[Hawkeye_a]

Im going to start rendering an animation project in 3dsm(version 5 on a PC)...the video will be rendered out to an MPEG4 QT file.

I will be using iMovie 4 on my PowerBook to compile the entire short, with transitions and titles, sudio, etc. And then, export the final short film to a single QT(MPEG4) file.

My Question:
i'd like to have the entire thing in letterbox format (just seems cooler).And i know 3dsm can export the video to 720Xxxx resolution.
But when i import the clips into iMove 4 they get stretched up.

How do i get around this ? whats the easiest way without loosing quality and the easiest to do for the entire process ?

Cheers

[OwlBoy]

Im not sure you can do this in iMove w.o messing lowering the quality

once you go to DV you will have interlaced video

And you will lose some color vividness.

and when you go back to mpeg4 for a final product, you will have to de-interlace, losing a bit more quality

Else you will end up not deinterlacing due to the endoing program you use, and it will lose a ton of quality.

In short, don't use iMovie to edit a progressive project.

-Owl

[OwlBoy]

hmm, looks like you bst bet would be iMove HD. if you had to use iMovie.

And use HD-720p as the project format. Then import.

That will give you video in progressive format. And not in DV.

HD quality too, so make your 3Dsmax render 1280x720.

You should get great results with that.

-Owl

[Hawkeye_a]

Thanks dude. Quality isnt of the highest priority right now. i just want a 'cinematic' feel for the final video..... and i dont have iMoveHD/FCP. worse comes to worse, ill just use 640X480 video.

Thanks for your help though.

Cheers