movie formats

I want to see what is the best format to put my home movies in. Right now, in iMovie, when I export them, a file that is 10 minutes long is close to a Gig. Movies from iTunes are a couple of hours long, and unsually only about 1.5 gb. So what format (compression is it?) would anyone recommend, so that the image quality is not diminished (I'm exporting it to 1080p), yet the file size is smaller.

Most of my videos I'm putting on youtube, but I also want to save them for watching on my appleTV

Anyone?

Whatever suits you. From the Share, Export to Quicktime option, DV will give the largest file and best quality, iPod probably the smallest and worst.

In the Export Movie option, try the different settings and see what you like.

MightyGem said:

Whatever suits you. From the Share, Export to Quicktime option, DV will give the largest file and best quality, iPod probably the smallest and worst.

In the Export Movie option, try the different settings and see what you like.

Click to expand...

I've tried the different settings, and the smaller files available for export, don't give the quality as the bigger files sizes.

That was a big part of my question -- there has to be better options out there, otherwise Apple wouldn't be able to cram a 2 hour 1080p HD movie into a file that is half the size as my 10 minute movie.

Are there better codecs for compression, is that the issue? Like H.264?

Thanks for your help

H.264 is your best bet, using handbrake. you have a lot of control over quality/file size.

robduckyworth said:

H.264 is your best bet, using handbrake. you have a lot of control over quality/file size.

Click to expand...

OK, thanks, I'll try that.