HD Quality of video output in iMovie '11

Hello everyone,

I too have read every waord of this thread and am like many others frustrated at the quality of output from iMovie '11. What's more, whilst I recognise that this thread is focused on HD content, I have also had great difficulties achieving an acceptable level of quality from my footage recorded on my SD camcorder. I accept it isn't hi def, but it is of a very high standard none-the-less. The results when creating DVD's is more or less VHS standard. Extremely pathetic to say the least. Why even have the numerous amount of supposed setting adjustments when preparing the export when it never comes to fruition. It is mis-leading regardless of the low cost of the program.

As a footnote; I have noticed that dropping individual clips whether HD or SD, strait into a iDVD project as a test creates a vastly superior picture in regards to clarity and resolution. BUT, and it is a big BUT, as soon as there is any panning in my SD footage, there is severe judder. And of course I can only drop short individual clips directly into iDVD, which again makes it redundant.

Any insights would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I installed Windows 7 on a partition and then installed Corels Video Studio and the results are amazing. Shame Apple can't sort this out, as I have been trying in vein to fix this ever since buying my iMac nearly 2 years ago.

Apple are very much aware of this but choose not to fix this as they see imovie as a 'toy'!!!!

Good luck.

John

Like everyone else, I have had troubles with degregation of quality with iMovie 11'

I just downloaded FCP-X and imported the same sample file (H.264) from my GoPro. I have tried exporting with different options and there still seems to be a great loss in quality?

I have tried exporting using, "current settings", "H.264", "ProRes 422" and "ProRes 422 (HQ)". The two ProRes options seem to have the best quality but neither are close to the original H.264 file which was created by my GoPro?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dear video experts ..

in relation to this, does anyone know how to quite simply

CAPTURE .m2t FILES from a firewire handycam, on the Mac?

Everyone used to simply use DVHSCap but it does not work anymore on modern OSX.

I am fully aware that .m2t does not play on Mac, I simply want to GET THE FILE OFF my handycam (tape era) and then put it on a normal $50 WD hard drive to plat it flawlessly using a normal $50 WD media player and a normal 50" plasma TV.

Again .. what the **** can you use to simply capture .m2t files from firewire handycam?

Any ideas trult appreciated. Thanks

Hey, I know a lot of people are having problems with the iMovie '11 exporting quality. It seems that the codec used in iMovie '11 is of lesser quality than other video editing programs like Final Cut Pro or Adobe CS6. With the addition of higher quality codecs from FCP (like AppRes422), iMovie export settings can be altered for better results.
I made a tutorial on what to download and how to use the implements for better results. Very easy to do, even for a Mac novice. Instructions included in description, along with links. Let me know if this was helpful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htT-5y3zyb8

I'm a lawyer and video guy, and I'm ticked off. Most of my videos go straight to DVD on iDVD, and that works fine.

But lately I have been wanting to do some decent quality videos for my marketing, and the digital file output is terrible! I have tried every option, none are close to good, let alone HD quality.

I'm already having to capture my videos in Final Cut Express because iMovie doesn't support my HD camera, but iMovie turns a 500MB HD file into a 50MB blur. Anybody got an answer?

What output setting are you using? Your output file should be much larger than your compressed input file.

Hiya CWSwatty,

it's infuritating. it's possible the detailed info below may help you

in short the only way to capture MiniDV tapes -- FULL RESOLUTION -- is a product called "Live Capture Plus" or similar

HUGE confusion on this issue because very few people understand compression, etc.

http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/345702-capturing-minidv-tapes?p=2181073&viewf ull=1#post2181073

"I have found it remarkably difficult to capture MiniDV tapes to a Mac.

I had many tapes to capture and here are my findings:

MiniDV tapes come in two varieties, either SD or HD.

MiniDV SD tapes create a file which is: .dv

MiniDV HD tapes create a file which is: .m2t

That's it.

As far as I know, THE ONLY WAY to capture MinDV HD tapes to a Mac, is to use: DVHSCap

As far as I know, THE ONLY WAY to capture MinDV SD tapes to a Mac, is to use: LiveCapturePlus.

Here is the URL for Live Capture Plus: http://www.squarebox.co.uk/lcplus.html

I believe it exists for BOTH Mac and Windows, but I am not a Windows user. LCP is an excellent product with perfect support by email.

Again as far as I have been able to determine THE ONLY WAY to capture MiniDV-SD tapes (.dv files) to a Mac is to use "Live Capture Plus".

Note that in both these cases

** .m2t files using DVHSCap (for HD MiniDV tapes)

** .dv files using LiveCapturePlus (for SD MIniDV tapes)

Note that many people mention other approaches like using iMovie.

This is silly,

it transcodes your files from the actual format on the tape, to another further compressed or changed format.

You should not do this if you are trying to archive your precious MiniDVs. Archive your MiniDV tapes as the original .dv files (for SD tapes) or .m2t files (for HD tapes).

Note -- for SD tapes. You can "change" the .dv files to .mov files. In this case - as I understand it - you are getting the true pure original information from the MiniDV-SD tape, but it just changes the wrapper, and I believe it separates out the audio track (I am not 100% certain if it transcodes the audio track or leaves it alone). It seems somewhat pointless doing this - probably better to just save as the original file from the tape, a .dv file.

Now note that

... your Mac will very easily and play a .dv file (ie, the contents of a MiniDV SD tape),

... your Mac will very easily play a .m2t file (ie, the contents of a MiniDV HD tape).

(also, if you choose the .mov "variant" of a .dv file, your Mac will easily play that).

Interestingly both SD and HD tapes (ie, .dv and .m2t files) are BOTH about 13 gb per hour. 13gb is about the capacity of a DV tape. Both HDV and DV use the same data rate by the way, HDV is more highly compressed.

But there's a problem!

So you capture all your MiniDV tapes to a HD. Every common media player will play .m2t files, no problem. BUT !!!! there are no media players that play .dv files!

This is annoying! Basically you'll have to connect a Mac (mac mini, whatever) to your TV, to play .dv files.

As many have mentioned, both formats are of course already compressed, off the camera hardware. This causes some confusion because people will say something like "I want to capture this MiniDV SD tape, with no compression" A better way to express this is "no further compression" or "no transcoding" or perhaps best of all "exactly as it exists as a compressed video file on the MIniDV-SD tape". I believe the underlying compression is, Mini DV (SD) is DVCPro (many slightly different varieties of this exist, but it makes no difference), HD (aka "HDV") on MiniDV is Mpeg2.

In short to capture MiniDV tapes to a Mac, you need for MiniDV-SD "Live Capture Plus" .. in fact that also works on Windows I believe. To capture MiniDV-HD (aka HDV) on the Mac, you need DVHSCap (a free utility, once supplied by Apple, you can find it around).

This all works perfectly as of Aug 2012, latest version of every OS etc.

The result is a .dv file for MiniDV-SD, and a .m2t file for MiniDV-HD

Infuriatingly, it is impossible (as far as I know) to find a media player which will play .dv files. (that includes the "apple TV", it does not play .dv files.) Regarding .m2t files, they will play on any common media player. Both/all play perfectly on a Mac, no problem.

Files are about 13 gb per hour (interestingly, there is NO difference in size between .dv / .m2t).

I can input a full res file from my mini DV tape using Final Cut Express. That's not the problem.

I simply prefer to use iMovie to edit (because its simpler) and when I import the HD file there, I lose the resolution.

Sounds like I will just have to swallow the fact that iMovie can't handle HD...

Thanks!

I've been able to edit HD without any issues in iMovie with one exception. iMovie doesn't do a great job with resolutions that are not native. What resolution is the source file that you are importing?

In General, after spent many hours with Imovie and all possible im- and export Settings , i am really dissapointed.
Imovie creates terrible quality in darker scenes, especially when importing pictures /photos. Since the only "solution" seems an upgrade to an oversized, and therefore expensive software named final cut x made by apple, i switched to Adobe Premiere Elements 11. It is much cheaper and does what i want: Create nice high quality movies, at a modest price. Highly recommended, until Apple fixes this "bug".😉😉😉

Thanks. I guess I'm headed that direction. I actually have Final Cut Exprtess but it's not very user friendly

i get perfect quality if i do this:

import through iphoto (when it gets alot of videos my imovie crashes so emty it alot)

or the best option is save the video to user-movies-imovie events-imovie drop box. takes slightly longer than directly from the camera but worth it for the quality. also works for downloaded videos

:lol:

Just unclick optimized in the import window and you will see that the video will retain most of it's original quality.

Hi

I know this is a rather old thread, but I just wanted to add that the latest version of iMovie (supplied with Mavericks) is a VAST improvement in rendering ("share") quality - especially in dark areas of the image.

I've tried a number of side-by-side tests using the Ken Burns feature on a very dark, but high-res photo and the results are very much better with the new vesion.

Yay!