Importing VHS tape into iMovie.

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Level 1

29 points

Importing VHS tape into iMovie.

I am importing VHS tapes into either imovie 09 or 06. When I play back in the program, it has good quality. But when I save it, no matter what format: mp4, .avi, .mov, etc. The quality is very poor when played back on DVD player.
Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong?

G5 Tower, 2 gig, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 21, 2011 8:59 PM

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Answer 1

Ziatron

Level 5

4,186 points

Mar 22, 2011 9:54 AM in response to JRIH

I am importing VHS tapes into either imovie 09 or 06.

Use iMovie 06 with iDVD 09.

iMovie 09 and 11 uses 'single field processing' meaning every other horizontal line of the video is thrown out, which reduces the sharpness of the footage. iMovie 06 uses ALL of the image to form the video.

Your workflow is editing DV clips and making DVDs, so iMovie 06 is better suited. Your movie will arrive at iDVD in DV format, which is an ideal match for making a DVD: same resolution, same pixels aspect ratio, and original quality. If you share your movie from iMovie 09, it gets re-rendered at 640x480 or less, and then iDVD upscales it back to 720x480. The end result is obviously not as good.

iMovie 06 and iDVD 09 is a "lossless" combination.

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Answer 2

Mar 22, 2011 10:34 AM in response to JRIH

Try saving to Media Browser in Large.
Then open iDVD. You will see the Media Browser in iDVD at the bottom right of the window. Then burn it in iDVD.

Message was edited by: AppleMan1958

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