Leah Mccloskey

Q: Stuttering Ken Burns

I have searched and searched for someone who has had a similar problem and gotten an answer, but have not found it.

 

I created a series of projects, each 5-7 minutes long and exported each to a Quicktime movie, then imported them iback into iMovie to create a 1-hour video from the imported clips. The individual Quicktime movies play beautifully in Quicktime on my Mac. When I export the full movie to Media Browser at HD720, open iDVD and burn a DVD at Best Performance, the Ken Burns sections play back with a rhythmic stutter on both my Mac and my DVD player connected to the TV.

 

Since I know the individual QT movies are fine, the problem could be occurring 1) on the re-import to iMovie, 2) the export to Media Browser or 3) the encoding in iDVD.


Any wisdom is appreciated. It's been weeks since I finished the full project and I still can't get a watchable version.


Might the stuttering could be eliminated if I exported the whole movie to a Quicktime movie? I was trying to avoid that because it will take a full day to render.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), null

Posted on Jun 18, 2016 11:59 AM

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Q: Stuttering Ken Burns

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  • by GeeD,Solvedanswer

    GeeD GeeD Jun 18, 2016 4:55 PM in response to Leah Mccloskey
    Level 5 (7,676 points)
    Video
    Jun 18, 2016 4:55 PM in response to Leah Mccloskey

    I'm not sure why you are getting the stuttering effect but if each of your short iMovie projects are complete you can join them together using Quicktime Player (see: How to use QuickTime Player - Apple Support

    for more details).  This avoids the quality loss that is likely if you re-import them into iMovie. 

     

    A DVD can only contain one hour of standard TV definition so iDVD may be having to do an extreme amount of compression on your 720p project.  You may get better results exporting to 540p resolution.

     

    Geoff.

  • by Leah Mccloskey,Helpful

    Leah Mccloskey Leah Mccloskey Jun 20, 2016 2:16 PM in response to GeeD
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iLife
    Jun 20, 2016 2:16 PM in response to GeeD

    Thanks so much Geoff. I'm pretty good at troubleshooting, but this has had me scratching my head and wasting a lot of test DVDs. I made one more test and brought one of the QT movies directly into iDVD, burned it and IT'S GORGEOUS. So, again, I say the problem lies in one of the 3 subsequent steps I was taking. I would still like to know where it goes wrong, but for now, I'm going around it. I'm going to try the Quicktime player method, thanks to you. I had added some refinements of transition between some of the sections, but I think a work-around for that would be to export tiny QT clips for those.

  • by Rich839,

    Rich839 Rich839 Jun 18, 2016 6:30 PM in response to Leah Mccloskey
    Level 4 (3,498 points)
    iLife
    Jun 18, 2016 6:30 PM in response to Leah Mccloskey

    To add to Geoff's excellent analysis, I would suggest that you try burning from iDVD using the High Quality or the Professional Quality settings instead of Best Performance.  Nothing to lose since Best Performance didn't do the trick.  Choosing one of the other options will force iDVD to re-encode all the assets in the project.  It will take longer to burn, however.  You can burn 2 hours of standard def on a single layer DVD disc, so it will easily fit.  iDVD should handle it fine, except that I believe that the end product will be a standard def video, as that is what iDVD was designed to render. So, Geoff's suggestion to try exporting to 540p resolution makes sense.   Final product should still be excellent quality.   

  • by Leah Mccloskey,

    Leah Mccloskey Leah Mccloskey Jun 20, 2016 2:25 PM in response to GeeD
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iLife
    Jun 20, 2016 2:25 PM in response to GeeD

    That was a great workaround. There must be a loss of quality somewhere in the re-import and re-export process in spite of this being the process that was recommended. I didn't even think of using Quicktime this way because I thought that only the Pro version had that kind of editing ability, not the simple Player that I have. My transitions between sections were not quite as elegant as I would prefer, but at least I have the highest quality version of the video. I didn't have to sacrifice any resolution. The QT movie I brought into iDVD is 1080 and I was able to burn it at Best Performance.

     

    The other thing I lost control of was where the chapters broke. iDVD only gives a choice of even breaks of time. I can live with it.

     

    Thanks for the leg-up!

  • by GeeD,

    GeeD GeeD Jun 20, 2016 2:35 PM in response to Leah Mccloskey
    Level 5 (7,676 points)
    Video
    Jun 20, 2016 2:35 PM in response to Leah Mccloskey

    I'm glad it proved useful.  I have often made videos in 10 - 15 minute pieces then joined them with Quicktime Player (though I use version 7).  Keeping iMovie projects small lowers risk ('all eggs not in the same basket') and speeds responsiveness.  I usually choose sections where I can start and end with fade from/to black.

     

    Geoff.