[J.W. Pepper]

I have an iMac DV+ G3 450.

It takes 7 hours to export one hour of iMovie footage using to QuickTime/Toast Video CD (Pal).

PLease post comparrisons from other machines so that I can judge the benifit of upgrading.

I'd like to know from anyone with a DP G4 some back to back tests with 9.2.1 and OS X 10.1

Thanks.

[lenz]

7 hours? that's pretty good actually. It used to take days

[J.W. Pepper]

My mistake 7 hours for 25 minutes, i.e. 16.5hours per hour of video.

So how long would it take using a 733, or a DP 800 or a DP 800 under OS X?

[Cipher13]

6 hrs 35 minutes on my G4 400 using Media Cleaner 5 exporting 13 minutes and 58 seconds of 720*576 digital video (2.8 gigs worth in Final Cut Pro movie format) to MPEG1 VCD compatible with audio + video.

Compressed to just over 100 megs. Awesome.

[J.W. Pepper]

Hang on a minute, that is slower than my iMac. I have just exported 26 minutes of DV to quicktime and then to Toast 5, and burnt a VCD and it took about seven hours. I have a DV+ 450-G3.

Why is your machine slower is it Media cleaner?

[pfwilson]

Is the quality of the compression better in Media Cleaner than the plugin for iMovie that comes with Toast 5. Cos the quality I've got out of the VCD burning from Toast has been V. poor, and I've been looking for a way to produce a more professional output from iMovie. I'm waiting for FCP to be delivered OK.....

I've got an amateur video competition in a few weeks and this is the first time a Mac has been used for the editing so I really want to show those windoze guys a thing or two.

[J.W. Pepper]

I agree the quality is terrible. I just bought Toast 5 just to burn VCD's and feel a little cheated as 4.13 was ok for everything else.

If anyone can give clear instructions on how to squeeze VHS quailty onto VCD please, please post the instructions.

[Demonhood]

to get a real sense of compression, we'd need to compress the same file.

from what i hear, Toast is quite terrible at making VCDs. i think there have been some threads about that in here, but i can't remember. i don't make any myself.

[J.W. Pepper]

If Toast is so bad, how can I encode near to commercial quality?

[Cipher13]

*sigh*

The MPEG1 I exported was soundless - I forgot to add the audio channels. Oops!

I re encoded with the same settings, WITH sound, and it took only 5 hours... from 2.88 gigs, PAL DV resolution (what, 720*576, I think?) to 130 megs.

I did it on the "Slower - higher quality" setting, with standard PAL VCD resolution, quality, and so forth.

The quality is good, but I hate any loss of quality, so it still gets to me. I'm trying out a freeware encoder as we speak - I'll tell ya how that one goes. Should be interesting, I think...

[dhi]

I've been struggling with some encoding issues perhaps you guys could help with....

I use a Sony PC110E PAL DV camera - and it has the neat feature of giving you the choice of saving movies to DV tape or to the memory stick - unless I make a mistake I always save to tape.

So I made a mistake and recorded a short (20secs) movie to the memory stick. Now the issue is that when I load the mpeg into QuickTime Pro I can play it with sound - but when I export it as DV to iMovie for editing and use in other projects I get NO sound.

What am I getting wrong here? Is it that there is some sound option I'm missing? Is there a way to import the mpeg direct into iMovie?

Cheers

[Cipher13]

Are you exporting as a "Self Contained Movie" with DEFAULT options for a DV Stream? (that is, the correct audio settings)

[dhi]

Ah - problem here.

Using the Export option from the File menu in QuickTime Pro I choose the Movie to DV Stream option..... if I set the "use" popup to default I get the format set to NTSC - and it was filmed in PAL and iMovie then creates an error - so I set the "Options" to PAL 32 kHz.

This doesn't work.

The self contained option you meantioned isn't in the export menu item - but in the "saveas" item.... but as this is an mpeg the self contained option is greyed out.... so can't do that.

The only export I managed was to save it as a Hinted Stream MOV - I chose the self contained on default settings - but this doesn't get me into iMovie - but it does get me to a QuickTime Movie with sound.

Oh well. When i convert this Hinted Movie file to DV stream and import into iMovie the sound goes again. Sigh

Perhaps this is a job for Final Cut Pro..... Thanks for the advice I'll keep at it- it's a nice sequence.....

David

PS Oceania? AU / NZ confused ?

[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: dhi ]

[kidtexas]

Try to export it as a DV stream 48kHz. That always worked for me when trying to bring footage into iMovie.

The only time I ever tried Cleaner 5 for a VCD, I found that the resulting footage wasn't compatible with Toast. Was I doing something wrong? thanks.

[Chuck_star]

hey dhi.
Sounds like your Mpeg is hidding the audio. Neither imovie or FCP can see the track cause its a mixed track. You could split the track using "bbDemux". Then import audio and video separately into FCP. Check at www.versiontracker.com

[dhi]

Chuck_star - looks like this is going to do the trick..... now to get hold of Final Cut Pro.... bbDEMUX worked great...

Thanks guys - I knew you could help