iMovie Dimensions

Jiggz,

iMovie expects to see still images in a 4:3 ratio.

For NTCS use 720x534 pixels

For PAL use 760x576 pixels

You might want to look at experiment on images size I did a while ago at: http://homepage.mac.com/profpixel/iMoviesize.html

Hope this helps.

Hello-

I'm having a frustrating day trying to put together a movie using a lot of slides I created in PhotoShop. I made them 640 x 480 pixels (I thought I saw in at least 2 different places that this was the native resolution for iMovie). But upon export they always end up stretched horizontally (a particularly ugly effect). It seems the iMovie exports are 720 x 480. This isn't even the expected 4/3 aspect ratio. Any ideas what I'm missing here?...

You need slightly different still image ratios if you want to completely fill the iMovie video area (with no Ken Burns):

iMovie 4 wants just 4:3 images. So 640x480 is fine, 1024x768 imports slightly sharper but larger resolutions are the same unless you want to zoom into the image with Ken Burns.

iMovie 5 better preserves the aspect ratio but the math isn't so simple:

If you want no black borders to the imported still images in 4:3 video projects, their aspect ratio must be NTSC 720x528 or PAL 788x576 or some larger multiple of those figures (NTSC 1024x751, 2048x1502, 2095x1536 etc, or PAL 1024x749, 2048x1497, 2101x1536 etc).

If you want no black borders to the imported still images in 16:9 video projects, their aspect ratio must be NTSC 874x480 or PAL 1050x576 or some larger multiple of those figures.

If the imported image hasn't those ratios, iMovie must add black borders to preserve the correct aspect ratio.

iMovie exports are 720 x 480. This isn't even the expected 4/3 aspect ratio

Welcome to the rectangular pixel video where the sampling matrix doesn't tell the real actual active picture size or the pixel aspect ratio which really matter:

For NTSC the sampling matrix is 720x480 but the actual active picture size is 710,85/486 -- when you multiply the latter ratio with the pixel aspect ratio 4320/4739, THEN you get the nice even 4:3 ratio.

For PAL the sampling matrix is 720x576 but the actual active picture size is 702/576 -- when you multiply the latter ratio with the pixel aspect ratio 128/117, THEN you get the nice even 4:3 ratio.

Nice, eh?

So if you want to convert rectangular DV pixels to square:

When converting rectangular pixel NTSC 720x480 DV to square pixel image, it should be scaled to 656x480 -- usually this is then cropped to 640x480.

When converting rectangular pixel PAL 720x576 DV to square pixel image, it should be scaled to 788x576 -- usually this is then cropped to 768x576.

This page reveals more details:

http://www.iki.fi/znark/video/conversion/