Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What Settings To Export Video in iMovie

S

status56

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 4, 2014
3
0
I need to export to a file and then later put the video in iDVD to burn the movie. My question is: What is the smallest size i can export the movie and still have the highest standard quality you can get on a regular DVD? I currently choose export then LARGE (960 x 540). Would export then MEDIUM (640 x 360) loose any quality and be pixelated on a DVD? Also if choosing export using quicktime would be better, what settings should I use to get the smallest possible at the highest quality a DVD can handle? I am going to have a lot of video and don't want to run out of space.

BTW I am running 10.8.5 on a mid 2011 Macbook Air 13" and iMovie'11
 
S

sjschall

macrumors newbie
Dec 4, 2013
29
0
The video file must be MPEG2 to burn to a DVD. If you export anything else, then your DVD burning software (Toast, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, etc) will convert it to MPEG2 before it writes the DVD.

To have the most control over the quality, I've found that it's best to export the video from your editing software straight to MPEG2 and choose your bit-rate manually, but this may require software you don't have. I use Compressor. I don't recall how much control you have over exports from iMovie.

What is the overall length of video you want to put on a DVD? I think a standard single-layer DVD will hold 90 minutes of footage at maximum quality/bit-rate.
 
S

status56

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 4, 2014
3
0
Thanks for the replies. I don't know the length of the video yet. I will have picture slideshows and several videos on the one disc. I am documenting my daughters cheer team and we still have to go to Disney, so I don't have all of the pictures and videos yet.
So does burning a video DVD depend on the length of video and not so much the size of the files being burned?
Thanks for the MPEG2 info. I really didn't realize it did that.
I do have Handbrake. I guess I could convert it to MPEG2 with that. I would have no idea of all the other settings in Handbrake though.
Thanks again for the info.
 
S

sjschall

macrumors newbie
Dec 4, 2013
29
0
Some DVD burning software will take the entire video, no matter the size/length, and compress it until it fits onto a DVD. Toast does this I believe. So if you give it a 10GB file, it will shrink it down to 4.7GB to make it fit, resulting in some sort of quality loss. Other programs (not sure about iDVD) will just give you a message saying it won't fit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom