in lamens terms for a n00b, I need help

[jasmine84]

Hey. So I've been searching the forums and can't find what I am looking for. I am new to Mac and am trying to edit videos from my Sony DV camera using iMovie, then exporting them so I can either put them online, store them on my hard drive, or burn them onto DVD's. I have been having some issues, such as:
- I'll have timings for scene changes (going with music for example) down perfect in iMovie, but when I export and save, the video like "freezes" sometimes (the same spot every time so it's not the comp). How can I avoid this?
- when I use "fade out" at the end of a movie sometimes the audio repeats. Is there a format where this doesn't happen?
- sometimes my quality is bad... like there's lines going through the movie, baby-size ones..... almost like you'd see on a big screen TV that isn't plasma or anything.

In short.... what file format is best? I'm using mp4 now.... is that the best one?

THANKS!!!!!

 

[CanadaRAM]

Sorry, can't let it slip by

Layman's terms

 

[killr_b]

Um, what kinda mac do you have?
Do you have all the software updates installed?

The lines are the i part of 60i. They are normal for video.

What are you using mp4 for? Storing finals?

 

[ppc_michael]

Hi jasmine,

What settings are you using when you export your video? Do you see the same problems when you play it back in iMovie (before you export)?

The lines you see are because video stores two pictures in each frame, and it alternates which picture it's showing on every other line. It's called interlacing. It will look fine if you play it back on a TV, because it handles interlaced video properly. But if you are making this video to be viewed on a computer screen, then you can run it through a deinterlace filter to get rid of the lines. I don't think iMovie has that "natively," but Quicktime does. It's pretty basic though, and might lower your video quality.

MP4 is not the best format to use if you're going for quality, but if you're planning to put it online or something, MP4 is good for producing smaller file sizes. For quality, Quicktime (.mov) is the best, if you use a reasonable compressor.

 

[jasmine84]

Thank you guys! When I export now I am saving as mp4 with expert settings, and I have the quality and things up as high as they'll go.

Yeah the sound things with the transitions I think is a glitch in the program, because it makes NO sense. Are there patches/updates to install for iMovie? I have a black Macbook 120GB HD (not the one that just came out but the one before that...) has iLike 06 I am pretty sure.

Thanks for all of the help! I'll try saving my movies to .mov and see if it helps some of my issues! My biggest concern now is the glitch in the audio of transitions.