Is iDVD really this poor?

[Chuck]

I was really excited about getting my new PB17 as I've got almost 80GB of home movies that I wanted to get onto some DVDs. Apart from the fact that opening iMovie 2 files in iMovie 3 does some very strange things to the sequences, I have found that the quality of the DVD produced is more like a compressed looking Quicktime movie.

I know I MUST be doing something wrong, because I get perfect quality when I export back to DV tape and then record it onto a VHS video tape, and surely this shouldn't be of better quality than a DVD...

I've tried doing the old iMovie 2 method: export the movie to Quicktime > "Full quality DV" and then place this into an iDVD project... I get poor results.

I've tried doing the new iMovie 3 method: open the project, click on iDVD > "Create iDVD project"... I get poor results.

I've even tried doing the "expert settings" in the export method from iMovie 2, not that I'm an expert, and I don't get a decent job there either.

Anyone? Has anyone at all had this problem and overcome it? My results are a jagged, compressed looking picture quality which is most noticeable in titles as there's a lot of contrast between letters and the black background.

I'd LOOOOOOVVVVE some help here.

Thanks,
Chuck.

[RBMaraman]

Does it look bad when you burn the DVD and play it through a TV, or does it just look bad when you view the project on the PowerBook?

When you view a movie on your computer, everything looks really choppy and horrible. But, once you export back to tape or burn to DVD, the picture quality is perfect.

Whenever I work on a project on my computer and show it to people, they say how horrible it looks. But, once I present the final project on tape or DVD, they can't believe how much the quality of the video had improved.

[Lz0]

Try the video standard. NSTC or PAL.

[Chuck]

Originally posted by RBMaraman
Does it look bad when you burn the DVD and play it through a TV, or does it just look bad when you view the project on the PowerBook?

When you view a movie on your computer, everything looks really choppy and horrible. But, once you export back to tape or burn to DVD, the picture quality is perfect.

Whenever I work on a project on my computer and show it to people, they say how horrible it looks. But, once I present the final project on tape or DVD, they can't believe how much the quality of the video had improved.

Yeah, when I view projects that are still yet to be exported, they certainly do look poor, and when I export to DV tape and then VHS, like you said, it looks perfect... But the same isn't true for DVDs. It basically stays at the same poor quality that it looked like when it was a project in iMovie.

I got on the phone to the Applecare guy and he actually hadn't used iMovie or iDVD much and didn't even suggest transferring me to someone who had. He just said do more trial DVDs, but I have already wasted two DVDs and haven't had any progress.

: (

Any more ideas?

Chuck.

PS Would the NTSC/PAL thing really make much difference to the compression?

[dabirdwell]

Does it have to do with the length of the movie? Isn't iDVD limited to an hour? I tried a project at about an hour and a half with my former 12" PowerBook and had all kinds of quality and functionality problems.

[Chuck]

Hmmm... No, the movies I tried were pretty short.

Chuck.

[Chuck]

So you guys really do get faultless quality on your DVDs? It's comforting that it does actually work, but I just wish I could work out how to get it to be nice to me!

Chuck.

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by Chuck
So you guys really do get faultless quality on your DVDs? It's comforting that it does actually work, but I just wish I could work out how to get it to be nice to me!


maybe bring it in to an apple store?

i have certainly not made dvds that are *bad* quality... i'm not sure the ntsc vs pal would make much difference... at least not enough that one's acceptable and one's not...

keep pushing apple about it if possible.

[LethalWolfe]

1. How long are your movies? iDVD supports up to 90 minutes, but at a higher compressin rate than a 60 minute or less project. Long story short keep you movies to 60min or less (including any motion backgrounds on the DVD menu) for best compression.

2. Hit Apple's iDVD forum for help. I've always been very pleased w/my results from iDVD.

Also keep in mind that going from DV->DVD will always result in image degradation because DVDs are only about 1/4 the res of miniDV.


Lethal

[vollspacken]

Originally posted by Chuck
I was really excited about getting my new PB17 as I've got almost 80GB of home movies that I wanted to get onto some DVDs. Apart from the fact that opening iMovie 2 files in iMovie 3 does some very strange things to the sequences, I have found that the quality of the DVD produced is more like a compressed looking Quicktime movie.

I've tried doing the old iMovie 2 method: export the movie to Quicktime > "Full quality DV" and then place this into an iDVD project... I get poor results.

Anyone? Has anyone at all had this problem and overcome it? My results are a jagged, compressed looking picture quality which is most noticeable in titles as there's a lot of contrast between letters and the black background.

hi,

this is what I did when iMovie3 messed up my movie2 projects:

- install iMovie2
- install iDvd2

edit your movies
put your dvd together

when you are done with your old footage (burned the DVDs...), update iMovie and iDVD and use the updated versions for new projects.

o.k., I know most people don't like to use "outdated" software, but nothing else worked when I had that problem (I still stick with iMovie - because it's fast...) and you can still update AFTER you put the stuff on DVD

my 2c (EUR;) )
vSpacken

[DVDSP]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Also keep in mind that going from DV->DVD will always result in image degradation because DVDs are only about 1/4 the res of miniDV.

I don't think the resolution is any different. My DV Camera captures at 720 x 480 and the NTSC DVD spec for video is also 720 x 480. However, what you need to keep in mind is that miniDV is not a lossless quality format, compression is introduced in the camera. Then you add another level of compression when you encode to MPEG. This is where image degradation occurs.

Certainly consumer DV formats are not the highest quality, although much better than VHS. In fact, it is highly recommended that you DO NOT use miniDV for DVD output.

Don't get me wrong, though, I do it all the time and am completely satisfied with the results.

[guitpicker]

I have worked with Final Cut Pro 3 and DVD Studio Pro 1.5 on OS X, and strangly, I've had similar problems when I try to burn an exported Quicktime movie. Looks great on a Computer screen, but wretched on a TV screen. The solution: I exported to a Final Cut Pro movie file, and imported that into DVDSP. The result was perfect.

My suggestion: Can iDVD import straight from an iMovie file? If so, you might be able to skip unnecessary conversions, thereby preserving the quality.

(Bear in mind, I have NO experience with iDVD.)

[hacurio1]

Originally posted by Chuck
I was really excited about getting my new PB17 as I've got almost 80GB of home movies that I wanted to get onto some DVDs. Apart from the fact that opening iMovie 2 files in iMovie 3 does some very strange things to the sequences, I have found that the quality of the DVD produced is more like a compressed looking Quicktime movie.

I know I MUST be doing something wrong, because I get perfect quality when I export back to DV tape and then record it onto a VHS video tape, and surely this shouldn't be of better quality than a DVD...

I've tried doing the old iMovie 2 method: export the movie to Quicktime > "Full quality DV" and then place this into an iDVD project... I get poor results.

I've tried doing the new iMovie 3 method: open the project, click on iDVD > "Create iDVD project"... I get poor results.

I've even tried doing the "expert settings" in the export method from iMovie 2, not that I'm an expert, and I don't get a decent job there either.

Anyone? Has anyone at all had this problem and overcome it? My results are a jagged, compressed looking picture quality which is most noticeable in titles as there's a lot of contrast between letters and the black background.

I'd LOOOOOOVVVVE some help here.

Thanks,
Chuck.

Chuck, I haven't used Idvd, but as far as i know you must always compres to Mpeg2 in order to put something in DVD.....I'll do some reserch and I'll get back

[DVDSP]

Originally posted by hacurio1
Chuck, I haven't used Idvd, but as far as i know you must always compres to Mpeg2 in order to put something in DVD.....I'll do some reserch and I'll get back

Yes, you must always use MPEG-2 for DVD spec compliance. But, iDVD performs the compression for you in the background after you import your files.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by DVDSP
I don't think the resolution is any different. My DV Camera captures at 720 x 480 and the NTSC DVD spec for video is also 720 x 480. However, what you need to keep in mind is that miniDV is not a lossless quality format, compression is introduced in the camera. Then you add another level of compression when you encode to MPEG. This is where image degradation occurs.

Certainly consumer DV formats are not the highest quality, although much better than VHS. In fact, it is highly recommended that you DO NOT use miniDV for DVD output.

Don't get me wrong, though, I do it all the time and am completely satisfied with the results.


I wasn't very clear. I didn't mean "res" as in the size of the image, I meant "res" as in picture quality. DV is about 4x (usually more) the data rate of DVD. MiniDV, as a format, rivals BetaSP (the standard for Broadcast video) in image quality, but obviously a $500 consumer MiniDV camera isn't going to utilize the potential of the format. Speaking in generalities going from DV to DVD is perfectly fine.


Lethal

[DVDSP]

First off, Chuck, it is VERY unlikely that your problem is related to your computer itself. More likely is that you are making a mistake in your process somewhere. Double check all of your settings for capture and render and the like. If they don't all jive you can be running into trouble mixing formats, frame rates, data rates, etc.

Originally posted by Chuck
Would the NTSC/PAL thing really make much difference to the compression?
The technical reason that DV should be spurned for DVD work applies only to NTSC DV.

The color sampling geometry for NTSC DV clashes with the color sampling geometry of MPEG 2 for DVD. PAL DV has the same color sampling as DVD video and is therefore a much better choice (particularly if you have a PAL Progressive DV camera). Don't forget though, that PAL is incompatible with NTSC (it's a European format).

The reason for this is that both use one color sample for four luma samples. For NTSC DV that color sample represents four luma samples on the same line. For PAL DV and DVD it represents a 2x2 square of pixels on two adjacent lines.

The problem arises when you try to convert one to the other. A simple (and common) implemetation will result in an effective rate of one color sample per 8 luma samples, because two adjacent 2x2 squares of MPEG video will end up with the same color value.

This color sampling clash is what makes colored text look so ragged when converted from NTSC DV to DVD. The effect is less prominent with normal video but still apparent as a significant loss of quality.

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
MiniDV, as a format, rivals BetaSP (the standard for Broadcast video) in image quality, but obviously a $500 consumer MiniDV camera isn't going to utilize the potential of the format.

Actually, DV (not MiniDV) rivals Beta SP, but that is a dying format. These days the high end is DigiBeta and that is what most broadcast video is shot on. Also keep in mind that many low cost MiniDV cams use a single CCD, dropping quality even further.

Speaking in generalities going from DV to DVD is perfectly fine.

I agree. As I stated earlier I do it all the time. But, notice the artifacts that are introduced by DV, they will only become more pronounced when you compress to MPEG-2. If you start with a cleaner source you will have a cleaner result.

DV is about 4x (usually more) the data rate of DVD.

DV = about 38 Mbps

DVD = anywhere from 3 Mbps to 9 Mbps depending on the encoder.

A high quality encoder (which the QT encoder isn't) can produce remarkable results at a low bit rate. I have seen DVDs encoded at 4 Mbps that blow away QT encoded vide at 8 Mbps.

If you are serious about quality, spend a little extra cash on a good encoder. It's worth it.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by DVDSP
Actually, DV (not MiniDV) rivals Beta SP, but that is a dying format. These days the high end is DigiBeta and that is what most broadcast video is shot on. Also keep in mind that many low cost MiniDV cams use a single CCD, dropping quality even further.

The "Mini" in MiniDV refers to the physical size of the tape. A DV tape (full sized) and a MiniDV tape are capible of the same picture quality but the Mini maxes out at 60min where the DV can hold 2 or 3hrs in SP mode. Of course there is Panasonic's DVCPro50 but that's a propriatary format w/2x the data rate of DV and DVCAM, IIRC. Adam Wilt wrote an article in '95 (minor updates in '98) comparing DV and BetaSP. He pretty much found both formats were about equal if pro quality cameras and lenses were used to capture the images. Link (http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-Beta.html)

DigiBeta is currently the high end of SD video but it has not replaced SP except as a mastering format. In the past 8 months I've run into a lot of shooters (freelance and staff, domestic, international, and local) and no one was using Digi. Hard cameras usually fed both SP and Digi decks but that was the only Digi sightings I ever had on the production side of things.


Lethal

[Chuck]

Originally posted by vollspacken
hi,

this is what I did when iMovie3 messed up my movie2 projects:

- install iMovie2
- install iDvd2

edit your movies
put your dvd together

when you are done with your old footage (burned the DVDs...), update iMovie and iDVD and use the updated versions for new projects.

o.k., I know most people don't like to use "outdated" software, but nothing else worked when I had that problem (I still stick with iMovie - because it's fast...) and you can still update AFTER you put the stuff on DVD

my 2c (EUR;) )
vSpacken

Hey vollspacken, How did you install iMovie 2? I tried copying it from my old iMac to this powerbook and then opening it and it tells me that Classic doesn't support this application...

Chuck.

[Chuck]

Hmmm... Well guys I've tried everything and it looks as though iDVD is actually this poor. I've had a chat with a mate who does home movies etc and he said that he found the same thing exactly. Exporting to miniDV and then recording onto VHS is markedly better quality than doing a DVD.

What can I say. What a disappointment. I was really hoping for at least good encoding from Apple, even though it's not Final Cut Pro. And I was pretty surprised that this quality is okay by the majority.

:(

Looks like I'll be doing VHS tapes.

Chuck.

[amnesiac1984]

Originally posted by Chuck
Hmmm... Well guys I've tried everything and it looks as though iDVD is actually this poor. I've had a chat with a mate who does home movies etc and he said that he found the same thing exactly. Exporting to miniDV and then recording onto VHS is markedly better quality than doing a DVD.

What can I say. What a disappointment. I was really hoping for at least good encoding from Apple, even though it's not Final Cut Pro. And I was pretty surprised that this quality is okay by the majority.

:(

Looks like I'll be doing VHS tapes.

Chuck.

I wouldn't give up so easily. When you have some new footage, try creating a new prject in iMovie 3 and see if that solves your quality issues. Also the reason it wants to start iMovie 2 in classic form your old mac is probably that its from an OS 9 version of iMovie. You can probably download iMovie 2 from apple somewhere. I think you should really try this as it looked like it did work for the other poster. I guess iMovie 2 projects are not enitrely compatible with iMovie 3.

I've watched some of my friends iDVD projects and really can't see the lack of quality you describe.

[mmmdreg]

hmm. I imported some VHS stuff and made a movie. The first dvd died halfway cos sleep turned on (? I read that in some other thread) and the second time it was fine but..
..the quality is nothing to rejoice about really. It's worse than it looked in iMovie even. The only issue that I can think of was the fact that the VHS was PAL and I imported as that but the iDVD project decided to be NTSC as that was the default. Does the conversion affect it?

[Schiffi]

Actually the quality issue is with Apple's DVD player. Play any DVD that has TV episodes on it, it usually plays bad. Film movies play alright, because they were shot using extremely expensive cameras and edited on expensive editing machines. Oh well, iDVD movies always look better than VHS on TV.

[vollspacken]

Originally posted by Chuck
Hey vollspacken, How did you install iMovie 2? I tried copying it from my old iMac to this powerbook and then opening it and it tells me that Classic doesn't support this application...

Chuck.

I installed Jaguar on an external firewire HD, deleted iMovie3 from my system (do a search to get rid of prefs and stuff), and simply copied all iMovie2 files to the places where the iM3 files had been...

runs fine

oh, I'm still using iMovie2 and I won't update until I'll do the clean install of Panther...

vSpacken

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by mmmdreg
hmm. I imported some VHS stuff and made a movie. The first dvd died halfway cos sleep turned on (? I read that in some other thread) and the second time it was fine but..
..the quality is nothing to rejoice about really. It's worse than it looked in iMovie even. The only issue that I can think of was the fact that the VHS was PAL and I imported as that but the iDVD project decided to be NTSC as that was the default. Does the conversion affect it?

I think the problem is the fact that it's VHS source footage. At the very best final DVD will look no worse than the orginal VHS tape. But considering the VHS tape is going thr2 digital compressions (VHS-->DV-->DVD) it would surprise me if artifacts and such started poping up. Also, the quality of the DVD will always look worse than what's in iMovie because DV has about 4x the datea rate of a DVD. Also, how long was the DVD you made?


Lethal

[nuckinfutz]

I'd love to hear the results on you taking your footage and getting ahold of Compressor from Final Cut Pro to encode to MPEG2.

I hear Compressor is MUCH better(of course it's in a $1000 app) than Apples Encoder in iDVD. This definitely sounds like part of the problem. Do you have any friends that have FCP4 or are getting it. I think we'd all like to know your results.

[mnkeybsness]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
I think the problem is the fact that it's VHS source footage. At the very best final DVD will look no worse than the orginal VHS tape.

this is exactly your problem. taking VHS->DV->DVD will run down the quality. every time the format is changed or the footage goes through compression, you will lose quality. it's as simple as that.

[Slammy]

If its any consolation, I have the same issues, and I too think it has to do with compression. In iMovie, my 5 minute video looks great. After burning to dvd with iDVD, there are real problems: Slow motion portions get jaggy and each frame isn't distinct. Lettering on signs look, again, jaggy and not clear. The fact that they are compressing my 5 minute video at the same rate they would do for a 60 minute video can't help. In theory, I could get by with 1/12th the compression, and I suspect that it would make the final product look really good. I wish that there was a way of setting the rate to the maximum possible given the total amount to be written on the disk. I suppose that is where "pro" products come in.

[mymemory]

It is not the software or the system.

The problem is that Quicktime reproduce DV format in a very crappy way, but that is only if you see the movie in the computer, when you play back the DV video it will look perfect.

That is a very strange problem QT have when playing back DV codec, it looks like a very cheao Cinepac compression.

When I started to work with DV codec in Mac I realize that too until a few month later some one told me about it.

The video is fine, if you want to lay the video witha very good quality in your computer use JPEG B or something like that, but that crappy looking of DV is "ok" for some reason. The play back will always be Pro quality.

[Chuck]

I found out my problem a few months ago actually... It was just that iMovie was using PAL and iDVD was still set to NTSC.

As soon as I changed to PAL in iDVD my DVDs came out perfect where they were wretched before. (I wasted about 12 DVDs to find out this simple fix).

Chuck.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by mymemory
It is not the software or the system.

The problem is that Quicktime reproduce DV format in a very crappy way, but that is only if you see the movie in the computer, when you play back the DV video it will look perfect.

That is a very strange problem QT have when playing back DV codec, it looks like a very cheao Cinepac compression.

When I started to work with DV codec in Mac I realize that too until a few month later some one told me about it.

The video is fine, if you want to lay the video witha very good quality in your computer use JPEG B or something like that, but that crappy looking of DV is "ok" for some reason. The play back will always be Pro quality.


I thought I read somewhere that QT based apps will lower the res of the movie to avoid dropping frames if the computer isn't able to playback the video smoothly. If I'm mistaken and that is not the case then the problem you have w/QT video is something specific to your machine(s). I've never seen poor QT playback on properly working machines unless they just didn't have the horsepower to playback the video smoothly.


Lethal

[mymemory]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
I thought I read somewhere that QT based apps will lower the res of the movie to avoid dropping frames if the computer isn't able to playback the video smoothly. If I'm mistaken and that is not the case then the problem you have w/QT video is something specific to your machine(s). I've never seen poor QT playback on properly working machines unless they just didn't have the horsepower to playback the video smoothly.


Lethal

This happen only with the DV codec, no matter if is 320x240 at 15 frames, in the computer it is going to look like crap. If you opend iDVD or iMovie the clips are gonna lok ok, but some times if you leave the software and go back they may look crappy, but that is only in the computer, the output still fine.

I'm telling you this because I'm a VJ and I work and test every single codec in every single way. It is strange that Apple never mention that but there have been some discissions about it a long time ago.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by mymemory
This happen only with the DV codec, no matter if is 320x240 at 15 frames, in the computer it is going to look like crap. If you opend iDVD or iMovie the clips are gonna lok ok, but some times if you leave the software and go back they may look crappy, but that is only in the computer, the output still fine.

I'm telling you this because I'm a VJ and I work and test every single codec in every single way. It is strange that Apple never mention that but there have been some discissions about it a long time ago.


Like I said in my previous post I've read that FCP and iMovie will, to a point, reduce the quality of the video to ensure smooth playback. I'm not familair w/the "problem" you are talking about and I edit DV on a daily basis. but the machines I use are newer and/or have 3rd party hardware to boost performance. Maybe the DV footage is doing this because you are running older Macs?


Lethal

[Sol]

I think the original poster gave us too little information about his project and he seemed a bit too eager to blame everything on iDVD.

If he was starting with television reception then how good was his antenna? After that he went to VHS which was probably a consumer model recorder and a consumer-grade tape. Then he went to DV, which could be a camera acting as a converter, Mini DV tape recorded in the camera or a dedicated DV converter. Then he edited in iMovie but I am not sure how he exported; if he saved the movie for iDVD (producing a .MOV file) then that would be one less generation loss but if he exported a .DV file then that is one more generation loss. THEN, he encoded MPEG2 in iDVD but again we are not sure if the overall footage was less than 60 minutes (best quality) or between 60 and 90 minutes (Variable Bit Rate quality).

Now here is the (potentially) silly part: was he using the same video standard in all these applications? If he is in America, he should have been setting the iMovie and iDVD projects to the NTSC video standard. If he is in Australia or the UK he should be using the PAL standard. If he mixed up these settings then the mystery of the crappy video is solved, as the conversion can result in unpredictable colours and glitchy motion in the final video.

If he viewed the DVDs on his computer screen the compression would be more obvious than the same DVD on a television screen. This is because television screens have limited colour capabilities when compared with computer monitors. Computer monitors also make the interlacing found in .DV video and MPEG2 more blatant than a television.

Finally, let me point out that although by default QuickTime displays .DV video in a low-quality mode, you can force it to play back in high quality by pressing Command-J and selecting Video Track, High Quality and clicking on the High Quality Enabled check-box.

[benixau]

can someone tell me then this ...

if i use FCP to do my project (capture -> .m2v export) will i get better quality from a miniDV camera then if i use iMovie?

Also - what is DVCAM?
How do I improve the quality of my titles like you see on hollywood movies? They are supposedly using FCP .....

BTW - I have a 17" (16.1" viewable) Sony CRT running at 1280x1024.

If I run QT at full screen without High Quality set will i get a result like a TV - I am povo right now and can not afford the better gear. I am using FCP4 though ....

[mymemory]

if i use FCP to do my project (capture -> .m2v export) will i get better quality from a miniDV camera then if i use iMovie?

R: No, you get the same thing.

Also - what is DVCAM?

R: Another storage tape format, it is a tape bigger than miniDV, the codec is the same.

How do I improve the quality of my titles like you see on hollywood movies? They are supposedly using FCP .....

R: They have filters, they use another kind of cameras (film) and they use very expensive video output cards as well as recording devices.

BTW - I have a 17" (16.1" viewable) Sony CRT running at 1280x1024.

If I run QT at full screen without High Quality set will i get a result like a TV - I am povo right now and can not afford the better gear. I am using FCP4 though ....

R: Depends on the codec and the amount of video ram you have. The best choice is to get even a use Sony DVMC-DA 1 (or 2) converter to output the video via firewire to a TV at broadcast quality. The Sony cost about $100 used on eBay.
_____

About the DV codec FCP do skip frames depending on the computer, but I'm talking about playing the quicktime from the desktop in DV format.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by benixau
can someone tell me then this ...

if i use FCP to do my project (capture -> .m2v export) will i get better quality from a miniDV camera then if i use iMovie?

Also - what is DVCAM?
How do I improve the quality of my titles like you see on hollywood movies? They are supposedly using FCP .....

BTW - I have a 17" (16.1" viewable) Sony CRT running at 1280x1024.

If I run QT at full screen without High Quality set will i get a result like a TV - I am povo right now and can not afford the better gear. I am using FCP4 though ....

The quality of MiniDV is determined by how good of a camera you have. It doesn't matter what software you use MiniDV will look the same on brand new G5 w/FCP 4 or on an eMac w/iMovie.
And as long as you only transfer video via Firewire the quality will never degrade.

DVCAM is Sony's "pro" version of DV. The materials used to make the tapes is a bit higher quality and the format supports locked audio. The quality of the image captured is the same as MiniDV. DVCAM, like DV tapes, come in large tapes ("full sized") and small tapes ("mini").

You can improve the quality of your movies by shooting on 35mm film, then transfering to DigiBeta for you edit. ;) You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

I'm not sure what you are asking in your last question though.


Lethal


EDIT: Sol, there is no gen loss if you export your DV footage as a self-containd DV movie. The computer just makes an exact copy of the movie. The only way to get gen loss is if you add compression upon export (like going from DV to mpeg2) or if you use analog i/o to transfer the footage between your camera and your computer.

[Sol]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Sol, there is no gen loss if you export your DV footage as a self-containd DV movie. The computer just makes an exact copy of the movie. The only way to get gen loss is if you add compression upon export (like going from DV to mpeg2) or if you use analog i/o to transfer the footage between your camera and your computer.

There is no generation loss if you export from iMovie for iDVD because the application creates a self-contained movie of all the allready captured footage you used to edit. This is the same as creating a Final Cut Pro movie from that application. If however you export a .DV file the application re-renders the whole edit in that format.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by Sol
There is no generation loss if you export from iMovie for iDVD because the application creates a self-contained movie of all the allready captured footage you used to edit. This is the same as creating a Final Cut Pro movie from that application. If however you export a .DV file the application re-renders the whole edit in that format.

If you export "Project X" as an FCP movie and don't click "make self-contained" then it basically creates a ref movie that points to the source files (so no new media is actually created). If you click "make self-contained" then it actually creates new media which is an exact copy of the original media. If you have things in your project that need to be rendered(transistions, FX, ect.,) it will render them, but it will not add any more compression to the footage. Of course if you export it as a QT movie and use the DV-NTSC settings I'm sure more compression would be added, but exporting it as a FCP movie (assuming you don't lower the settings or anything) makes a 1:1 copy so there is no generation loss or added compression.


Lethal

[Chuck]

Originally posted by Sol
I think the original poster gave us too little information about his project and he seemed a bit too eager to blame everything on iDVD.

If he was starting with television reception then how good was his antenna? After that he went to VHS which was probably a consumer model recorder and a consumer-grade tape. Then he went to DV, which could be a camera acting as a converter, Mini DV tape recorded in the camera or a dedicated DV converter. Then he edited in iMovie but I am not sure how he exported; if he saved the movie for iDVD (producing a .MOV file) then that would be one less generation loss but if he exported a .DV file then that is one more generation loss. THEN, he encoded MPEG2 in iDVD but again we are not sure if the overall footage was less than 60 minutes (best quality) or between 60 and 90 minutes (Variable Bit Rate quality).

Now here is the (potentially) silly part: was he using the same video standard in all these applications? If he is in America, he should have been setting the iMovie and iDVD projects to the NTSC video standard. If he is in Australia or the UK he should be using the PAL standard. If he mixed up these settings then the mystery of the crappy video is solved, as the conversion can result in unpredictable colours and glitchy motion in the final video.

If he viewed the DVDs on his computer screen the compression would be more obvious than the same DVD on a television screen. This is because television screens have limited colour capabilities when compared with computer monitors. Computer monitors also make the interlacing found in .DV video and MPEG2 more blatant than a television.

Finally, let me point out that although by default QuickTime displays .DV video in a low-quality mode, you can force it to play back in high quality by pressing Command-J and selecting Video Track, High Quality and clicking on the High Quality Enabled check-box.

You might have missed it but I posted my success story a bit earlier. I never intended to blame iDVD but I had tried everything and wasted 12 DVDs with no luck. It took about 5 calls to Applecare to finally get someone who had even used iMovie and iDVD and could finally give me the solution to the problem.

I am HUGELY happy with the quality of iDVD now that I can see it was just a simple preference issue. I've since told my friend who had earlier resorted to just doing VHS tapes because of the same problem and now he's very happy too.

Chuck.