Importing movies from ELGato to iMovie. Looks like crap in iMovie.

[paulwgraber]

Hi. I have been importing HI8 and Digital 8 movies via SVideo using Elgato. I have noticed while the playback in the El Gato window looks great but once I drop it into iMovie the quality looks like crap and grainy. Anyway to improve this or is this pretty much the best I can expect here? Can I get iMovie to clean it up at all after its been dropped in it?

Thanks
PG.

Running on Mojave, 2018 IMAC 27", 64G Ram, 3.8 I5.

 

[paulwgraber]

OK so evidently it has nothing to do with iMovie. So the problem is thus. While the video is playing and Elgato is recording it looks great but once I finish and Elgato drops it to an MP4 it looks like crap especially during camera movement.

My preferences are the following of which I have no clue what any of them mean so I set everything to automatic.

Format: H.264 or Automatic or Mpeg 4
TV Standard: Automatic, PAL 60, PAL M, PAL N
Preserve source format check box.

 

[ColdCase]

Does the file look grainy when played with Quicktime? Dunno, but does Mojave have the proper transcoder? Can you save it to a file and try to play the video on another pre-mojave mac (Using the quickTime player). Can you get info on the movie file and find out the resolution and size parameters?

Its been awhile since I've had to capture SVideo, but don't recall this issue.

 

[kohlson]

so I set everything to automatic.

Sometimes the best way to get what you want in video is just try different settings. Start with setting format to H.264, and then capture a small bit and see if that works.

But before that, does the ElGato have any settings that might be changing the video from you you're seeing to what it writing to a file?

 

[paulwgraber]

In Gato Automatic is H.264 which is what it is converting it too. But It does not look as good as what is playing in the ElGato window. Is there an item or program or tool that just transfers straight bit stream from a to b without any compression or loss?

 

[ColdCase]

Elgato's MPEG4 has a higher bit rate than H.264 and may give better results in action shots

Does adjusting the approximate movie length affect quality? i.e. does Elgato compress to fit the length specified? If so making it longer may produce better results. Otherwise perhaps contact Elgato, they seem to have a decent support page.

 

[dorsal]

Is it possible you are viewing the "raw" stream in ElGato as you record, but the output is compressed an thus poor quality? I know, not RAW raw, just not as compressed as the output format.