard that in Toast Titanium 7 the still image output doesn't flicker in the DVD slideshows.

You can also reduce interlace flicker on a TV with image editing applications:

One nice approach is to slightly blur the input still image with 90° (vertical) Motion Blur (use 1 pixel value to PAL/NTSC 576/480 vertical input resolutions -- if the vertical resolution of the input still is larger you have to increase the filter's pixel value accordingly. For example: if the input still is 2048 x 1536, use 3 pixel value in the filter because 1536/576=2.7). The idea is to cut down on vertical resolution (excess of which causes interlace flicker on an interlaced TV) without compromising horizontal resolution.

Another method is to apply a small Gaussian blur to the image.

Just using a smaller resolution (640x480) in the input images also prevents flicker but the images may appear slightly fuzzy instead (and you really should not zoom into such low resolution image with Ken Burns). I once tried this and the output was surprisingly good despite the low input resolution. With 768x576 input resolution the PAL slideshow already started to flicker.

...BTW, I believe it would be very quiet in the iMovie forums if Apple 1. Finally fixed the still image rendering bug and 2. Provided built-in MPEG import for iMovie... 😉

1) Is QuickTime Pro needed for production purposes or
only for playback and proofing purposes.

I use QuickTime Pro for both, often several times a day. It lets you explore/edit QuickTime movies at a different level than does iMovie/Final Cut. It's a good way to explore the world that lies behind iMovie. (iMovie and FC essentially put a pretty face on all the tools available in QuickTime. QuickTime Pro is the grandaddy of them all, and its face is full of wrinkles and crevasses. Not a pretty face, but pretty interesting.)

Here is Apple's QT Pro tutorial, which introduces some the things you can do:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/tutorials.html

Warning: QT Pro is not particularly user friendly nor intuitive, so a tutorial helps. But no other $30 program I know lets you do so much, once you figure out what's there. I consider it a "must have" tool for anyone who's a serious iMovie user or who wants to poke around inside a QuickTime movie.

What is the best and yet most inexpensive device to
use to connect a G5
to a TV for image prep and proofing purposes and
do you consider this
ability to be necessary, crucial or a luxury?

That deserves its own topic, I suspect. I have no experience to share but I'm sure others will comment if you start a new thread.

Karl

Thanks!

Help - I beg you.

I've been working on a slideshow for weeks now. Importing my scanned photos from iPhoto into iMovie. I've been reading this discussion for hours tonight and I'm baffled.

All I want to do is get 4-5 songs to play along with the 10 minute slideshow I've already created (roughly 150 photos)... it's for my parents 30th wedding anniversary which we are celebrating on New Year's Eve.

I would be so very grateful if you would consider my questions and offer any insight...

1. I feel like I'd be nearly finished with this project if I could just get the music to play. I can hear the songs on my computer, I select them to "Play at Placehead" and nothing happens on playback.
I've chcecked all the volume buttons and the audio checkboxes on the right. I just don't understand why it doesn't play??
Is it even possible to play music in iMovie if you've only got stills?
Is there something I need to do with the KBE in order to convert them all?

2. I have over 150 photos imported. I've burned them to a DVD which looked acceptable on our TV. In burning the DVD, I believe I selected the dreaded "rendering" - so now I get the whole jagged edges now having read your comments.
Should I scrap it all, re-import, and use the KBE? Or, can I go through and apply it to each still?

Thank you in advance - I sure appreciate any/all help!!



Again, I would be so grateful if you could lend any advice.

Is it even possible to play music in iMovie if you've
only got stills?

Yes, iMovie lets us include music in any kind of project, including slideshows. Usually it's pretty straightforward: we import the music at the playhead and the music clip is heard as the project plays.

The KB Effect has no effect on audio clips.

You don't say whether or not the music you've imported actually appears as clips in the timeline. When a song is successfully imported, it can be seen by viewing the project clips in timeline mode, not clips mode. (Click on the clock icon at the left end of the timeline, not the clip icon which is the rectangle.) If the audio clip exists, it will be seen in the second or third track, below the video (slideshow) track.

One possible explanation is that the iMovie playback volume is set so low you can't hear the music. Make sure the iMovie volume slider -- it's just left of the "Clips" tab -- is not all the way to the left, which mutes playback.

Another possibility is that the audio clips have been placed AFTER the end of the slideshow. Drag them left, to the beginning of the slideshow.

Make sure the disk the project resides on is formatted Mac OS Extended. When it's not, iMovie can't save the project properly. Maybe the imported songs aren't "sticking".

Try importing music direct from a CD. Insert the CD, then choose "Audio CD" from the popUp menu at the top of the music list and import a song. Maybe there's something about your iTunes list that is giving iMovie trouble. Perhaps iMovie can't find the music file or something. That won't occur with a CD.

Or try importing the music manually. To locate the song file which you see listed in iTunes, click on the song IN ITUNES, choose File > Show Song File. The song will appear in its Finder window. Drag the song file directly into the iMovie timeline. If that fails too, throw your Mac out the window. 🙂

All the other possibilities I can think of --that the Mac volume is set too low or the audio output for the Mac is not set properly -- will mute playback of the music you play from the iTunes list in the Audio tab of iMovie. You say that works, so that's not the problem.

So I'm a bit stumped. My guess is there some dumb error you haven't figured out yet. Such errors can be extremely frustrating. Just be assured that this normally "just works". It sounds like you're doing everything right.

Should I scrap it all, re-import, and use the KBE?
Or, can I go through and apply it to each still?

The rendered clips containing the jaggies cannot be repaired. Once rendered, it's not possible to apply the Ken Burns Effect to the photo. It's necessary to re-import each photo with the KB checkbox turned on, then discard the bad clip.

If the project has minimal titles or transitions, it may not be too hard to start over with a new project -- import all the photos with the KB checkbox turned on. Importing will take just a few minutes. (If you wish, you can Copy and Paste useful clips from the old project to the new.)

But if you have just a few bad-looking clips you may want to simply replace those in the current project.

(Placing a new bookmark at both the start and the end of the bad clip helps when replacing a bad clip. Drag the new photo clip inside the bookmarks, delete the bad clip, and use direct trimming to shorten the new clip to match the bookmarks. To make direct trimming easier, turn on the preference "Snap to items in timeline".)

Hope something here helps, although I'm not confident it will.

Karl

PS: just thought of one other thing. If your iMovie preferences Playback > "Play DV project video through to DV camera" is checked, that mutes the iMovie audio during playback. iMovie lets the camera/TV play the audio.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for replying. I seriously think I'm losing my mind!!

You don't say whether or not the music you've imported actually appears as clips in the timeline.

It does. I can see it. It is placed at the beginning of the sldeshow. All the volumes are checked/turned on appropriately... I just can't figure this out.

Make sure the disk the project resides on is formatted Mac OS Extended. When it's not, iMovie can't save the project properly. Maybe the imported songs aren't "sticking".

Forgive me - but I'm not sure exactly what this means. I'm saving the project on my desktop. Should I try something else?

Try importing music direct from a CD. Insert the CD, then choose "Audio CD" from the popUp menu at the top of the music list and import a song.

I've tried to import directly from CD. It's tricky - if I insert the CD, go to the popup menu in audio - the Audio CD is gray and I can't select it - AND the CD title isn't even there??
However, if I FIRST click on audio, THEN insert the CD, it appears in the popup and the songlist appears and that is how I was able to select and place a song in the show. So, I'm close... I just can't play the songs from iTunes.

Now my question is, can I convert those songs/move them out of iTunes to make them "stick"??

You are a godsend... really, I'm going on 3 hours of sleep and I'm quite grateful for all your help!!!

Forgive me - but I'm not sure exactly what this means.

Sometimes people store iMovie projects on external disks that aren't properly formatted. Disks must use the Mac OS Extended disk format for iMovie to use them successfully.

To see which format your disk is, click on the disk in the Finder and choose File > Get Info. The disk format is shown in the window that opens.

I was able to select and place a song in the show.

Yes, that's a very good sign.

I'm saving the project on my desktop. Should I try something else?

You've said some things that suggest the problem is a failure in communication between iTunes and iMovie.

If there is no "Movies" folder in the Home directory of your hard disk that can cause some strange problems (similar to yours, but different). So make sure you have a Movies folder in your Home. (Your Home folder has your user name).

Projects are usually stored in the Movies folder. (That's not required.) On the Mac, the Desktop Folder is sorta special. Certain tasks may work better when the project is inside the Movies folder.

I suggest quitting iMovie, then moving the iMovie HD project into the Movies folder. Launch iMovie by double-clicking on the project. Everything may start working.

If that doesn't work, use Disk Utility to repair permissions on the disk.

A more likely possibility is that the iTunes library is messed up. iTunes fails to send iMovie the correct path when it asks for it. iMovie has egg on its face but it's iTunes' fault because iTunes sent it garbage.

I believe iTunes has a command to re-index its library. (I don't know enough about iTunes to know if that's smart to do in this situation, but you might want to check that out in the iTunes forum.)

To get this project done I'd try the drag-a-song-from-its-Finder-window-to-iMovie approach I described earlier. My guess is the Finder will work more reliably with iMovie than does iTunes at the moment.

We've unintentionally hijacked this thread, which isn't a good thing to do. We should probably end it here, okay? You should probably start a new thread if things still don't work. You'll also get better advice than I can offer 😟

Karl

Terribly sorry about the hijacking - I am a rookie. I couldn't figure out how to post a new thread...
Again, thanks very much for your time and great help.

Once you bring in a still image through KBE (no zoom) can you change the duration of one or multiple images without degrading the image? I find I have to tweek the images after import to fit my audio.

Once you bring in a still image through KBE (no zoom)
can you change the duration of one or multiple images
without degrading the image? I find I have to tweek
the images after import to fit my audio.

Yes, that's possible. Just select the clip(s) in the timeline, set a new Ken Burns duration, and press the Update button. The new duration will be applied to all the selected clips.

Note that the KBE itself never degrades images. The degradation occurs when Ken Burns has NOT rendered the images -- when the KB checkbox was not on when the image was imported -- and iMovie asks later to renders them when you press the Create iDVD Project button. If you grant permission, that's when iMovie adds the jaggies.

Karl