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limeyangler

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi, new(ish) here. Have recently bought an Imac 27". I make hundreds of fishing videos and have been learning how to edit with iMovie. I use a Gopro Hero 3 Black Edition. I have noticed that the original footage is crisp and clear HD, however as soon as i import a clip there is a visible loss of picture quality. With every effect added the quality deteriorates further, leaving some projects hard to even view. Any clues as to whats going on?

Like i say...original clips and pictures when imported from the camera to the desktop are awesome quality and the Imac's 2560 X 1440 screen resolution displays and plays clips and pics fine....i'm thinking its either faulty software (iMovie) or i need to tweek import settings......

Any clues as to where i can start?

Thanks in advance.

I posted a similar question on the Apple support community forum, so far no replies, however, there are many similar questions posted with no or ineffective solutions offered.
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
On this forum you will find people lamenting this situation for years going back. Like you, they did not understand that iMovie is a video editor, not a video player. Rendering presentation-quality video is resource-intensive. Those resources are devoted to editing video. iMovie's real-time preview is good enough to let you edit your video without consuming resources unnecessarily. Use a player app like QuickTime X to display your finished product.
 

limeyangler

macrumors newbie
Original poster
On this forum you will find people lamenting this situation for years going back. Like you, they did not understand that iMovie is a video editor, not a video player. Rendering presentation-quality video is resource-intensive. Those resources are devoted to editing video. iMovie's real-time preview is good enough to let you edit your video without consuming resources unnecessarily. Use a player app like QuickTime X to display your finished product.

You are right....i dont understand..surely a video editor should not degrade your original quality unless you intentionally wanted it to, especially when the only thing i have done is import the video and the quality suffers, I could understand if the quality suffered because as you say its using resources to do the ecditing work and not 'playback' the video.......but like i said the 'end' product is #$#@ too.
 

Ifti

macrumors 68040
Dec 14, 2010
3,901
2,396
UK
Apple have never addressed these issues, hence the reason why I moved to FCPX.
Its not a settings issue, Ive tried them all, its a flaw within iMovie itself. I used to get banding in shadows and dark areas after exporting - its all over the Apple forums as well. Triedall the different settings with the same issue.

I can import the same video in FCPX and it exports perfect quality.

From my research I found out it was to do with the AIC format iMovie uses when editing. The ProRes42 FCPX uses is MUCH better.
 
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