iDVD 7 creates unacceptable DVDs

I noticed that when creating a DVD using iDVD, version 7, after first creating an HD iMovie, the results on the DVD (in the T.V.) are awful. There are huge video artifacts. In some cases, a white line on a table is a broken up black and white hash pattern. This checkerboard pattern is not noticeable on an iMovie-created .MOV file.

It appears that iDVD isn't HD capable as the content is stretched.

The most obvious problem is the image degradation from iMovie to the actual DVD.

I set iDVD to "Professional Quality", "NTSC", and 16:9. Tried both DVD+R and DVD-R (though I didn't really expect a difference here).

Can anyone recommend another DVD authoring program that works with the Mac that will work with HD and give better results?

iDVD 7 is very disappointing or perhaps I'm missing something basic?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

- M

mstrze said:

Well, the one thing I can point out is that any DVD authoring program will only give you 480 vertical lines of resolution, much less than your original source material so there is going to be artifacting/resolution issues when this DVD is played back on what I assume is an HDTV.

So, of course iDVD is not HD capable. DVDs are not HD.

Maybe redo your iMovie project but output it in SD if you can? (I haven't had a need to burn a DVD of HD material so I am not sure how this works). It seems to me that starting with an SD source would give you much better results rather than depending on iDVD to try to make sense of a format it cannot natively display.

Click to expand...

Thanks for this terrific reply.

As you can see, I'm just a novice at video. I think you saved me from buying Final Cut Pro to see it that would "help".

- M