Extremely Poor Quality in Final Cut Express

[jrcjer]

I am a new user to FCE, but relatively experienced with iMovie (old). I discovered to my utter horror that when I exported a slideshow of mostly stills (1 .mov), the quality of the entire video was awful. I exported as a high-res dv file, and the quality was the same as the prior export. I finally checked my project by expanding the timeline viewer to fullscreen, and discovered that the quality there was horrible too. This astonishing loss of quality is not acceptable for the applications for which I need the video. I am wondering why it is that this quality loss is apparent, even when viewing the images from my project files results in a very high-quality picture.

Is there any way to fix this?

 

[ppc_michael]

Well "high-rez" and "DV" is an oxymoron, but I'm assuming it's worse quality than that.

I think we will need more information. What resolution are your images? Can you post the video that looks bad?

 

[LethalWolfe]

DV is pretty compressed, 720x480 standard def format. By comparison this equates to pretty much the lowest image quality settings found on most digital still cameras. So, yes, there will be a big drop off in quality if you compare the original pictures w/the DV export.


Lethal

 

[killmoms]

Keep in mind that QuickTime natively only shows one field of interlaced DV, making it look worse on your computer monitor than it actually is. To see both fields and let QT deinterlace, open the movie in question, hit Cmd+J, and then in the video track's Visual Settings check the boxes for "High Quality" and "Deinterlace."

 

[filman408]

If you need high-quality, why not use a high def (Apple Intermediate Codec, etc) timeline?

Like the poster above, DV is not know for its superb quality.

If you have iMove 08, you can create some pretty cool resolution independent slideshows. Just set the aspect ratio, and then you can export at 480i to 1080p if you like.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Keep in mind that QuickTime natively only shows one field of interlaced DV, making it look worse on your computer monitor than it actually is. To see both fields and let QT deinterlace, open the movie in question, hit Cmd+J, and then in the video track's Visual Settings check the boxes for "High Quality" and "Deinterlace."

Oh, yeah, definitely check to make sure QT is to "high quality" but I wouldn't check the "deinterlace" box because then you are just tossing out picture information.

And what is you final destination for the slideshow? DVD? Web? DV tape?


Lethal

 

[killmoms]

Oh, yeah, definitely check to make sure QT is to "high quality" but I wouldn't check the "deinterlace" box because then you are just tossing out picture information.

And what is you final destination for the slideshow? DVD? Web? DV tape?


Lethal

Sort of. The Deinterlace in QuickTime doesn't actually dispose of anything, it just runs either a blend or somewhat-adaptive deinterlace for display. It makes things look fantastic when you're watching interlaced material on a computer display, but it doesn't alter any of the movie's actual data.

However, if the OP's target is a high-resolution display, I'd suggest using a progressive HD format more appropriate for that target.

 

[jrcjer]

thanks

thanks for the help.

the intermediate codec seems to help--tho all my already rendered images are tiny and i have to put them in the timeline again...

 

[huntercr]

thanks for the help.

the intermediate codec seems to help--tho all my already rendered images are tiny and i have to put them in the timeline again...

Since you're starting over, you might consider using FotoMagico.
There's a trial version you can download from their website that is fully functional. I'm not sure if it woul dmeet your needs, but it's designed as a still showcase / slide show presentation program and can export to any codec.

Good luck!