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General discussion

Clips in iMovie look awful

Jun 17, 2007 7:58AM PDT

I've changed all of my files to play with VLC and all of em look great, but now... I want to bring them into iMovie to start creating a movie that will eventually be a PodCast. When I bring the clips in, they look horrible again. Any suggestions?

Discussion is locked

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if the resolution of the version playing in VLC is low
Jun 17, 2007 9:39AM PDT

then the video quality will not be very good.

When you play in VLC, how big is the window in which the video is playing?

How long is an example video clip you're having the problem with - and how much space does it take up on the hard drive?

What was the original source video created by and where is that video?

Is there an extension associated with the video file? What is it?

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Reply
Jun 17, 2007 10:06AM PDT

Uhh, the aspect ratio is default. I don't know what the exact size is. I'm having trouble with every one of my clips in iMovie. Example lengths are from 5 seconds to a minute and twenty seconds. They all just screw up in iMovie. My clips are around 3-10 mb each.

The original source video(s) were created by GameCam. I recorded in-game footage of counter strike source. The original videos are on my PC, which I brought over to my Mac using my removable hard drive (250gig). The extension for the original video on my PC was MS-Mpeg v2, and on the Mac it's .avi ... All of em .avi's. Hope this helps Silly

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By the way
Jun 17, 2007 10:08AM PDT

BTW, when I do full screen in VLC, the picture quality is still awesome.

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can you get the original clips into iMovie?
Jun 17, 2007 12:02PM PDT

I didn't ask about aspect ratio - though if you have the actual size n pixels, that might help... how wide and how tall?

When you say "they all screw up in iMovie" that does not help very much. Are the pixelated? Are they jumpy? You said in yuor original post that you converted them to play back in VLC... What does that mean? VLC player can use all sorts of formats to play back.

Are you brining in the .avi's to iMovie?

Apologies for sounding so dense - I can't read your mind, I can't see what you are doing and you're jumping all over the place.

Can QuickTime (not iMovie) on your Mac playback the .avi's? Do you have Flip4Mac (free download) installed?

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Can you clarify...
Jun 17, 2007 2:41PM PDT
"The original source video(s) were created by GameCam. I recorded in-game footage of counter strike source."

You are using GameCam to capture game play video? I checked out their site but their "help" screen was blank or refused to be viewed in Safari. Either way, I did a quick google and came up with this comment from MacSlash...

"Bottom line is that MPEG2 is a lossy CODEC, so by decompressing to edit and then re-compressing to final DVD is going to result in significant and possibly very noticable quality loss."

From a bit of reading out of The Macintosh iLife 06 by Jim Heid... MGEG 2 uses 2 "I-Frames" per second that contain a complete 100% amount of the pixels that make up the image. The frames in between these I-Frames contain only the pixels that are different (the parts of the frame that have moved) leaving the I-Framess to fill in for the parts that have remained the same. This saves recording space and consequently size. Unfortunately, iMovie must convert the MPEG2 into an intermediate format called AIC in order to make it a editable. This takes time and processing power. You can get video converters to change the MGEG2 into a quicktime format to make the process faster and look better while you work with it.

However, the final output may look cleaner than the video as you work with it. Try outputting a short clip in a finalized format. It may look better than you might be seeing as you work with the MGEG2 video on the monitor. Try it and tell us if it works.

grim
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reply
Jun 17, 2007 11:05PM PDT

How do I output it to a finalized format? Explain how please. I believe I have Flip4Mac installed, but how do I utilize it?

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nutha reply
Jun 17, 2007 11:06PM PDT

Oh, and I import .avi's into iMovie.

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I wonder if all this is due to GameCam and your encoding?
Jun 17, 2007 11:26PM PDT

VLC Player could render almost any .AVI made with GameCam and do a good job. But to make video files that can used in most editors we need to stick to well worn CODECs. You listed "MS-Mpeg v2" which is a tipoff that it's not a standard encoding.

Try this. Go get HANDBRAKE and transcode a clip to something that Imovie would have created.

Bob

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reply
Jun 18, 2007 1:26AM PDT

I jus tried Handbrake and it crashed and then it froze. Forget it, I have to do a podcast for school. I'm just gonna take real video w/ my roomie's camera and import it right into iMovie, cuz I know from experience that that works perfectly Silly This is just a pain in the *** argh

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That crash told us a good deal.
Jun 18, 2007 1:27AM PDT

It told us the encoding is likely what is amiss. Next time test a few codecs before you get this far.

Bob

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I just found this program...
Jun 22, 2007 8:50AM PDT

and used it to convert an AVI file (identified in "get Info" as an MPGEG 1/2) to a wide screen quicktime clip that I plan on using in iMovie.

Program worked wonderfully for the conversion. It even offers Hi Def video formating.

http://www.squared5.com/

I highly recommend it to anyone with a video conversion or compatibility problem.

grim

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Another online application
Jun 22, 2007 12:02PM PDT

I have not tried this one yet but it looked very interesting because it is a web based software application. It also converts documents, archives, audio files, video files, etc.

I will warn everyone again that I have not tried it yet so use at your own risk. Obviously don't convert anything that should be confidential.

http://www.media-convert.com/

grim

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iMovie is meant for editing.
Jun 22, 2007 1:57PM PDT

The video clips played in iMove are more for real time previewing.
You will find that when you export your project from iMove to actual movie file like mov, or mp4, for file looks great.

remember iMovie is an editor, a tool for creating movies. You need lots of RAM, and fast Machine if you plan on using iMovie as your player..lol..