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Level 1

0 points

Huge quality loss in iMove '11

Hello fellow iMovie users.
Yesterday I upgraded to iLife 11 to get the new iMovie and its "new" audio editing capabilities. I could ofcourse just buy it from Mac App Store, but I am principally against App Store and its strict rules, so I choosed to get it the old way.

Anyway, I liked what i saw. Finally the new iMovie was about as good as the five year old one, and had some neat features like chroma key and cropping.
So I decided to start practicing and create a short video based on some old DV-videos filmed with my Canon MV950 DV-PAL camera.
I imported the footage into iMovie, and noticed some significant quality loss after the import.

And it get worse. After I exported the video, it seems like it is heavily compressed, even if I'm exporting to QuickTime and selects the highest quality possible.

I have some screenshots to show you the differences.

This is the original DV-footage.

The imported video. Notice the higher compression and the choppy edges.

And this is the exported video. Notice the insanely bad quality, especially in dark areas.

Is there any way to fix this, or do I have go back to iMovie HD?

PS. Sorry if my post is a bit unreadable. I'm from Norway.

MacBook 1,1, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 14, 2011 2:42 PM

28 replies

Jan 17, 2011 10:29 PM in response to Ziatron

My 30 hours of dv files came via a Sony GV-D200 Digital-8 Video Walkman VCR. My old analog 8 mm camcorder not longer worked, so I had get this $500 device in order to transfer the tapes to my computer. What I wonder is whether another piece of hardware--and a different bit of software (e.g. iMovie '06 rather than what I used, iMovie '09) or something else altogether--would have rescued more of the precious "information" that was on my deteriorating tapes. I've not been able to get clear answer to this question. I would hate to find out after my tapes have declined even further that I could have saved more.

Coolmax

Level 2

195 points

Jan 18, 2011 8:19 AM in response to Steve Mullen

Steve Mullen wrote:
There is nothing WRONG with using a 15 year old camcorder, as there is nothing WRONG about using a 15 year old computer. But, one really can't expect to use either with current software. You can't ask Apple to do this.

That's why folks need a "work around."

But, I may have found a way around iM limitations for DV

iMovie 11 requires Snow Leopard and SL runs only on an Intel platform. I'm not sure why you are bringing up G3 computers as they obviously can not run SL nor iMovie 11. Having said that, people had been editing HD video since the dawn of the PowerMac G4 despite what people say that you need a super duper Mac Pro. The key to successful HD editing is fast and large media arrays.

Secondly, folks that do this kind of work around is actually a common practice in the professional broadcast world. In fact they have devices like this that perform up/down and cross conversions. An example would be Corplex's AJA FS-1 where broadcasters expects videographers to submit various kinds of different footages for ingesting into a NLE. In many professional sanctioned events these days, you will or may find one of these in action, or something similar. What some people had done including myself (deinterlacing in true progressive) is the proper way to handle media footage now. For myself, I simply upconvert it to HD after proper deinterlacing from SD DV so I can combine it with other HD footage in iMovie 11.

Personally though, I understand why Apple had chosen this path and adopt a single field processing method, because even some HD cams are interlaced. It's ok to deal with SD in interlaced since the storage issues aren't a big deal with cheap hard drives these days. However, handling HD footage is a completely different animal. Unless you have a fast RAID array with terabytes of storage (something a common Mac folk don't have nor have the connection --eSATA to do so or FW800 which is absent on Macbook Air 11", Apple need to make a choice. The choice is to make a NLE platform that works with all computers and the standard storage capacity available sold with all Macs.

I'm sure there are ways to work around the problem, but I suspect that someone will get the hint and quickly upgrade to HD as many had done hawking their GL-2 or DVX-100 on eBay for a reason!

Coolmax

Level 2

195 points

Jan 18, 2011 8:51 AM in response to Ziatron

Ziatron wrote:

I agree everyone should have owned a HD camera by now

Today I suspect that most DV video does not even come from a camera, but rather a VCR, cable box, satellite receiver or similar source, used in conjunction with a FireWire analog to digital converter.

Today, yes.. As people convert DV video into digital archival or for combining with other footage. The few who usually shoot DV because their camcorder is still running, but even that number is dwindling down really fast.

RonnieDP

Level 1

0 points

Apr 26, 2011 7:37 AM in response to Kriss-a

Sorry to get on the OP's thread, but it looks like a good place to ask my question.

Firstly, I still use a Canon 3xi mini DV camcorder (and sometimes my Canon 7D). Since I recently got an iMac 27', I have tried to burn some footage to DVD via iMovie/iDVD. The results are not good. One of the events I wanted to re-do to DVD, I have a copy created fom my PC. For that I used AVS editor. The PC created DVD is way better than my attempt thru iMovie. I did do a test DVD by by-passing iMovie and burning straight to DVD via iDVD, and the result is very good (one step DVD option).

Also footage from my 7D, looks pretty bad on DVD, when using iMovie.

I dont understand all the technical stuff, and therefore why I am not getting good results. I have checked all the settings that I am aware of in iMovie, and have tried all the quality settings in iDVD.

I hope that there is a simple reason for why I am getting the results that I am getting.

I would really appreciate help with this. Just to say I have read the posts above, but most of this is way above my knowledge.

Ronnie.

PS: Even .mov captures downloaded from the web that look great played back in Qtime player, lose a lot of quality when copied to DVD.

Aug 27, 2011 6:45 PM in response to Steve Mullen

Please go to my website where I have posted new instructions on working with DV.

This method keeps both interlaced fields from FireWire capture through to a DVD. All the lines means no lost quality when editing DV or Digital8.

Apr 9, 2012 7:04 AM in response to Kriss-a

Hello everyone, finally some good news on this topic, I manage to fix iMovie color banding. My conclusion is Apple knows and made iMovie this way...

Here's the solution:

The problem is iMovie and Quicktime default codecs, probably the AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) and iMovie itself to export on 8 bits only, that was made specifically by Apple.

If you go to the page:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396

You can get the ProApps QuickTime Codecs v1.0.1

And you must drop this on "Macintosh HD -> Library -> QuickTime" when dropping it you will see the version is radically different. 1.5 to 2.0 and so on.

To get out the codecs from this package, you should use the free app unplug,

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/16357/unpkg

copy the codecs out and paste in the folder.

Now, What I found out.

Importing does not seem to be a problem at all, only on exporting it, there will be the problem, when exporting you must export as quicktime and choose on of the new codecs, like Apple ProRes 422, it seems it bypass the internal iMovie "codec" (8 bits only) and you will get a much much much better result!

I found out that if you install the free x264Encoder codec http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24173/x264encoder

it will also export to this format with no problems, it only has problems in the default iMovie pre listed profiles and default quicktime codecs.

You can add effects and so on with no problem.

Haven't try iDVD yet, but here's the solution, and we all should moan to Apple about this...

Apr 9, 2012 7:04 AM in response to Kriss-a

Hello everyone, finally some good news on this topic, I manage to fix iMovie color banding. My conclusion is Apple knows and made iMovie this way...

Here's the solution:

The problem is iMovie and Quicktime default codecs, probably the AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) and iMovie itself to export on 8 bits only, that was made specifically by Apple.

If you go to the page:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396

You can get the ProApps QuickTime Codecs v1.0.1

And you must drop this on "Macintosh HD -> Library -> QuickTime" when dropping it you will see the version is radically different. 1.5 to 2.0 and so on.

To get out the codecs from this package, you should use the free app unplug,

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/16357/unpkg

copy the codecs out and paste in the folder.

Now, What I found out.

I found out that if you install the free x264Encoder codec http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24173/x264encoder

it will also export to this format with no problems, it only has problems in the default iMovie pre listed profiles and default quicktime codecs.

You can add effects and so on with no problem.

Haven't try iDVD yet, but here's the solution, and we all should moan to Apple about this...

Apr 9, 2012 7:04 AM in response to Kriss-a

Hello everyone, finally some good news on this topic, I manage to fix iMovie color banding. My conclusion is Apple knows and made iMovie this way...

Here's the solution:

The problem is iMovie and Quicktime default codecs, probably the AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) and iMovie itself to export on 8 bits only, that was made specifically by Apple.

If you go to the page:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396

You can get the ProApps QuickTime Codecs v1.0.1

And you must drop this on "Macintosh HD -> Library -> QuickTime" when dropping it you will see the version is radically different. 1.5 to 2.0 and so on.

To get out the codecs from this package, you should use the free app unplug,

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/16357/unpkg

copy the codecs out and paste in the folder.

Now, What I found out.

I found out that if you install the free x264Encoder codec http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24173/x264encoder

it will also export to this format with no problems, it only has problems in the default iMovie pre listed profiles and default quicktime codecs.

You can add effects and so on with no problem.

Haven't try iDVD yet, but here's the solution, and we all should moan to Apple about this...

Jul 9, 2012 9:52 AM in response to Coolmax

Coolmax, as a frustrated iMovie 11 user, I have extensively researched this topic across the internet and found your postings to be the most informed, insightful and helpful -- so thank you. What I'm still puzzled about is the following (first a little background)...

Startting several years ago, I imported hundreds of hours of DV tapes -- SD and HDV, all interlaced -- into iMovie '09, and later into iMovie '11. When editing, I followed Steve Mullen's advice to avoid any effect fancier than a dissolve, yet still found the results disappointing -- significantly degraded video quality when exporting to iTunes "Large" format for showing on Apple TV (connected to a high-end projector or 55" plasma), and downright terrible results when exporting to iDVD. Apple has issued several software updates to iMovie '11 over the past 18 months and I have noticed a slight increase in quality when exporting to iTunes, but the results for still aren't as good as the old IM06 workflow.

My understanding is that FCPX will solve all my problems, but does that mean I have to reimport my hundreds of hours of footage from the tapes into FCPX, or can I simply import the unedited iMovie '11-imported files into FCPX? To put the question another way, did iMovie '11 already degrade my footage during the original import, or is all the visual information still fully intact and on my hard drive, and is it simply a matter of getting those files into a program (such as FCPX) that won't discard every other field of interlaced video while editing?

Thank you in advance for your reply -- and for your previous contributions of knowledge to this subject.

Ziatron

Level 5

4,186 points

Jul 9, 2012 3:23 PM in response to Carl Rajhan

Startting several years ago, I imported hundreds of hours of DV tapes

I spent many hours trying, (and re-trying) all the iMovie 11 quality "work arounds" but my DVDs never look as good as when I use iMovie 06 with iDVD 11 (no work arounds needed).

Compared to today's standards DV Video's quality is not that great, so I don't want to lose ANYTHING in my conversion, I have no quality to "spare".

Transferring DV tape using iMovie 06 is super easy, a few mouse clicks and I'm done. (And making a still image from a video frame is just two mouse clicks, no other software required.)

Can you make a DVD using iMovie 11? YES, (and the quality may be acceptable for most people). But for the best result, in my opinion, you should use Final Cut Express or iMovie 06. (with iDVD 08-11)

I have transferred many home movies from videotape to DVD. I have done this with all of the iMovies from 02 through 11, I get the best results with iMovie 06.

iMovie 06 and iDVD 09 / 11 is a 100% "lossless" combination and my DVD's look like they came from Hollywood!

Scott3G

Level 1

14 points

Aug 10, 2012 4:39 PM in response to Kriss-a

I've noticed this same issue with 1080p AVCHD footage from my Panasonic GH2. After filming in the camera's native 30p mode and importing into iMovie, I exported the footage and noticed a lot of pixelization / jagged edges / loss of detail which results in a moire like pattern when the image moves. (see example below)

I suspect this has to do with how iMovie is handeling the AVCHD codec. In this case, the camera outputs 30p but it's wrapped in a 60i AVCHD wrapper (see Panasonic's site for details). Somewhere in the iMovie process, it's deinterlacing the 60i footage resulting in the poor picture quality.

If I use Premiere Pro CS6 and export using the timeline settings or Final Cut X using the DVCPRO HD 30p codec, the orginal picture quality is maintained.

I've tried playing with different export options in iMovie but so far haven't found one that works.

melican

Level 4

1,043 points

Oct 23, 2012 9:24 PM in response to Ziatron

I just ran a test with iMovie '11. I have a DV tape that I dubbed from a DigiBsp; I created the DigiBsp in an Avid. The tape has 3 sets of bars. The first set with bars on field 1 and 2, the next with bars on field 1 and black on field 2, the last with black on field 1 and bars on field 2.

It appears that during import, iMove '11 throws away field 1. Field 2 is duplicated. So with iMovie '11, you lose half your resoluiotn immediately during the import from DV tape.

Oct 24, 2012 8:46 AM in response to Kriss-a

My problem is the following:

- Import footage with iMovie from Canon HF-11 (so, transcoded in AIC) -> horrible artifacts in dark zones.

- Transcode AVCHD to ProRes from HF-11 with FCPX, then import into iMovie. I make a little 1 minute test project with 2 sequences and 1 transition between them. Export with iMovie in ProRes format. Excellent image quality.

- BUT if instead of my little test project I try to make a trailer, when I export to ProRes, the image is again horrible. It seems as if iMovie transcode the image into AIC when I try to make a trailer.

So... it is not possible to make a decent trailer with iMovie 8-(

Huge quality loss in iMove '11