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How can I burn imovie project to a DVD with High Quality?

L

lia77

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
79
0
Hi everyone!

I am wondering if somebody out there could give me some advice on what software to use to burn an imovie project on a dvd with as best quality as possible?

I have a stopmotion project in imovie that I would like to burn on a dvd. I have tried exporting it into idvd and on the preview it looks good, but then when I burn the dvd the colors change and become a little bit grey. The image isn´t very clear either... Can this be fixed or do you always loose quality when creating a dvd?

I read on this forum that somebody proposed Toast or DVD creator for Mac.
Would you recommend me to get one of those programs? Or are there any settings that I could be missing in idvd?

I would like to submit this film to some film festivals and would of course like the image to be as good as possible...

Any ideas?

Thank you!

Lia
 
lia77 said:
Hi everyone!

I am wondering if somebody out there could give me some advice on what software to use to burn an imovie project on a dvd with as best quality as possible?

I have a stopmotion project in imovie that I would like to burn on a dvd. I have tried exporting it into idvd and on the preview it looks good, but then when I burn the dvd the colors change and become a little bit grey. The image isn´t very clear either... Can this be fixed or do you always loose quality when creating a dvd?

I read on this forum that somebody proposed Toast or DVD creator for Mac.
Would you recommend me to get one of those programs? Or are there any settings that I could be missing in idvd?

I would like to submit this film to some film festivals and would of course like the image to be as good as possible...

Any ideas?

Thank you!

Lia
Click to expand...
i don't use idvd, i use dvd studio pro. that said, dvd's (keeping blueray out of the discussion) are compressed via mpeg2, so there is always a rez loss. Typically, whether exporting from an editor (imovie) or importing to an authoring environment (idvd) you can look at a source and output window and make adjustments to color and sharpness. Other factors to check (that i can think of atm) are color space, compression and data rate. Oh, and VBR (check 2 pass vs. 1 pass for better output).
 
Hi alph45,
thank you for your reply!

From what I can see there are not many settings to change when sending the imovie project to idvd. (just HD or not)It´s just when I choose to create a Quicktime movie that I can go in and change the compression etc.(In idvd there are just the "best quality" and professional quality" to choose from.)

Somebody wrote on the forum that when creating a DVD the resolution is never better than about 700 x500 pixels. is that really true?

I also looked into studio pro, but i don´t think my computer can handle such a large software. I have a 4 year old macbook, 13 inch, 2 Ghz Intel Code 2 Duo
2 GB 667 Mhz memory ( just added an extra G, it used to be 1...)
I also updated to Snow Leopard.

When I was in the Macstore the other day and showed them my computer and my film (i had another question about image ratio) they said I am a bit crazy trying to do a film to submit to a film festival on such an old and small computer.

Do you think it is that crazy or do they just want to sell me a brand new mac?

Have a good evening!
 
yes, standard dvd is (generally) 720x480. The vert(480) may vary depending on aspect ratio, but most HD is native 16:9 these days. For the most part, these issues are mute when talking about viewing on a computer or TV because it's all upsampled. It's only when your looking at theatrical release size that resolution becomes critical. At that size, full high rez (translating roughly to 2k) is challenged and your looking at 4k as a standard.

Re: idvd output. "professional" doesn't mean anything, but "best" does at least in a relative sense. Always choose the best available output.

I wouldn't call you crazy for using an old computer to make a film. It certainly slows down the process, and your limited in terms of the software you can use. That said, you use what is available to you. If you can't afford a new computer, better camera or whatever, don't let that hold you back. I was editing on a G3 using premiere before FCP existed. A tower that was state-of-the-art at the time, but that your "old" computer would run rings around.

If your film is compelling to your audience than it is, regardless of whether you've achieved optimal output. If it's not, what you do technically is irrelevant.
 
Thank you Dave for the link and thank you alph45 for the encouraging words. What you say is so true, if only the film in itself is good, then the rest might not be as important. When I am done with this one I´ll save up for a new computer though:)

Have a good day!
 
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