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Hi,

Great software.

I need to produce very clear screencasts which are also very small, so the mouse 'pause' feature is just great, and leads to some pretty nice but small files.

The problem I have is that when I insert, edit & then export from iMovie, the resulting file seems to have a constant framerate. I'm assuming that iMovie is therefore inserting many more frames in the video than iShowU would do. hence, I get a lower quality result in a bigger file. Not good!

Is it possible to avoid this problem? Is there a way to make iMovie respect the excellent format of the iShowU output?

Also, I don't have Quicktime PRO. Does this make a difference to the way that iMovie does the export? I don't want to pay for it unnecessarily.

Thanks!

Korlio

I don't think QT Pro will make much difference here. Any QT based recompressor will very likely do exactly the same thing.

What compression method are you using for the final video? H264?

Hi Neil,

Thanks for replying.

I've been using H264 encoding. However, I've tried a few experiments, including exporting DV, just to see how it looks. I cannot find a way to get an output from iMovie that even approaches the quality of what I'm recording with IShowU. This is with or without the variable framerate.

So far as I can see, as soon as I drag my IShowU output (encoded as in your online screencast) into iMovie, the quality is severely reduced.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Is it the iMovie conversion process?

Thanks,

Korlio

Yup - do a final rendering - the quality will be better.
iMovie previews are ... erm, "rubbish"?

Still, it helps to have movie footage that is inline with whatever final resolution/size your iMovie project is.

Thanks for that. What is a "final rendering"? I have been using the "share" menu, and options as in your screencast instructions. I have then been watching the result in quicktime, and comparing directly with the output of ishowu.

Is this different to "final rendering"?

Hi Neil,

Just to clarify, the problem is not the framerate, but the sharpness of each frame. The output from iMovie (via various "Share" options) is fuzzy compared to the output of iShowU. This fuzziness is probably OK with a video, but with a screencast, it makes text illegible, and so is a real problem.

Thanks for all your comments,

Korlio

Yup I know what you mean. You've got to get the media to be the same size as the iMovie project in order for it to look any good.

Interestingly, I recently found and bought iShowU for an upcoming behind-the-scenes expose on how I wrote the music and CGI for a music video... I needed screen captures while composing music.

#1 - I immediately found that although the iShowU screen capture movie was crystal clear, once I dragged it into iMovie, the preview was a little blurry, and sometimes it would actually alter the aspect ratio of hte clip as it imported it (squishing it down vertically to look like Letterbox.) To fix this problem, I do a sneaky back-door import trick to keep iMovie from resampling the clips. Close the iMovie project, go to the Finder, control-click on the project file, choose "Show Package Contents", and inside that folder that opens, you'll see a folder called "Media". Just drag your movie clips into that folder, close it (or make a shortcut to it so you can double-click-to-open it easily later), and then re-open that project from iMovie. iMovie will detect these stray clips and ask if you want to view the "Trash". Click "OK", and from the list of stray files, DRAG these new clips out of the trash window, and into the clips area of your project. You can now drag the clips into your movie timeline.

(One problem I have found is that for some reason, iShowU clips are not getting along with iMovie transitions. If I try to crossfade or fade in/out on one of those clips, I just get blocky static, as if it cannot decompress the frames correctly. This is true with all of the QT Codecs, including Apple Intermediate at Hi Q. Neil?)

#2 - Now the magic that may help you... this took me many hours of forum snooping and experimenting with different versions of iMovie and compressors, etc... I finally found that if you tell iMovie to EXPORT (or Share) the iMovie, which is what Neil meant by "final rendering", and you choose "Full Quality" (which writes a DV stream, which I stupidly thought was "HIGH quality"), it does some bad things to the video stream (interlaces it?) and the resulting movie (if you play it in QT player right then) is noticeably fuzzy. I had musical staff lines that just disappeared in the movie at that point. And when it is brought into iDVD, it remains fuzzily damaged. So, the fix turns out to be to tell it to Export with "Expert Settings", and change the expert settings to save as a QT movie, as H.264, current size and frame rate (oh, try to keep everything at 720x480, then no scaling/aliasing occurs anywhere, if you are making an NTSC DVD.) If you are just creating a QT movie (like a podcast) then you are done, and the quality is much better. But if making a DVD with this embedded movie, read on. Then... Then you can drag the QT movie onto your DVD project window and it will be rendered into the DVD at this higher quality.

Whew... this quality glitch was giving me anxiety attacks, but it looks like I'm past that roadblock... and I can say that iShowU is way cool. I hope this long explanation helps others avoid this problem (and I hope I'm providing accurate info.. feel free to correct any incorrect info I've listed!)

ttfn,
Drakonis

Thanks Drakonis, that's a really clear explanation, and I'll try out these two tricks. Thanks for taking the time to put your experience up here, it has saved me hours!

Korlio.

Not sure on that one.
I've no idea what iMovie might be doing when it "imports". I can only think that might be part of the issue? Personally (I know it's a pain) I just wait for it to finish :-)

I have been scouring the Internet, including this forum, for a week! I've put in hours of experimenting with settings, five hours just today! Then I came across your post and you have SAVED me! Thank you so much for your work around! It works beautifully!

alright- i am still having trouble. I have the movies made and i am ready to export. I am in imovie 2006. I want to export so i can put them on a dvd that i am selling. I filmed in 1280 by 720 HD.

what do i do from here?

There's either a Share or Export option.

Or maybe better yet - export (save as?) I can never remember what it's called into iDVD. It'll do the rest for you (rescaling etc etc).

thanks neil, i will try it out