Eli N
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Pictures on iDVD menu are blurry.

I notice that pictures that I use on the iDVD menus are sharp & clear. When I burn a DVD, the pictures becomes blurry. After burning, the pictures on the iDVD screen becomes blurry also. I use custom thumbnails from iPhoto for the pictures.

 

Attached are examples with explanations.

 

The project settings are as follows -

 

Video mode - NTSC

Encoding - Professional quality

DVD Type - single layer 4.2 GB

Burn speed - 4x

 

I use Sony DVD-r disks.

 

I have also tried setting the encoding to Best Performance and the burn speed to Maximum Possible. There is no change.

 

Any help that you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

This is the scene selection screen from iDVD before the DVD is burned

Screen Shot 2015-10-02 at 5.52.55 PM.png

 

 

 

This is the screen selection screen from iDVD after the DVD is burned. This is also the clarity of the scene selection screen from the burned DVD. The actual movie is sharp. It's only the menu screen where the pictures are blurry.

Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 9.26.41 AM.png

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5), iMovie '11 Version 9.0.8

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 8:26 AM

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Eli N

Q: Pictures on iDVD menu are blurry.

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  • by Bengt Wärleby,

    Bengt Wärleby Bengt Wärleby Oct 19, 2015 7:52 AM in response to Eli N
    Level 6 (19,450 points)
    Oct 19, 2015 7:52 AM in response to Eli N

    Hi

     

    I think this is due to:

    - DVD Standard - iDVD makes DVD authoring as on standard Video-DVDs and that is at it's best only SD-Video Quality (as on old CRT-TVs) in PAL that is only 625 lines to build the picture - in NTSC it's even less.

     

    What else that can degrade the final result is:

    - Use of High resolution material - iDVD do a BAD job in downscaling so feeding it Large or HD Quality usually is dissapointing.

     

    A copy of an old answer on a similar question - that may be of help

     

    There are two problems in this question.

    iDVD

    iMovie'08 or 09 or 11

    iDVD - can only handle Standard Definition SD-interlaced TV quality - NO version can produce HD-DVDs !

    SD - TV (interlaced)

    EU - PAL system = 625 lines analog display (no pixels) 25fps

    US - NTSC system = 520 lines and 29.97 fps

    That's the best iDVD can do.

    iMovie up to version HD 6 and FinalCut - can handle interlaced video (displaying every second line

    first then start over with the rest - 25fps (PAL) = 50 frames of interlaced video

    less flickering.

    iMovie'08 and 09 and 11 has destroyed this by deleting every second line

    Results in a resolution of

    PAL 312 lines (original are 625 lines)

    NTSC 260 lines (original are 520 lines)

    So photos displayed this way will look crappy. Diagonal lines goes as staircases.

     

    Improvement

    Use iMovie HD 6 or FinalCut Express or Pro

    Else only way I know of to get "full" quality is by using other tools all together.

    Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro (incl. BD-component) and here the included FotoMagico™ for SlideShows.

    Toast™ also can burn Blu-Ray - even on standard DVD (but much less in HD Quality e.g. 20 min movie)

    These BD-DVDs Can only be play-backed on a Blu-Ray Player (e.g. PlayStation 3)

    But they look super.

     

    A more specific part reg. FinalCut

    I do in FC-Express or Pro

    IMPORTANT --> FIRST in FinalCut - Mix Down Audio under Sequence Menu / Render Only / Mix-down

    Export out as a QuickTime .mov file

    Not self-contained (not important but saves time and spaces)

    NO QUICKTIME CONVERSION (Important)

     

    I use

    - Verbatim DVD-R disks

    - Burn at a reduced speed x1 or x4 (recommended by many)

    - Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on internal boot hard disk for 4x3 SD video

    and my guess is that I would secure 5 - 6 times more for 16x9 HD

    (Still no version of iDVD can do HD)

     

    Yours Bengt W