Advice...new guy here.

[Autokon]

Hi guys, long time follower...first time poster.

Essentially, I'm in need of some help and have decided to come here for that. For starters... I have a Macbook Pro, latest and greatest versions of everything. I also have about a three year old sony handy cam..uses those minidv tapes.

What I'm trying to do is this: We had a family member film our wedding two years ago and I'm looking to make this into a DVD to distribute for friends/family. What I've done is plugged the handy cam in and imported the entire video (60 mins) via fire wire. This then imported the entire thing as about 30 different clips as iMovie separated the clips individually as they were taken. I took all the clips and did a few edits and dragged them all up into the top area of iMovie. I then exported or "Shared" as iMovie calls it into the "Large" format to the media browser. Fine and dandy, simple to do. Now, I imported that single video into iDVD and created the titles/chapters and what not and burned it to DVD. The quality...kinda blurry. It wasnt distorted or anything, but it was a little blurry...almost compressed looking.

Ok, this is where I need help...what have I done wrong? Did I import from the camera incorrectly? Was I wrong for "sharing" it into the media browser? (default codec is h.264 isnt it?) Should I have exported via quicktime into a much BETTER codec with like...no compression?

Help?

Thanks guy!

 

[puckhead193]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8130/4.3.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I haven't used imovie in years but is there an option for idvd?

 

[aerius]

Captur Settings

The most important thing to check for is your capture setting. When you initialy captured the footage onto your computer what program did you use? Also do you remember what the capture settings were for that initial capture?

Also I would be curious to know if there was a setting for your export of Imovie to IDvd. If any of theses things are missed it can create a low quality video.
So to summarize.

1-Check for Capture settings of initial footage (Should be set to Dv25 or higher)
2-Check setting for your i Movie sequence (Should be same as capture settings)
3-Check Export settings (Iam not sure of the export settings for I movie but i think it should be pretty easy to select quality and such)

 

[LethalWolfe]

The quality...kinda blurry. It wasnt distorted or anything, but it was a little blurry...almost compressed looking.

Compared to the source footage it will look compressed because, well, you are compressing it.

If it looks god-awful in comparison then something might be wrong, but if it just looks a little compressed then most likely all you are seeing is the difference between DV and DVD.


Lethal

 

[Autokon]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll be sure to check my settings once I get home here and relay them back. I know the film was shot in widescreen...unknown about the settings. All I know is that it played GREAT when I played it directly from the video camera directly to the TV via component...crystal clear.

I ripped it to iMovie with whatever default settings that iMovie uses....exported it using the "Larger" setting in iMovie. I'm assuming default is probably a medium quality...