Avchd, Hd, 1980 X 1080 ?

[Pyrotechnic]

As a relative new user of Macs, one of the main reasons I got one was the ability to edit videos and photos and manage them far better. So far I have been impressed and have both iPhoto and Aperture.

However, I have now come to use my iMovie with my Panasonic HDC-SD5.

Having taken some recent holiday footage which plays back with such clarity on my TV, I want to edit and transfer it to a DVD. I have iMovie as mentioned and also Toast Titanium.

Having tried several options I cannot seem to get the same clarity once the footage has been transferred onto a DVD, the quality is just not the same. Having googled the problem, it appears I am not alone which suggests a problem somewhere.

Rather than trawl through pages and pages of Google, I have always found answers in layman terms to come from here, so I am hoping someone can explain either what I am doing wrong or what I need to do to be able to get my iMovie project looking its best ?

Im using iMovie 09 fully updated on a 4 month old Mac using the above HD Camera.

 

[neutrino23]

The short answer is that the DVD standard does not support high definition. That is why Blue Ray was invented, in order to distribute HD content on optical media.

Here are a couple of suggestions, others may have better ideas.

You can edit HD content in iMovie in two different resolutions, approximately 720P and 1080P. There are many threads on this topic.

If the clips are not long you could export QT movies at one of those resolutions and then burn that file on a DVD disk as a data file (not using iDVD). To play back you need a computer hooked to the HD TV. The file size is limited to a little over 4GB.

Similar idea, but use a small portable hard drive and now there is little restriction on the size of the file. Again, you'll need a computer hooked to the TV to play the movie.

 

[Pyrotechnic]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Are you saying that I could get the definition and quality if I was to purchase an external Blu Ray Drive ?

 

[matteusclement]

if you BURN AND PLAY on a blue ray, then yes.

another option to look at, especially since blue ray burners are still a tad pricey is to look at a mac mini. It's portable and you can keep it in a digital format. Not everyone is going to have a blu-ray player.

and to be honest, if you are looking for that BAM! look of HD, I don't think iMovie is the option. FCP is though. With compressor, you'll have a heap of options and controls to make sure the final out put is great.

I think I know what you are talking about the HD to SD conversion though. I have gone through the same thing and it fell short with iMovie.

What kind of computer do you have?

 

[Pyrotechnic]

What kind of computer do you have?

I have a 24 inch iMac with the 2.93 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of 1067 Mhz DDR3 complete with a 1TB Hard Drive.