iMovie 08 a disaster with Sony TRV33??

[geoffH]

I have a Sony TRV33E (which I know is not the newest bit of kit on the market now, but it still produces good movies). I was previously a PC owner and always got an excellent result after editing the family holiday videos each year.
Just changed to brand new iMAC and used iMovie 08 to edit this year's video ...it's a disaster! Horribly blurry - unwatchable. The unedited clips play perfectly clearly directly from the camcorder onto my TV but I now realise (having spent hours editing things) that the quality of clips imported into iMovie is terrible.
Have read some related posts elsewhere, I have a horrible feeling I'm completely stuffed! Something to do with iMovie importing at one size, then resizing to edit then downsizing again to export?? Have I understood that correctly? Is there anyway round this or is the short answer that iMovie is just not going to work for me and I've wasted a lot of time (and money!)?!!
Thanks in advance for any ideas. I'm not a real techie, so please go easy on me with the explanations!

 

[huntercr]

I have a Sony TRV33E (which I know is not the newest bit of kit on the market now, but it still produces good movies). I was previously a PC owner and always got an excellent result after editing the family holiday videos each year.
Just changed to brand new iMAC and used iMovie 08 to edit this year's video ...it's a disaster! Horribly blurry - unwatchable. The unedited clips play perfectly clearly directly from the camcorder onto my TV but I now realise (having spent hours editing things) that the quality of clips imported into iMovie is terrible.
Have read some related posts elsewhere, I have a horrible feeling I'm completely stuffed! Something to do with iMovie importing at one size, then resizing to edit then downsizing again to export?? Have I understood that correctly? Is there anyway round this or is the short answer that iMovie is just not going to work for me and I've wasted a lot of time (and money!)?!!
Thanks in advance for any ideas. I'm not a real techie, so please go easy on me with the explanations!

You're experiencing the most common pain of iMovie 08. imovie 08 is sadly not intended for any serous DV video, especially if your final output is iDVD. I can't believe there aren't more complaints about it still.

Fortunately Apple has made iMovie HD avilable for download for free for iMovie 08 users:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/iMovie_HD_6

It is a far superior product for your kind of camera and purpose and will work great with the current version of iDVD. This will give you the video quality you've been used to.


Hope this helps! Let us know if it works better for you.

 

[geoffH]

I really appreciate your advice, huntercr - thanks. It's at least some comfort to know that it's not me being dumb, but I'm hacked off that Apple should have supplied such a duff piece of software. My change from PC to MAC has not been quite as golden as I had hoped, but I'll keep going!
I think I know the answer to this next bit..but here goes. I've downloaded iMovie HD6 as you suggested but there's no way I can import the work I've done in iMovie 08 already is there? I guess I have to start from scratch and import the original footage from my camcorder all over again?
Before I do all this ..it really will give me a good result??!?!?
Thanks again for your input - if only I'd known all this before I started!

You're experiencing the most common pain of iMovie 08. imovie 08 is sadly not intended for any serous DV video, especially if your final output is iDVD. I can't believe there aren't more complaints about it still.

Fortunately Apple has made iMovie HD avilable for download for free for iMovie 08 users:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/iMovie_HD_6

It is a far superior product for your kind of camera and purpose and will work great with the current version of iDVD. This will give you the video quality you've been used to.


Hope this helps! Let us know if it works better for you.

 

[Courtaj]

I've downloaded iMovie HD6 as you suggested but there's no way I can import the work I've done in iMovie 08 already is there?

See post number three here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/594038/ - it explains how to copy the media files (video & audio clips) across. As for importing a project, I think that might be too chewy given that iMovie '08 and iMovie HD deal with projects in different ways.

Andrew.

 

[huntercr]

I really appreciate your advice, huntercr - thanks. It's at least some comfort to know that it's not me being dumb, but I'm hacked off that Apple should have supplied such a duff piece of software. My change from PC to MAC has not been quite as golden as I had hoped, but I'll keep going!
I think I know the answer to this next bit..but here goes. I've downloaded iMovie HD6 as you suggested but there's no way I can import the work I've done in iMovie 08 already is there? I guess I have to start from scratch and import the original footage from my camcorder all over again?
Before I do all this ..it really will give me a good result??!?!?
Thanks again for your input - if only I'd known all this before I started!

Yes, you'll have to start over from scratch. What I would do if I were you is import 5 minutes of video or so and play around with that first. If your final output medium is iDVD ( to be viewed on a TV ) be sure and do *not* deinterlace it. When you play back the interlaced video it will look like it has lines all over it when you view it on the Mac, but when you view it on a TV it will be correct.

If you don't get satisfactory results, please come back to the forum and tell us what you're seeing. Are are a lot of possibilities when you are exporting the video that could cause it to degrade quality as well.

iMovie HD is very very different from iMovie 08, so be prepared. It's much more like a classic editing app, if simple.

 

[theBB]

DV is DV, no matter which movie editing program you use. I don't understand how DV in iMovie '08 looks better than in iMovie '06.

 

[eleven2brett]

I think imovie 08 is a disaster period. I can't even get it's work flow to function for me. It just seems very counter-intuitive. I used windows movie maker, and that always worked great. I was finally able to afford to upgrade to Premiere, so there's no looking back, except to laugh.