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General discussion

Image quality better on TV than in imovie

by Cosmofoxy Jul 7, 2007 4:03AM PDT

I'm a newbie to this forum. I'm testing out a new Panasonic PV-GS320 which got rave reviews every place I looked on the web (except for lack of a mic jack).

When I view the raw video on a 27 inch TV it looks (relatively) good. When I take the video into iMovie it looks noticably worse, as if the resolution has been reduced. (I'm shooting in best image mode.)

Question: Is iMovie downgrading the image? If so, why?

Another question has to do with my perception. Reading the reviews of the "outstanding" image quality of this Leica lens, 3 CCD equipped camera, I expected more. People and large, well-defined shapes are OK, I guess, but any part of any scenery shot (leafy hillsides, wide shots of vistas) looks muddled, with a noticable lack of detail. Not blury, just not much detail. In some of these shots (all tripod mounted) the image doesn't look much better than some YouTube clips.

Question: Am I expecting too much? Or does it take a $2,000 camera shoot a field of flowers and be able to tell what kind of flowers they are?

My computer is a new Pentium iMac with 160 gig HD, with super drive and iMovie HD 6 etc.

Thanks

Discussion is locked

2 Posts

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comparing what you see in iMovie

by boya84 Jul 7, 2007 4:49AM PDT

is not appropriate.

From iMovie, finish the project using iDVD. Then take that DVD and playback in a DVD machine.

Or in iDVD, save as a DVD file and playback using DVD player on your Mac connected to an external screen (though you did not say which iMac you have - if the 17 inch or 20 inch, you will have monitor duplication which will not provide best quality playback on the external monitor - if you have the 24 inch, you can have the external monitor behave as a different monitor so much better resolution contol).

iMovie is an editor - not a playback optimized application.

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Thanks for iMovie vs TV post

by Cosmofoxy Jul 7, 2007 5:20AM PDT

Thanks. I think your post helped. I'm getting to do what you suggested.

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