[Since EBCDIC]

I've created an anti-aliased title 640x480 .jpg which I'm importing into iMovie 4.0.1 via iPhoto.

The result, when exported to full-quality DV, is terrible. It looks like a howler monkey with a crayon did the title.

What am I doing wrong? I was expecting to see a crisp title. Help!

[Powaqqatsi]

Once you print it to video and look at it on TV it will be anti-aliased IIRC. That's one of the things that turned me off in iMovie. I use FCE now

[Since EBCDIC]

I'm wondering whether I'm mis-reading then. I understood that it looked good when (1) it's exported back to the camera and shown on TV or (2) exported to full DV and seen on the machine / web.

I'm exceedingly underwhelmed if this is the best title rendering for QuickTime full dv that iMovie can do; i.e. there are no tricks or tips.

Grrrrr.

[Old Toad]

Originally posted by Since EBCDIC:
there are no tricks or tips.

FWIW here are some tips from one of the iMovie gurus, Karl Peterson:

Karl Peterson�s Recommendations for Higher Quality Stills in iMovie

To get started, here's an overview of key factors affecting image quality. To maximize still image quality in iMovie 4.0, try this:

1. In iMovie preferences (playback quality section) turn on both "High quality (better image)" AND "Enhanced video playback". Otherwise the movie iMovie sends to iDVD is not best quality.

2. The minimum image size is 640x480 for NTSC (768x576 for PAL), but anything larger should be okay.

If you plan to zoom in with the Ken Burns Effect, increase the minimum size accordingly. If doing a 2x zoom in Ken Burns, double the size. If doing a 3x zoom, triple the size. (You want to avoid Ken Burns upsampling the image.)

3. For image quality on the DVD, force the Ken Burns Effect to render your still while importing. For rendering to occur, you must configure Ken Burns to create an animated zoom or pan.

To force rendering, do this:
a. Turn on the Ken Burns Effect.
b. To discard (any) previous pan, press the Start button and drag the zoom thumb all the way left, then press the Finish button and drag the zoom thumb all the way left.
c. Click the Start button. Wait for any animation to finish. Drag the zoom thumb to 1.02. (Do not type in the box.)
d. Click the Finish button. Drag the zoom thumb to 1.00.
e. Drag the Duration thumb to 10 seconds. (Which may be more than you usually need, but start there.)
f. Press the Apply button or drag the image to the timeline.
g. After the clip is rendered, trim off the last second (or more, if it's not needed). That's where all the zoom is. What's left is a very high quality "still" clip of your image.

If you add transitions, trimming may be unnecessary. The transition may hide the zoom.

Note: after applying this settings to a clip, clicking on that clip will cause KB to adopt these settings for the next import.

4. Set iDVD preferences to burn the DVD at best quality.

EXPLANATION

iMovie will offer to render UNrendered stills when you click the "Create iDVD Project" button. That's when iMovie renders a very low quality clip, containing lots of jaggies. That's NOT what you want for your DVD. Instead, you want a clip rendered by the Ken Burns Effect, which has great clarity.

Note that Ken Burns does NOT render a still when:
a. Ken Burns Effect is turned OFF; or
b. Ken Burns Effect is turned ON but there is no animated zoom or animated pan. That's why we apply a small zoom.

Using a small zoom-out animation causes Ken Burns to put all the zoom at the end, where it can be trimmed off.
Stills rendered after clicking the "Create iDVD Project" button cannot be improved. Re-import using the method described above.

Hope this has been of some help. Good luck.

[nickm]

God, what happened to Apple's consumer apps division? iTunes and iMovie 1-2 were decent apps. Somewhere along the line they decided to go to Cocoa and the results have been a disaster. iCal 1.0 was crap. Even in it's latest release iPhoto has major usability and performance issues. iMovie 3.0 was a disaster, slower and more buggy than iPhoto 2. Now there is crap like this.

Apple can turn out some great software (e.g. Safari) but their consumer apps lately have been distinctly sub-par. Lots of sizzle but buggy steak.

[macintologist]

The reason it looks bad is because iMovie is converting it to TV quality. That's how good the pics will look when you see it on your TV.

I think it's called interlacing or something, but that's what's happening to your stills.

If you have Photoshop try this to see what I mean:

Import your still into photoshop
In the filters menu, go to the Video submenu and select De-interlace (I think) and you'll see the exact same quality reduction.

[Since EBCDIC]

I don't have the enhanced playback option available to me. ??

The imported image (I've tried both .jpg and .tif) still appears terribly jaggy when I export to full-quality dv. Disappointing.

Someone tell me there's a way to import a 640x480 still image and not have it be completely munged? This is going to make this project look like crap. Is this how Apple herds folks into using Final Cut? (I hear there's a FC Express coming out now/soon, but I'm happy with iMovie 'ceptin' this.)

[Powaqqatsi]

When you open the DV file with Quicktime Player hit Command-J then select "video track" in the left menu in the new window. Then select "Quality" and check the checkbox "High Quality ON". (I don't know the exact terms used when you use OSX in English since mine is set to Dutch. But this should fix you quality issues you're seeing.

[Macrat]

You need to create your image at 720x540, not 640x480. The NTSC standard is 720x486 (with the squished rectangular pixels that TV's use), but original graphics/video need to be created using 720x540 (square pixels) before getting squished. iMovie will probably be able to handle the x540 and squish it itself, but you might have to squish it beforehand.

[Since EBCDIC]

That's very funny to hear. The manuals say otherwise, repeatedly.

Everywhere I've seen (incl. the O'Reilly books) they say 640x480 for NTSC and 768x576 for PAL. SECAM users can't use iMovie.

[Macrat]

I'm sorry to say those manuals are dead wrong then. If you are into doing dvd's the size for those is 720x480, where the x486 is cropped 6 pixels for whatever reason. At least in the dvd world PAL is 720x576 (final squished size) as well, I'm sure its the same as broadcast.