Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Imovie 09 v8.0.6 No HD wtf?

W

WareWolf

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 9, 2009
40
0
This is driving me insane im trying to understand why is it when i try to export videos in Imovie i cant select the HD option can anyone explain to me.

I record a bunch of videos using my Isight in Imovie, everytime i edit my videos and export the videos, they seem to be not even close to HD quality too much pixelated (Nothing crazy but quality sucks). I tried to research this and i heared that in the new Macbook pro's the isight is decent enough to record close to HD quality.

Can anyone tell me why my Imovie wont export HD, how can i record my videos in my Imovie at the best possible quality and so that when i export the quality doesnt suck?
 
I'm not an expert at this but I believe you've gotten some bad info... I don't think the iSight is even close to being HD. I always thought they were VGA quality which is about half of what you need to do 720p.

If you want to do HD I would recommend getting a Flip camera as they are supposed to be a cheap HD video cam with good quality.

Hopefully someone else with more knowledge can help you further.
 
Thxs for the info. The thing is that i record myself playing guitar and i have an effects pedal hooked in the usb which works as a 'michrophone' in Imovie. If i buy say an HD flip that can handle HD quality can i hook it up to my macbook and when i record from Imovie instead of choosing isight as video input, can i choose the camera that i connected to the mac?

Basicly i need to find some way i could record video in HD in Imovie
 
WareWolf said:
Thxs for the info. The thing is that i record myself playing guitar and i have an effects pedal hooked in the usb which works as a 'michrophone' in Imovie. If i buy say an HD flip that can handle HD quality can i hook it up to my macbook and when i record from Imovie instead of choosing isight as video input, can i choose the camera that i connected to the mac?

Basicly i need to find some way i could record video in HD in Imovie
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that you can. I think I saw that when I hooked up my old canon it could have worked as my isight camera.
 
WareWolf said:
I tried to research this and i heared that in the new Macbook pro's the isight is decent enough to record close to HD quality.
Click to expand...

Not really. According to Wikipedia:

With the LED-Backlit MacBook Pros, Apple has moved to using a sensor capable of 1280x1024 pixels, but when accessed using provided APIs, the image is re-sampled to 640x480 pixels. However, Quartz Composer allows access to the 1280x1024 pixel video stream.
Click to expand...

My research says you need a beefy graphics card to fully exploit quartz due to it's reliance on hardware acceleration. Suffice to say, iMovie is not going to give you access to the raw stream, just the smaller video size - half hat of HD.
 
stevensteven123 said:
I'm pretty sure that you can. I think I saw that when I hooked up my old canon it could have worked as my isight camera.
Click to expand...

Cool so what should i look out for if im looking for an HD cam so that i has firewire? Is that the way you connect you cam to the mac? (Ima noob)
 
So i looked around and the Flip UltraHD looks like a good somewhat cheap cam. My question is can i connect it with a USB to my Mac and when recording in Imovie choose the Flip instead of the Isight as a recording device?

Also any other cam suggestions would be great
 
WareWolf said:
So i looked around and the Flip UltraHD looks like a good somewhat cheap cam. My question is can i connect it with a USB to my Mac and when recording in Imovie choose the Flip instead of the Isight as a recording device?

Also any other cam suggestions would be great
Click to expand...

Found this on web site:

Tho not a 'webcam', the latest iteration of Flip Video's MinoHD Camcorder is a great addition to your video capture toolkit. This improved Flip mino HD model records in H.264 MPEG-4 format thats more Mac friendly and easier to work with DIRECTLY on your Mac if you need to EDIT in iMovie before uploading. (Earlier, lesser models of the Flip are bulkier, require extra conversion steps). Built-In software can automate uploads to You Tube and other major video sites. All this in a new ultra-slim form-factor barely the size of an iPod nano!! A mobile, micro, on-the-go "virtual webcam".

so... it looks like it but maybe someone here has actually done it...
 
Thxs for the help but yea id love to get extra clarification on if i connect the flip via usb can i use it in Imovie to record directly through Imovie
 
pdjudd said:
Yes, you can do that.
Click to expand...

Is iMovie going to recognize the flip as another device that can be used as a webcam/recording device. I thought the usb is only used to transfer the videos and that you needed the firewire to use the device as a cam in the mac
 
WareWolf said:
Is iMovie going to recognize the flip as another device that can be used as a webcam/recording device. I thought the usb is only used to transfer the videos and that you needed the firewire to use the device as a cam in the mac
Click to expand...

My guess is that it would depend on the camera manufacturer since not all cameras use firewire. Last time I checked, iMovie can record from an attached camera directly. Cameras have different modes to mount as a drive.
 
But how do i identify a camera that can do that, is there some kind of function that the camera must be able to perform. Is it only if the camera connects to a computer?
 
It is my understanding that iMovie will not record video from USB cameras.

However, you can use Quicktime X to record from a USB camera in HD, then import that into iMovie.
 
The thing is that i need a camera that works with Imovie cause i need to directly record through Imovie and not quicktime
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back