iMovie vs FCE vs FCP movie quality?

[JMC2008]

I have had a Mini-DV for a long time and been using my Win XP PC for downloading the tapes to the HD and making the movies.

My Mini-DV is standard def, with the ability to shoot 16:9. I use 16:9 all the time.When I got a Mac I thought it would be as good or better at producing the video.

I am still using the PC now however as the Pinnacle Software and FW Card I bought to install on the Windows XP machine produces a lot better image quality than I can get in iMovie and thus iDVD produces.

So I am guessing that 'free' is as good as it gets regarding iMovie and iDVD.

I am looking at possibly getting FCE to leapfrog this quality issue forward, as I would like to eventually get rid of the Win PC as this is the only reason I am hanging on to it.

Can anyone tell me if either FCE or Pro will produce the same quality of video that my PC running Pinnacle does?

From what I can tell the Mac (iMovie) is converting the files (to sub standard mp4 even at the highest setting) ....before it burns them and the Pinnacle program on the Windows PC is allowing me to edit the RAW footage and then burning it in the format I specify once the project is complete. There is not even a close comparison in the quality iMovie produces.

iMovie will not allow editing of RAW footage.

I would like to have opinions of the experience people who use FCE or FC Pro and relate those programs final product to the product my PC is producing.

On my 51" plasma the difference is really noticeable when I use iMovie/iDVD.

Thanks in advance.

JMC

 

[xstep]

First thing; iMovie does edit the 'RAW' miniDV recording. I would need to know which version of iMovie you have to tell you how to confirm that. What iMovie does is copy the stream from the tape into files ending with the .dv extension.

RAW is also not a true statement because the miniDV stream is a lossy compressed codec.

If you are using iMovie 08 or 09, then keep in mind they make thumbnail movies so you can quickly scan through them.

At what point do you notice a quality loss? I'd create short movie on each system of the same content and export them both using the same type of settings; data rate, image size, multi-pass encoding, frames per second, de-interlaced. You get the idea.

You iDVD quality may also be linked to your export for it. Again, knowing your software versions helps, along with your method of getting the video to your DVD production software.

Perhaps also you should describe the differences; sharpness, contrast, color, pixelization. Whatever it is.

 

[JMC2008]

Hello XSTEP,

Thank you for the reply and I am not a wizard at this, by any means. I will try to add more detail if you ask me the right questions.

I am using iMovie 08 (Leopard OSX) on an iSight iMac G5, 3 GB Ram. I know it is slow as well for this, but I do not care - I simply want the product I produce to look like it does if I play back the video on the DV tape.

(I also have a MacBook [bought in Dec] 2.4 GHz, 4 GB Ram same OS - not currently using for this however, as I use for work)

You are right - I beleive I am editing the raw .dv footage in iMovie, but from what I can tell in my 'non-tech' lingo, the question I have is that the clips I end up with then have to be 'published' to the library in order to burn the DVD for set top viewing...and this is where I think the quality loose is happening - they are then converted to mp4? or ? Correct?

This is the part I do not understand. When I use this type of software on the PC - Pinnacle Studio v9 (Studio is currently in v12+) it does not have to do anything to the clips before I burn the DVD. At the point in which I am happy with the project, I save it (like every 2 mins!) - and then choose what to do with the edited clip - or in most cases the movie (ends up being a DVD for grandmother of my son in most cases) - and there is no intermediate step. It goes either directly to DVD, WMV, AVI and then depending on the chosen end product - 1-2 hrs later you have the ~60 min DVD or the clip in the format you need for whatever.

When I burn a DVD with iDVD - it adds the clips from what has been published to the library, and must have to convert them back ?

I do not know the correct terminology for what the degradation looks like to describe to you, but it is really not good. I know that when I look at the recorded tape on the TV through the Canon Elura 90 - it looks the same as the DVD's that I burn with Pinnacle.

The difference with the iMovie iDVD combo is that it produces an image that has wavy lines throughout and looks like some one cranked the contrast way down. It is not sharp at all and does not represent what I capture in color, or contrast.

I have two TV's that I have looked at this on. I have a Sony High Scan 36" CRT which is capable of displaying 1080i and a Samsung 51" Plasma 720p and in both cases this is really noticeable.

So I am wondering how FCE works? Does it have this publishing step to the library and then the conversion back to porduce the DVD's? I think this is the issue.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Jared

 

[xstep]

iMovie 08 doesn't have the ability to send a project straight to iDVD. This is one of the features people were upset about and Apple returned it in iM09.

Anyway, what you have to do export an appropriate file. I suggest not using Apples easy defaults (publishing) and instead use the export QuickTime feature. My iMovie Export Guide describes how to use that feature. I suggest you export as an Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) at the native size of the video you are editing, and leave the data rate at automatic. This should give a high quality video suitable for iDVD use.

I'm not sure, but think you should leave the video interlaced since that is what I expect the DVD will have. You could try it both ways.

I should mention, the above export is an extra step because iDVD it self turns the files into MPEG2 files as per the DVD spec. The AIC codec I suggest is a high quality codec, so I doubt you see little if any degradation of your video.

Final Cut Studio does have a fancier export tool, Compressor, then FCE, but I don't think that is your real issue.

The Final Cut Studio also has a much more advanced DVD authoring tool. Be warned though that there is hope that Apple will upgrade the whole suite including DVD Studio Pro sometime around the NAB show in April.

I don't believe your issue will be fixed by moving up the Apple video food chain. I think you just need to learn the right flow and settings.

I suppose that it is possible that the PC tool is adding some auto adjustments but I just don't know why it would do that, except to give a punchier picture for amateurs who don't know better. You could make iMovie export adjustments to compensate.

To see how a clip was published, open it up in QuickTime and do a Command-I (get info) and review the codec used, size, and data rate.

Lastly, when you are ready to burn a DVD, first have iDVD save a disc image and run that through Apples DVD Player application. This can save you many coasters.

 

[JMC2008]

Thank you.

The first line of your answer intrigues me also.

If I upgrade to iMovie 09 - that will also fix this? (By allowing me to export straight to DVD?)

JMC

 

[xstep]

If I upgrade to iMovie 09 - that will also fix this? (By allowing me to export straight to DVD?)

Good question that I don't have a good answer for. Perhaps I'll run an experiment on this since I have a suspicion on what occurrs. I'm not sure when I will have the time. Perhaps when I write a new guide regarding adding content to iDVD.

 

[xstep]

When I told iMovie 09 to share to iDVD, it exported at an odd size and a self contained file to iDVD. The size was 960x540. To me that seems too large since iDVD will reduce it down to a widescreen MPEG2 file of 720x480 with a flag for wide screen. That is two conversions requiring two size changes in different directions. Checking the .dv file as it appeared in the even folder showed the movie was 853x480. I can't think why increasing and decreasing the size would be a good thing.

I also exported my widescreen miniDV content to a custom size of 854x480, adding 1 horizontal pixel to the video size of the file that was in iMovie. This imported properly into iDVD. The other 'obvious' choices for wide screen created a 4:3 ratio picture with bars on top and bottom of the picture.

Unfortunately my original content isn't of good quality for this test. It was a direct import from my miniDV camera of a pan of a dimly lit room. The content did not come from video tape, but directly from the camera in widescreen mode.

P.S. I'm running out of disc space so had to delete everything to do with this project.

 

[xstep]

I just came across this long thread at the Apple Discussion forums about a serious quality issue with iMovie 08 and 09 and DV source material and export of it. There are answers about how to better work with DV footage that requires converting.

My not so favorite line from that thread is; "It's been confirmed dozens of times for over a year that dv loses a field.". By the way, that person authors an eBook regarding iMovie and has posted details of the work-a-round.

This is messy and Apple really needs to fix it.

 

[JMC2008]

Since the easy thing to do in procedure at least is to find and install iMovie 06 based in that thread - what happens when you install iMovie 06 when you have a system with iMovie 08 or 09 already installed?

Since I am used to a Win PC response of removal of the other version or conflicts if you did not remove the older version - I am curious what happens on the Mac. I would assume that it would install no problem then you would use whichever version that you want?

Drop me a line on this if you have thoughts.

Thanks again.

 

[xstep]

I'm not sure what happens when you install iMHD when iM08/09 is already installed. The new iMovie places iMHD in a folder and the name in that folder is iMovie HD. I can't recall if that is what the name was before.

I would simply rename iMovie 08/09 temporarily, install HD, and the fix the renamed file. The preferences files for each are different so you don't have to worry about overwriting those.

 

[JMC2008]

Apparently this is not new.

Here is a link to an article although not new - is news to me.

Buy iLife '08 and get iMovie '06 for free

You can search the downloads on Apple's web page that are linked to the above article and install it from there. I had some issues with iDVD as I mistakenly installed the suite from DVD and that did not work out so well.

However thanks to Time Machine I restored iDVD 08 and all is well. Once I test this set up I will post back.

JMC

 

[xstep]

Unfortunately when Apple released iLife 09, they removed the ability to download iMovie HD, which is version 6.0.4.

Good to here TM saved your install.