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iMovie Questions...

T

thr

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 21, 2006
6
0
Hi guys
Here's the deal, we shot a video clip for someone wit a Panasonic HD camera (can't remember the model). I imported this video, but I didn't really look at the properties and therefore the video quality didn't really look HD.

1st question: When importin wit iMovie (the video is widescreen btw), what should I do to get the BEST picture quality I can get.

2nd question: If I import the video to another programme in my PC, then write those onto a CD and copy it to my mac, would the video quality be compromised?

3rd question(too many questions): Where can I find, free plugins, like color correctors, or something to enhance the video, or free plugins like that..
Basically I am new to Mac. and new to iMovie, and I want to know what to do in iMovie in order to get the best video quality and picture.

Thanks in advance.
thr.
 
thanks..
Does anyone have any answers for the other questions? :confused:
 
So far as question 2 goes, there's not a lot point in doing that.

The quality from the camera will be the same whether you are importing to your Mac or a PC. And since HD video is something like 36GB an hour, it would be pretty tough to get them back onto a DVD without compressing them and thereby losing quality.

There are a few sites that have iMovie plugins if you Google for them but check that they'll work with iMovie HD 6 before you buy them - they don't tend to be free although they will offer a free trial (with watermarks or reduced saving capabilities). If you look in iMovies Editing/Effects tab, you'll find some basic colour correction/sound correction things in there as well as some interesting Core Video effects.

What Mac do you have? HD takes a lot more hard drive space and processing power than standard DV. You might need to up your RAM etc. Your Mac converts it to an intermediate codec in iMovie to allow you to edit etc which is why it won't look great in the preview window.

Bear in mind that you can't yet output HD to DVD so your finished product won't be HD although you could export back to the camera on tape and use that plugged into your HD TV
 
I have a MacBook (the black one) with a 1 GB ram

I only imported it once, and that was to my PC, I imported it in Adobe Premiere then I wrote them to DVD took about 8-9 DVDs, coz I didn't have a mac then and I didn't want to edit it in iMovie, then after that, I copied it to my Mac and attempted to edit in iMovie, also there's this widescreen problem that everyone is talkin about.. If I was to import again to iMovie, how should I do it so that my widescreen movie stays widescreen
 
Did you burn them to DVD as raw dv files? Assuming so, since you've been able to get them into iMovie so far. If you burned them as a video DVD, then they're going to be in MPEG format and you'll have to convert them back to something else in order to edit them. Similarly, if they're in any other format other than DV, there's likely to be some compression and quality loss on them.

What widescreen bug that everyone is talking about? I've been importing widescreen dv quite happily into iMovie without any problems although admittedly standard DV rather than HD. What you need to do is start a new project, go to the Preferences and select NTSC/PAL. Then create a new project and tell it which HD you want - 720 or 1080.
 
they are in .avi format, I think it would be the best If I imported them again..

some ppl import their widescreen videos into iMovie HD 6 and it automatically changes them to 4:3, as I heard.

what's 720 and 1080? i just wanna get the best quality I can get out of it, I dun mind the storage space and all that.. :eek:
 
thr said:
some ppl import their widescreen videos into iMovie HD 6 and it automatically changes them to 4:3, as I heard.

what's 720 and 1080? i just wanna get the best quality I can get out of it, I dun mind the storage space and all that.. :eek:
Click to expand...

So long as you tell iMovie that you want it in DV Widescreen, it will import it like that. Some ppl is hardly everyone is talking about it :rolleyes:

The 720i and 1080i refer to the different resolution of HD. I'd imagine the camera you shot it on is 720i and yes, reimporting is probably best.
 
one last thing, are there any codecs or anything that might help enhance the picture after I'm finished wit the whole thing?
 
If you're saving it as QT to watch online or via another computer, you could encode into h264 but, be warned, it will take a long time.

DVD quality will never be as good so you're kinda stuck with that.

Export the finished product back to tape though (via your camcorder) and you'll be able to plug that into the TV to get the best quality - and when Blu-ray arrives on the scene, you'll be able to burn the finished article to DVD again at a better quality.
 
Hi,

I am having some trouble, and would really appreciate some feedback. I have made a few movies with iMovie, and recently offered to help out a friend with a vacation video. I bought my camera overseas, and it being PAL has never caused problems until now...the tapes I have been given are NTSC. I can view the clips directly on my camera, but as soon as it connects to iMovie, I can't do anything.

I am assuming this is the problem...a warning comes up saying "The camera is sending half-sized frames, which iMovie can’t accept..." I have reset, changed the date/time - everything that has been suggested -nothing's working.

Is there any way that I can import these clips into iMovie???


Thanks a lot
 
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