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iMovie and iDVD Dissappointment. :-(

Joined
Dec 12, 2008
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Location
Nova Scotia Canada
Your Mac's Specs
MacBook (white) 2.4Ghz 4GB RAM OSX 10.5+, iPod Touch (2G) 16GB, iSight iMac G5, iPod Nano (3G)
Recently I bought a Mac, I also bought a iPod Nano, then I bought a Touch... totally convinced that these are better machines/products and until I started in with my home movies ... I had no preference to go backdown stairs for the PC. I bought a 1TB back up drive and I am still (despite the setback) really impressed with the Mac. I am looking at getting a MacBook for work as well.

Here is the BUT.

I shoot video on my Canon Elura 90 in Mini DV tapes and have been downloading the footage to the PC and using Pinnacle Studio 9 to produce whatever file size/quality I want (and type) and burn DVD's (I might add this is old now as Pinnacle Studio is in v12!). I bought a couple upgrade keys for it and really it does a really good job (PIP) and despite the crash once in a while from the pig PC - I have no issues with it. Hey... PC's running Windows crash that is part of the fact of having Windows, and when encoding Video in reality I expected it to crash a LOT more than it does.

However - since I got the Mac (iSight 17" G5 @ 1.85GHz and 2.5 GB Ram) I have not done any video on it - been too busy - so last week I started to transfer three 1hr tapes to the Mac, shot in widescreen (not HD).
(I beleive the iMovie and iDVD version is 06, I have not upgraded the Mac to iLife 08.)

Transferred the raw DV without issue. Three projects in line to be edited, transitioned, etc.... a lot of work to do for sure.

Created a single 26 min movie (in iMovie) - which I would normally call a 'project', and I think Mac calls it the same. Then when I go to burn the project to the DVD - in iDVD, er.. it says you cannot because it has "not been published"...? What? I do not want to convert the file - I want to burn the DVD.... ??

So fine - I publish the project (or movie) to the media browser and that takes forever at the suggested LARGE file setting for later use on a TV. Then when I go back to iDVD and then burn it - I think it converts the file ... back?? It takes forever. (My reference to time is relating to the PC running Pinnacle).

So this happens last night and I finish the Verbaitium DVD and play it back and if looks like crap on my 52" Plasma - again this is compared to the previous DVD's that I made on the Pinnacle software on the PC. After all the work I placed into it...:(. I am pretty angry at being 'duped'. I thought Macs are supposed to be the Mutlimedia Best-in-Class and IF so why would they make a software package like this...? I am confused.

Really the difference in quality is quite noticable. Although I use the term 'crap' - it is just to point out my frrustration at the fact my PC does a much better job using the Studio 9 package and faster. (PC has 3GB Ram, 2.5GHz I think or 2 maybe, running Win XP SP2 and the Pinnacle Video Capture Software through the Video Card that it came with).

I then did some digging to figure out what I may have missed - in that I know this process on the Mac is converting the file twice(?) - has to be - to be taking this long... and in the Studio 9 - it does not convert anything until you finish the project and then you can convert to avi, mov, stream, or whatever - or burn a DVD directly! Boom, done.

I then set the video quality in iDVD to "Professionial" and remade the DVD in iDVD. Maybe marginally better, but I do not think so.

This Canon Elura 90 DV I have takes remarkable footage in full light - not so much in darker settings, and the video it produces is CLEAR. Studio 9 on the PC produces this one-to-one in the final project and on the Mac in the iMovie/iDVD combo it looses a great deal of the quality, as it looks compressed. This compression may be good for most devices that are showing a smaller resolution, but the .mov file format that is viewable in uneditied footage of iMovie - is lost along the way when I end up with the DVD.

Does anyone have a solution as to what is up or is this 'just the way it is' for this combination on the Mac....? I have QT Pro, is there something to do to get a DVD Set Top Box playable DVD to look as good as it should?

What is/are my alternative(s) to get the quality I want using the Mac without spending a pile of money on software? (Studio 9 for the PC came with a card, cable and software for $69.00 USD). Or do I just clam up and go use the PC?

I am new to this - but again - referencing the Studio 9 experience - it certianly did what it is supposed to do without me having to log on to forums.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks guys and/or gals.....

Jared
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2008
Messages
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Recently I bought a Mac, I also bought a iPod Nano, then I bought a Touch... totally convinced that these are better machines/products and until I started in with my home movies ... I had no preference to go backdown stairs for the PC. I bought a 1TB back up drive and I am still (despite the setback) really impressed with the Mac. I am looking at getting a MacBook for work as well.

Here is the BUT.

I shoot video on my Canon Elura 90 in Mini DV tapes and have been downloading the footage to the PC and using Pinnacle Studio 9 to produce whatever file size/quality I want (and type) and burn DVD's (I might add this is old now as Pinnacle Studio is in v12!). I bought a couple upgrade keys for it and really it does a really good job (PIP) and despite the crash once in a while from the pig PC - I have no issues with it. Hey... PC's running Windows crash that is part of the fact of having Windows, and when encoding Video in reality I expected it to crash a LOT more than it does.

However - since I got the Mac (iSight 17" G5 @ 1.85GHz and 2.5 GB Ram) I have not done any video on it - been too busy - so last week I started to transfer three 1hr tapes to the Mac, shot in widescreen (not HD).
(I beleive the iMovie and iDVD version is 06, I have not upgraded the Mac to iLife 08.)

Transferred the raw DV without issue. Three projects in line to be edited, transitioned, etc.... a lot of work to do for sure.

Created a single 26 min movie (in iMovie) - which I would normally call a 'project', and I think Mac calls it the same. Then when I go to burn the project to the DVD - in iDVD, er.. it says you cannot because it has "not been published"...? What? I do not want to convert the file - I want to burn the DVD.... ??

So fine - I publish the project (or movie) to the media browser and that takes forever at the suggested LARGE file setting for later use on a TV. Then when I go back to iDVD and then burn it - I think it converts the file ... back?? It takes forever. (My reference to time is relating to the PC running Pinnacle).

So this happens last night and I finish the Verbaitium DVD and play it back and if looks like crap on my 52" Plasma - again this is compared to the previous DVD's that I made on the Pinnacle software on the PC. After all the work I placed into it...:(. I am pretty angry at being 'duped'. I thought Macs are supposed to be the Mutlimedia Best-in-Class and IF so why would they make a software package like this...? I am confused.

Really the difference in quality is quite noticable. Although I use the term 'crap' - it is just to point out my frrustration at the fact my PC does a much better job using the Studio 9 package and faster. (PC has 3GB Ram, 2.5GHz I think or 2 maybe, running Win XP SP2 and the Pinnacle Video Capture Software through the Video Card that it came with).

I then did some digging to figure out what I may have missed - in that I know this process on the Mac is converting the file twice(?) - has to be - to be taking this long... and in the Studio 9 - it does not convert anything until you finish the project and then you can convert to avi, mov, stream, or whatever - or burn a DVD directly! Boom, done.

I then set the video quality in iDVD to "Professionial" and remade the DVD in iDVD. Maybe marginally better, but I do not think so.

This Canon Elura 90 DV I have takes remarkable footage in full light - not so much in darker settings, and the video it produces is CLEAR. Studio 9 on the PC produces this one-to-one in the final project and on the Mac in the iMovie/iDVD combo it looses a great deal of the quality, as it looks compressed. This compression may be good for most devices that are showing a smaller resolution, but the .mov file format that is viewable in uneditied footage of iMovie - is lost along the way when I end up with the DVD.

Does anyone have a solution as to what is up or is this 'just the way it is' for this combination on the Mac....? I have QT Pro, is there something to do to get a DVD Set Top Box playable DVD to look as good as it should?

What is/are my alternative(s) to get the quality I want using the Mac without spending a pile of money on software? (Studio 9 for the PC came with a card, cable and software for $69.00 USD). Or do I just clam up and go use the PC?

I am new to this - but again - referencing the Studio 9 experience - it certianly did what it is supposed to do without me having to log on to forums.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks guys and/or gals.....

Jared

Hi Jared,

I am probably not able to help you but I thought I would share my experience with Imovie and iDVD (maybe you can help with a couple of my questions below also). I would not sya that I am dissappointed with iMovie or iDVD as they are both very easy to use and user firendly, but there are a couple of issues I would like to sort out.

I too use a digital camera which records onto the min tapes. I have edited the movie etc and then transferred it across to iDVD for burning, setting up menu's etc. I have had no problems with the quality when playing it on my TV (80cm) which is about 8 years old.. The movies I have created have been up to an hour long.

When I am in imovie I go to 'share' and publish the movie to the highest resolution which is suitable for TV and I find that the quality of the final product is pretty much the same as the original tape. The only thinsg I can think of to help you are 1) how the iMovie file is published to iDVD ( I would assume you are doing teh same as me), 2) the quality of the actual DVD's, or 3)whether your DVD players reads the DVD properly (is it the same result on other peoples DVD players and TV's).

My only problem is the file format which iDVD produces, I ma fairly new to this sort of stuff on the MAC and I find that the file format 1) cannot be re imported into iMovie, for example I likle to burn my original raw footage onto DVD as a back up, but if I were need to use this at a leter date I cannot import this footage into iMovie?
2) I also like to copy my final movies from the DVD to the hard drive on my DVD player asd a back up, for some reason my DVD player (Sony) will not do this.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2008
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I had a Canon Elura 90, and grieve the "loss" of it everyday. (I sold it... I'm an idiot). I recorded 90% of my footage in low light, and I was VERY pleased with the quality, amazed even.

Especially after seeing some other camcorders recently, like the Panasonic PV-GS90 (That I sent back, it was so bad), and my most recent purchase, JVC GR-D850 (It's ok, but no Elura). But my point is, I can attest to the quality. The quality of low light was good, outdoors... even better. I never had any trouble with losing any quality going from tape to mac to dvd.

I am using iMovie 06 as well, and I always imported from the camcorder, edited, then burned straight to iDVD. Never had to publish the file.

I'm sorry, I know that doesn't answer anything, I'm not sure what settings I have different. Maybe the guy above me answered that. But there should be no reason for you to have to publish the file before burning it.
 

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