iMovie Pro Res/High Quality Export

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Level 1

3 points

iMovie Pro Res/High Quality Export

Hello,

I am curious as to the major (or minor..) differences in picture clarity, audio quality and general project quality to a movie/project that I export in iMovie 10.1 when I select to export to file using the ProRes, or High (Quality) settings. I've done both, and to my eyes and ears on my devices, I can't see a difference between the two (ProRes vs High Quality) other than the file size.

I did some googling and couldn't find any recent posts/questions regarding iMovie -- every result I came across is from 2012 (Apple added ProRes export support sometime in late 2014) and didn't exactly address what I'm asking.

I'm of the mind that for future viewing of my projects I'd like to select the best file format for quality and clarity; but I'm also running on a 2012 13" MacBook Pro i5, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, and 2015 MacBook Air 11" i7, 8GB RAM 128GB SSD so storage can be limited depending on the project I'm working on and if I can't see a major difference in quality of the finished project, I'd like to keep the export times and stress on my systems down as much as possible.

I suppose what I'm really asking is is it worth it for me to select ProRes for export considering storage space and computing power? I'm not a professional editing and exporting for anybody but myself and family & friends.

Thanks for the consideration!

MACBOOK AIR (11-INCH, EARLY 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), Core i7, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD

Posted on Jan 13, 2016 6:02 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Rich839

Level 8

47,206 points

Dec 7, 2016 8:27 AM in response to scottffitch

Hi,

Pro res has a higher bit rate, therefore more bits of information per unit of time, therefore more file size, and presumably better quality. As you have noted, quality is in the eye of the beholder. Quality differences may not be noticeable to the untrained eye or can only be discerned upon careful examination in side by side comparison with a clip of lower quality. It can also depend upon the type of video you are making. If it is a relatively static video of a serene pond, or still images, you might not notice any quality difference compared to a format with lower bit rate. If there is a lot of fast motion in the video, like race cars going by, you might notice some difference in the higher bit rate format versus the lower bit rate. Still, it would be very hard to tell. And, it may not make any significant difference.

Pro res would technically be better for editing than, say, Mp4, because there is less compression. But again you might not notice the difference. Probably Mp4 would be better for uploading to the internet or streaming. Mp4 is pretty universal and renders pretty high quality for consumer use. Both would be fine for burning a DVD.

So, is it worth it to select pro res versus the lower bit rate Mp4? The answer depends really on personal preference, considering the type of video and the use you are going to make of it. I find Mp4 to be perfectly fine for my purpose, that is to make family vids to burn to DVD and upload to You Tube. For those purposes, my eye can't discern any quality differences, and if there were any, they are insignificant to me. You will need to consider what is important to you and decide accordingly.

Hope this helps.

-- Rich

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Answer 2

shez333

Level 1

4 points

Dec 7, 2016 6:29 AM in response to scottffitch

Help please, I've got the same question. 🙂

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Answer 3

shez333

Level 1

4 points

Dec 7, 2016 8:54 AM in response to Rich839

Thanks Rich, your response is actually very helpful and informative! 🙂

Based on this, I will probably stick with the mp4 or high quality setting if you can't see much difference & it takes up less memory. I am basically downloading dvds that have vhs and 8mm tapes burned on them and want to ensure the quality is not severely reduced when watching on tv. I have actually been editing the videos in imovie first and then I'm given the option to save as a best quality(prores) when I go to save as a file- I guess the high quality setting will still work well if the editing is happening beforehand?

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