iMovie: Low Quality of Imported QuickTime Files

[dmetzcher]

I am using iMovie in iLife '06, but had this same problem with '05.

When I import screen recordings (I use SnapzPro to get them) into iMovie, they look terrible. For example, text is blurry in the Finder menu bar.

I once read that this is because iMovie is designed to work at a high resolution, and that importing 1024x768 video of screen captures isn't going to work. Is this true? I want to be able to import these movies (QuickTime format) into iMovie, and then add subtitles and title screens, but with the quality so terrible, it doesn't work for me.

Is iMovie just for video captured via a digital camera?

[ra3ndy]

Have you watched the movies in QuickTime at fullscreen? I suspect SnapzPro of not encoding at the same bitrate.

[dmetzcher]

Originally Posted by ra3ndy

Have you watched the movies in QuickTime at fullscreen? I suspect SnapzPro of not encoding at the same bitrate.

Videos look excellent in fullscreen mode after SnapzPro is finished creating them. If I create a video of my desktop, and fullscreen it, I can't tell the difference.

That's why this is strange...
I don't understand video that well, frankly, so I don't know why this would happen when the movie is imported into iMovie. It looks terrible though. I also tested iMovie by exporting the finished movie, and it still looks terrible. I thought that maybe it was just because it cut down on the quality of the video while previewing in iMovie, but this is not the case. If there is a reason for this, and I can't do it, that's fine, but if I can, I really want to use iMove because I bought it and won't really get any other use out of it because I don't take digital video.

[ra3ndy]

Try exporting as a different format from QuickTime. Say, Mpeg4 or something... see how it imports then.

If this works, then it's preposterous that Apple would have loss issues with their OWN format.... but things happen...

[dmetzcher]

I tried exporting the video from QuickTime to MPEG-4, and got the same result. In fact, it looks identical to the QuickTime file.

Anyone else? (Please!)