[angstmann]

Hi all,

I have just got into DV following the purchase of a Sony TRV120 and a new iBook. I have put together a short film of my daughter's first few weeks of life. It looks fabulous in iMovie when played back. It looks great when put back to DV tape and played through a TV. What I want to know is why does it look SO TERRIBLE when exported as a Quicktime movie??

I have tried NUMEROUS different settings and options, compression, no compression, etc and whatever happens, even if the exported file is 500MB in size, it plays back horribly. What could I be doing wrong?? I have seen Quicktime movies, trailers, etc on the web that are 5, 10 and 20 MB in size and look FAR superior to what I can produce. So what's the secret? How do I produce high quality Quicktime movies from the excellent quality DV footage I have imported into iMovie 2 ... please help it is driving me crazy !!

[Ybot]

I just wanted to say 'me too' in regards to this video quality issue I'm experiencing with iMovie 2.0.1.

I made a small movie using lots of text effects and when I exported it to a QuickTime file the font and video looked awful. I tried multiple fonts with the same results.

Just wondering if anyone has successfully exported a decent-quality QuickTime movie.

-Ybot

De-interlaced the video an you obtain much better quicktime movies.

[angstmann]

How do I deinterlace the video ?? Can you tell me which program I need to do this and how it is achieved.

Richard

[jac]

For some reason iMovie outputs QT movies with the 'High quality' setting OFF plus the film is interlaced. To change these you need Quick Time Pro; then it's just to go through the video settings for the film, click High quality and Single field.
The main problem is that this only applies if you output your iMovie in full quality (DV). If you compress your film to something other than DV you'll get the imperfections and artifacts in the film and changing the settings won't help.
The only way I've found QT output to work at good quality is to first export in full quality, then opening it in QT Pro, changing the settings and finally exporting in the format of your choice (Sorenson, 3ivx or whatever). This demands LOTS of free HD space though plus some extra time (and QT Pro).
This is definitely a problem Apple should fix. You shouldn't be forced to buy QT Pro and export to an intermediate format to get a high quality QT film from iMovie.
I may be missing something though. Smart solutions, anyone?

BTW, this has also been discussed
here.

[ 06-21-2001: Message edited by: jac ]

[Felix]

Jac, do you mean with "intermediate format", that you export the Movie UNCOMPRESSED from iMovie and encode it laterwards with QT Pro? Otherwise, what is a good setting for the intermediate format?

Thanks

Felix

[jac]

Yeah, sorry, I mean uncompressed.

[Thanar]

QuickTime 6 Preview is out, but still no sign of any deinterlacing feature build into QuickTime. Any newer ideas regarding exports?

[all_about_collaboration]

I also have experienced the same problem with QT. I have Canon Elura 10 and the video is progressive, but still get poor QT quality. I did buy Sorenson Pro 3 hoping that my problem will be solved only to find out that my 12-minute movie requires well over 800Mb to deliver the desired quality (640x480 @ 30fps). I have no idea how the movie trailers achieve that high quality and small size at the same time.

[Red Wolf]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Originally posted by all_about_collaboration:
<strong>I have no idea how the movie trailers achieve that high quality and small size at the same time.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">They use a lot more expensive equipment and software than most of us will ever see.

Try <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=3013&db=mac" target="_blank">Movie2MPEG</a> . It's freeware and not as easy as iMovie exporting but you can adjust the data rates and size of the output video and hopefully you'll get a file of good quality and size in MPEG-1 format that any computer can read.

[nitram_at_work]

I forgot about MPEG1. If you have Toast 5 (full version) export to Toast VCD and it will create an MPEG file. The quality's pretty good. Might still be a bit large to put on the web though

[crazycylon]

Have you tried the following settings?
Video
W 320 pixels, H 240 pixels
Compressor- Sorenson
frame rate 30, key every 300 frames
Limit data rate to 80 kBytes/second

Audio
Compressor=QDesign Music 2
rate 44.1 kHz, size 16 bit, Use stereo.

These were the iMove Expert QuickTime settings recommended by DV creators for Best quality, longer download for DSL /Cable modem.

<a href="http://www.dvcreators.net" target="_blank">www.dvcreators.net</a>

[eerie eric]

When you export to Quicktime using Adobe Premiere 6.0 does the same thing happen?

If so, how should I save my timeline?