Importing Movies from ElGato to iMovie. Video quality on iMovie grainy.

[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.

[ferrarr]

When you convert the videos in Elgato, what settings are you using? What file type and dimensions?

[paulwgraber]

Well Elgato doesn't really offer much in settings. Format is set to automatic and tv standard is automatic.. I don't have the preserve source format checked I noticed as well. Besides auto which is what it is set at you can select H264 and Mpeg 4. Thats pretty much all the settings it allows me to change.

[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.

[ferrarr]

Have you tried using different settings, on the same movie your importing, to see if there is any difference? Remember, those tapes are old, so the quality, when converted, will be noticeable.

If it were me, I would use the highest possible settings, to get the best quality. What have you used for:

Format? I believe H.264 is the best quality.
TV Standard? I’m not familiar with these options.
Preserve Source? I would have to try this with and without it checked.

[Slydude]

The PAL format and its variations are used throough Europe and Central/South America among others. Equipment sold in the US and I believe the rest of North America is based on the NTSC standard. I'm not sure whether changing this setting from automatic will help.

[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?