This used to be a tutorial on how to export 720p video from iMovie ‘09 for sites like YouTube or Vimeo. Apple have now added a 720p export option to iMovie ‘09 version 8.0.1, so if this is all you want, you can stop here. Run Software Update for the latest version of iMovie.
But if you have an HD camera that shoots in 1080i, and you want higher quality video output, follow this guide.
Please note that I don’t have the time to answer every comment I get on this post, and I’ve had a lot. Please scan through the other comments to see if someone else has asked your question, and re-read my guide carefully. Thanks.
Since this guide was written, Apple have released Snow Leopard and QuickTime X. This guide still applies, but you will have to use QuickTime 7 (which isn’t installed by default), instead of QuickTime X. QuickTime X is still too limited to be useful.
Also see the FAQ.
Note: This guide is for users of iMovie ‘09 and 1080i video cameras. If you have an older version of iMovie (including iMovie ‘08), this guide won’t work for you. If you have an HD camera that doesn’t shoot in 1080i (such as one of the “Flip” cameras, or most digital still cameras that also shoot HD video), this guide won’t work for you.
By default, Apple’s iMovie ‘09 software will only export video at up to 720p, and at 25fps. (This tutorial will use PAL framerates, but if you live in America or another NTSC country, it will still work for you. Just read 30 instead of 25, and 60 instead of 50.) 1080i video cameras, however, shoot 50 frames a second. It is possible to exploit this interlaced format and end up with 1080p video, optionally at the full 50 frames a second. (Note that you need a very fast Mac to play 1080p50 video. You should probably choose either 1080p25 or 720p50. Alternatively, the Sony Playstation 3 makes an excellent 1080p50 video player.)
Here’s how you can get the most out of your 1080i video camera.
Things you will need:
- A video camera that shoots in 1080i, and is compatible with iMovie.
- iMovie ‘09. This is bundled with iLife ‘09, and comes with every new Mac.
- JES Deinterlacer. This is a free download, but make sure you get the Universal Binary version.
- QuickTime Pro. This is a $30 download from Apple.
(If you don’t want to buy QuickTime Pro and have access to a different MP4 encoder, you can use that, but you’ll have to figure out what to do in step 5 for yourself.)
How to do it:
1. Import your video at “Full” size.
Run iMovie, connect your camera, and wait for the import window to appear. Make sure you choose the “Full – 1920×1080″ option.
Note! You must leave “Analyze for stabilization after import” turned off. Unfortunately, stabilising your video completely destroys the interlacing and so, combined with the “Full” size import, makes exporting HD video completely impossible. Yes, this is stupid. Blame Apple, not me.
2. Edit your movie.
Create a new project and put whatever you want in it. Note that you must not stabilise your video, see above.
3. “Export using QuickTime”.
We’re going to export your video to the “Apple Intermediate Codec”, at the full 1920×1080 size. We need to do this to preserve the interlacing on your video.
a) Choose “Export using QuickTime” in the Share menu.
b) Select “Movie to QuickTime Movie”, and click “Options”.
c) Click “Settings” under Video and set the options to match these:
d) Click “Size” under Video and set the options to match these:
(Note that the sizes marked NTSC/PAL/HD at the start of the name have non-square pixels, so avoid these.)
e) Click “Settings” under Sound and set the options to match these:
f) Turn off “Prepare for internet streaming”. When you’re done, the Movie Settings window should look like this:
g) Click OK, and then click Save. Wait for your video to export.
4. Deinterlace the video with JES Deinterlacer.
a) Run JES Deinterlacer. Click “Choose” and select the video you just exported from iMovie.
b) On the Input tab, set “Block match threshold”. For high quality video with little noise, choose 300. For noisy/fuzzy video (perhaps shot in the dark), choose 600 or higher. For only slightly noisy video pick a figure somewhere between.
c) On the Project tab, make sure “Deinterlace” is set. For 25fps output, choose “Use top field”. For 50fps output, choose “Both fields”. (Please note the disclaimer about playback at the top of this tutorial.) You can optionally turn on the “Local” option. This slightly increases quality, but takes longer to process.
d) Ensure the Output tab looks as below (change the output filename by clicking “Put”, if you wish), and click OK. Wait while your video is deinterlaced.
5. Compress and scale with QuickTime Pro.
Load the video you created with JES Deinterlacer into QuickTime. Select “Export” from the File menu. Choose “Movie to MPEG-4″ and click Options.
a) Change the options on the video tab to match this:
Important: If you want 1080p output instead of 720, change the resolution to “1920 x 1080 HD” and increase the bitrate to 16200.
These two bitrates are suggestions, you can tweak them up or down if you wish.
b) Click Video Options and change the options to match this:
c) Change the options on the audio tab to match this:
d) On the Streaming tab, turn off “Enable streaming”.
Click OK, choose a filename, then click Save.
6. You’re done!
You can delete the two intermediate videos you exported from iMovie and JES Deinterlacer.
This is an awesome guide, and thanks for making me achieve 720p60 movies that play super well on my computer
I’ve a question for you. You say that IMovie 09 destroys all interlacing if you do the analyze for stabilization option. Have you tested re-importing a fully finished 720p60 mp4 video to see what happens if you try to do the stabilization?
Also, what about de-interlacing the initial AIC imported clips thru JES instead of after your movie is initially exported?
Im trying to find the best way to use the IMovie 09 stabilisation option that lets me keep maximum quality (altho I expect some degratation with such a feature).
All the questions from people with progressive (p) type recording read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlace (helped me alot!!)
Iv got a few Q and if you dont have time I dont mind reading links you throw me (its the best way to learn anyway) iv been looking but its real hard to find proper specs with technical terms explained as well.
1:I have a camera it records in 1080i, and want to use best quality possible, wondering if i can acheive same quality as a camera that records 1080p (usually very expensive) simply by de-interlacing it??
Also if I was to purchase a 1080p camera can you do the reverse with a 1080p and interlace so to make it possible to burn and view on non-propper full HD TVs?
2. when it comes to burning to DVD i take it that at 1080p setting you must record with Blu-ray and view on top of line HD TV? Correct?
So what should I convert to for burning to DVD for most general play? (play on most TVs) ?
( I wish to use my footage for both internet (use 1080p for best quality im supposing) and DVD purposes to be used on common TVs and DVD players.)
3. Im guessing that (from reading earlyer posts) to use stabalising and features in imovie i will have to de-interlace each clip (this will take some seriouse time). once they are imported will I be able to delete the original to free up space or will they be linked to the original? (can i fully delete from my computer ie empty trash or will it be nessecary to keep them clips there?)
this post has been so helpful!! this stuff is hard to find a straight answer to!
Hi David,
I bought a Canon VIXIA HFS10 that shoots 1080p video
Should I follow your tutorial?
and will this work http://shedworx.com/revolverhd-features#rhd-archives
The SX1 doesn’t shoot interlaced video so you don’t need this guide. You can find out more about interlacing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlace
Trying desperately to import 720p60 into imovie09 from MP4 files, but somehow the imported video is chunked to 30 fps, which kills the smooth movements. Any idea ?
Thanks
thanks for your help with high def editing, just one question, once i have created my movie and exported it using this method, which is the best way (as in software program)to burn it to a dvd disk so it is playable on a dvd player, while still keeping the high def quality?
A lot of the iMovie effects don’t work with interlaced video. (Just bad design in iMovie I’m afraid.)
You can get around the problem by deinterlacing the source video, re-importing it, and then editing it.
iMovie’s deinterlace function doesn’t actually work. Try it – you’ll find it does nothing. I don’t know why.
Your camera it not HD. This guide isn’t relevant.
That may well work, give it a try. My method allows you to encode different versions, should you want to.
David,
Thank you for this awesome guide, and especially the follow up over the previous months. This information is hard to find in one place, and there is a lot of mis-information out there. I’m new to HD video and found this invaluable. I have one question remaining that was touched on in #55 and #56, but the original poster didn’t give the full story with the question
“Will this method you describe work if footage is shot in either 60i or 30p?”
This is the basis of my question. I have a Canon HF S100, which also shoots 60i, 30p or 24p. The missing piece of information is that while the camera shoots “true” 24p and 30p, everything is converted and stored on the flash card as 60i (29.97 fps). I’m not sure why, but I think the reason for this is to allow playback of the raw footage on a reqular NTSC TV directly from the camera?
I read on other sites that an inverse telecine conversion (you can do this with JES) is needed to get back the original 24fps from 29.97.
Does this mean that for footage shot in 30p (but also stored in 60i, 29.97fps), I would essentially need to use your guide to de-interlace and get back the original 30p.
If this is the case, then I see no difference between shooting in 60i or 30p, as the post processing would be the same for both if I wanted a true 30p output.
Thanks in advance.
Hi David,
I own an Apple TV and was hoping to simply watch these now converted videos on my TV set.
When copying the now mp4 video into my iTunes movie library followed by trying to sync to my apple TV I receive a message saying “Holiday 2008″ was not copied to the Apple TV “Steven’s Apple TV” because it cannot be played on this Apple TV.
Any ideas why im getting this message? I thought it being mp4 shouldn’t have any issues what so ever. ?
Any help would be great.
Thanks
I followed the instructions but I get the following error message. any thoughts?
NIB Error 10960
Thanks for the excellent blog David
Any suggestions on what to do with a project that contains footage from a AVCHD 1080p camcorder and 1080i from a mini-DV camcorder? Is it best to treat them separately and de-interlace the 1081i footage first?
will this JES thing fix Pixlation problems. with imovie ?
David thanks for your suggestions and excellent work.
I’ve a LUMIX GH1 Camera. It’s reported to have (European PAL) 1920×1080p 25p capabòe sensor and to record at 50i. The format is AVCHD and the bitrate is 17mbps
1) I think it is an interlaced video so your guide will be very useful, isn’t it?
2) After rendering, I’d like to play the movie to a SP3. Could you help me about final settings in QT, in order to lose as less as possible in quality?
3) At last, I’ve noticed comparing PC Sony vegas with imovie 09 that imovie is worse (in HD) because it displays noticeable bands in shadows. Vegas works better because the shadows are degrading and there aren’t bands.
Is there any setting that you can suggest to me in order to eliminate this bands?
Thanks
Gualtiero Italy
hit there, your website is great. Very helpful. I have a JVC everio G. have had some trouble with its video quality once I burn a DVD. Any thoughts to how to improve its video quality??? Thanks in advance.
I tried this with WDTV. My video would not play. Do you know the settings to export HD content to play on a WDTV, which is a great little device. Thanks!
Correct, importing is fine, only exporting is bad. You don’t need to re-import as long as you imported using the 1080i size.
David,
in order to clarify point 3 of my provious post, see the examples at flickr url above
The left movie has been made with a windows PC and Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0 Version 9.0b (Build 92).
The right movie has been made following your instructions.
The difference in the shadow in the white wall inside the room (where there’s the mirror) is very high between the two still frames.
The overall quality is better under Vegas as you can see, although I’ve used HDV 1440 with vegas.
I think the problem is in Apple AIC wich I don’t like much…
(with vegas seems to be no conversion importing clips from camera to timeline)
Any suggestion? Vegas works better than imovie but render has a lot of bugs and program stops frequently – as using four angles titles in imovie 09….)
cheers
Gualtiero
Sorry, I can’t see the url written in website, so I post it again here:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3435/3901379615_dc0a34b0fc_b.jpg
No. 720p isn’t interlaced so you can export normally without worrying about interlacing.
Hi David – bless you! thank you again on behalf of everyone. Technical problems can be such a stress..
Are your export suggestions here for youtube? if not, can you please give me suggested export settings? I recorded on Sony HD 1080 50i pal handycam and edited in imovie.
I need to get my 8 minute video (approx 600mb) onto youtube so it is nice quality, watchable and streams at a decent rate at their end… this has caused endless hours of research, trials, faliures and pain for me… please please help…
Thanks again, Terri
Thanks David, from what I understand, imovie’s own YouTube export function only works for movies under 100mb. Ive tried, it seems to freak out with big files. Could you suggest a codec, aspect ratio and frame rate or anything to help it would be appreciated.. what i have here is a great sharp video but buffers every 2 seconds!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxIM02YB3w thanks again..
David, I don’t want any suggestion/comparison about vegas (I’m just using it with correct settings).
I’d like to know if you can improve imovie ‘09 HD/AVCHD performance during import (I imagine that in export your tutorial carries imovie at the top of its quality capabilities).
(I’d like to use imovie instead of vegas, which seems to have lots of bugs in the HD rendering process)
Thanks.
Gualtiero
Not off the top of my head. Have you got Perian installed? Try turning it off. Can you get an updated codec from Flip? You’d be better off asking in a Flip forum or something like that.
Hi David
Thanks very much for an interesting forum. I have one question: do you recommend de-interlacing for an iMovie project that comprises stills, and clips of low and high quality?
I started my project without a HD camera, progressed to a better camera (still not HD) and finally finished it off with a few HD clips. Should’ve bought HD in the first place. On my DVD render through Toast, even my high-quality stills aren’t looking great….
Thanks very much
Hi,
there is no need anymore to buy QT Pro if you use Snow Leopard! It’s all integrated
Let’s say I want to make an HD version and a standard DVD version. Can the two formats exists on the same DVD where the user can pick which one they want to play?
Since I left the stabilization on with my last import (which over an hour long from our European vacation), what’s the best possible output? I suppose I could re-import everything, but the video is already edited. Is there a way to upscale the quality without too much quality loss?
Thanks
@David
Could you clarify here. 1080i 60i cannot be imported into iMovie09? It gets downsampled to 30p? If this right, why even shoot in 60i and obviously this tutorial is not necessary. I’m also not convinced that I understand any of this:)
Thanks in advance!!
No, you need to follow the complete guide to end up with anything watchable. I recommend 1080p at 25/30fps, or 720p at 50/60fps.
Could you clarify here. 1080i 60i cannot be imported into iMovie09? It gets downsampled to 30p? If this right, why even shoot in 60i and obviously this tutorial is not necessary. I’m also not convinced that I understand any of this:)
I don’t think a camera that shoots in 60i exists. I don’t believe there is such a format.
Hi
I cant get the 1080i option when importing it just says full-original size . Im using a Panasonic HS300 FullHD camcorder. Also recording at highest option the book says it records at 1920×1080 but i dont know how to verify that.
Thanks
Sach
Melbourne Australia
“Full – original size” means 1080i
David,
First allow me to add my sincere thanx for your selfless, and thorough help.
I have been up for 3 days straight until 9am trying to create a movie. I have always been a PC user, and about 6 months ago bought a Sony VAIO AW with the 18:4 screen and all the bells and whistles. I bought a Sony SDR-11. I used the included handycam software which gave a choice to burn a DVD to Blu Ray(built in burner) or SD. It imported in AVCHD but let me easily export HD to Youtube, and SD for play on parents DVD players. Problem is…I got sick of all the problems with PC’s. So, I gave it to my dad, he loves it…Now enter MAC. I love the system, and would probably never go back to a PC. That being said, the very thing I heard everyone talk about….I movie..seems to be much more complicated than my previous system.
I wanted a simple, yet quality system for videotaping high school football for review, and to upload clips to You Tube for the kids of the highlights..When I import, I Movie recognizes clips..great… I can burn using Toast 10 pro..using HD settingsburning to a regular DVD…it plays on Playstation 3 but not a regulare DVD. Ok, I understand that…but if I use IDVD or Toast to try and burn an SD quality video for the parents it comes out very flawed. From my reading I’m almost positive it is from interlacing. The bleachers have Zebra strips, and the players are fuzzy..
I have spent days with Apple tech support, at the genius bar….with best buy geek squad..and no one has an answer. We tried an external burner..same… pulling data from a 2 tb Raid external drive…same..
I have tried a dozen different configuration options..and found your site.
All I want to be able to do is take my AVCHD content…import into Imovie.. edit….upload HD to you tube and burn regular DVD’s without all the artifacts, noise, interlacing whatever for the parents to watch.
Please help.
Chad, you have mail.
Yes, as long as you don’t want to do any editing of it!
Can you send the answer to me too please?
1. Yes, you can burn HD footage onto a DVD with Toast – although as the website points out, it will only work in certain players. It’s much cheaper just to copy the HD mp4 onto a USB flash disk, which the PS3 will play back equally well.
2. My camera is a Sony HDR-TG3. It’s small, but expensive. There are cheaper ones which are better quality, but bigger.
3. Optical Image Stabilisation on the camera isn’t a problem. You can turn it on. Only iMovie’s stabilisation causes problems if the camera shoots in 1080i. However, if you’re happy with 720p output, then you can just use iMovie’s new 720p export option which works fine with stabilisation turned on.
Hello David. Thank you for taking the time to put together this excellent guide.
I have a question similar to Chad’s, above. I’m using a Canon HD Vixia HG20 at 1080 60i, iMovie ‘09, iDVD 7.0.4, and Snow Leopard. I’ve been importing my movies full quality into iMovie, but when I’m done and I Share->iDVD, the quality is horrendous. I’m able to export great looking Quicktime movies, but I’ve had awful luck trying to get anything that looks half decent out of iDVD. Everything winds up terribly pixelated. Do you know if some variation of the guide you provide above might allow me to get something into iDVD that looks half decent?
Thank you for your time!
Sorry, I really don’t know much about iDVD. You could try making an mp4 and then dropping the mp4 into iDVD, I don’t see why that shouldn’t work.
Apple seem to be quietly discontinuing support for iDVD.
Hi David,
Thanks for the excellent tutorial, it worked very well, picture quality is great now, the
only problem is suddenly some of the movie soundtrack has moved to other sequences,
sometimes playing 2 songs at the same time. Any idea what’s happening ?
Rgds,
Jörg
suddenly some of the movie soundtrack has moved to other sequences,
sometimes playing 2 songs at the same time. Any idea what’s happening ?
Sounds like an iMovie glitch, nothing to do with the export mode.
Yes, if you’re going to re-import the deinterlaced footage back into iMovie and then edit it – it will work fine. The only downside to this method is that it’s pretty time-consuming.
Hi David,
first of all I want to say thanks. What a great Blog. I have a question the JES D I downloaded has several different items on the JES D new project dialog screen under input next to Gamma there is an option to pick “nc/c” with a scroll down options of NTSC, PAL or HD. Will picking one of these make any difference? Also I am having a hard time taking an MP4 video (Which looks great by the way) and putting back to DVD to watch on regular TV. Looks horrible I tried “4media DVD creator” but YUK! I have the latest iMac 10.5.8, I use a canon HF20 dig cam, imovie and iDVD. again thanks for your help.
You can ignore the new “nc” option. The best way to burn a DVD is not to export to mp4 at all, but simply to choose “Share -> iDVD” in iMovie. iMovie will convert it to the best format for you.
Hi,
Thanks for a fantastic guide!
I have a problem though, in step 5 when compressing to MPEG4 I loose the chapter markers. Does anyone know how to solve that?
Thanks
Olof
As far as I know, iMovie simply doesn’t support the exporting of chapter markers.
when exporting as Apple TV (m4v) it does. However then there are options in the export dialog. Are there any other way (where resolution, quality etc can be set) to export m4v than the Apple TV.
Hi David.
I used your tutorial above to get great HD footage out of my Canon Vixia HF10 with iMovie 09. Plays great at 720p on my PS3 (not so much 1080p… stutters too much, but that might be the PS3… plays fine on my iMac).
You also helped solve another problem regarding transitions not working with HD files if one upgraded to 8.0.1. I have kept mine at 8.0.0 all this time, but now under Snow Leopard, I have crash problems, and it forgets edits I’ve made if I close the program and open it again. My question is: do I have to update iMovie to work properly under Snow Leopard? If so, will I still be losing the transitions and titles that I liked using in 8.0.0?
You probably do have to update, yes, but I don’t see why you should lose any transitions.
Hi David.
By losing, I mean the way if you use anything but cross dissolve and fade to black, it dumbs down rendering to 960×540. We chatted about this on a Mac User forum. Your thread was helpful.
Incidentally, I tried a number of fixes for the editing forgets. I installed iMovie 08, did an ugrade and found it worked reasonably, but limited. Some glitches in projects. Then I upgraded to iMovie 09, trying to keep it at 8.0.0, and it would work until I shut it down, then forget its edits. I’ve resolved to utilizing the 8.0.5 for now, and only using minimal transitions for the 1080i export into JES.
Thanks for your help.
Johnny
fantastic guide to get hopefully a great result.
I have a 30 minute iMovie that I created from my clips of my Canon HG20. I’m at the step of putting it through JES Deinterlacer and the file size is . . . wait for it . . . 71.26GB!!!!!!!
I have selected “both fields” in the project section which doubled the size of the final output. But I wanted the best quality and went for the 50 frame rate for PAL.
Is this normal?
In all honesty there are very few bad HD cameras. I prefer Sony models, but it’s a matter of taste. I would definitely recommend anything that uses AVCHD.
Currently, you can’t burn blu-ray (the HD version of DVD) discs on a Mac. You can burn regular DVDs with iDVD – this comes with your Mac for free. If you want put to HD video on a DVD, just burn the .mp4 file using the Finder – but beware that this will only play in a PC or Mac, not on a regular DVD player.
Yes. The temporary file you make with JES is huge. The final file you compress to MP4 will be much smaller, and then you can delete the huge one.
David, I have a Canon VIXIA HFS10 that records in 1080 60i, but has an option to record in 1080 30p. Should i just switch it to 30p or shoot 60i and follow your guide? What are the pros and cons?
Thanks for your help.
Cheers__ Heath
Just switch to 30p and edit/export normally, ignore my guide. 60i really doesn’t have any pros, other than the fact that usually that’s the only option.
Hi David
Have followed the guide for a couple of home movies and had great results exporting in 1080HD. Been having a problem with a current clip however on the last step when coverting to MP4 in quicktime pro, get the error after a few hours of encoding qtKitErrorCatchAll (-2125). I have read around this has something to do with file size?. The file im importing into quicktime for compression is 25GB. Have 400gb free on hard drive.
I’ve converted files much bigger than that without a problem. I’m afraid I don’t know what’s causing your error.
Địt mẹ thằng David
Followed instructions to the letter. Keep getting error..” Failed: The offset in the file is too big. (-2125)” when trying to compress the file using Quicktime Pro…..Any ideas???
Hi David,
Your advise on this site has helped my loads, just a quick few Q’s
I have a Panasonic HDC-SD1 AVCHD camcorder, iMovie 09 (8.0.5) and I’ve put all my honeymoon footage on my mac (snow Leopard),
Does iMovie import / edit / export in full HD
If this isn’t the case then I’ll happily purchase Final Cut Pro
Do i need to download iMovie 09 HD?
When i import it says “Full – Original Size” (i’m hoping this is 1080i) ?
What other programs can i use to burn to DVD ?
thanks very much
Jeffers
iMovie ‘08 scales all video to a maximum size of 960×540 before export, and there’s no way to prevent it from doing so.
1. Yes, it does.
2. No, you don’t.
3. This is indeed 1080i.
4. You can use iDVD (support for which is built into iMovie), or you can buy Roxio’s Toast. There’s also Burn – but every time I’ve tried it, it’s crashed.
Are there changes needed to your instructions regarding QT Pro if using Snow Leopard? I purchased the Pro key but with Snow Leopard, it doesn’t look like I can make a conversion to QT pro — so maybe the version of QT associated with Snow Leopard does what pro does? Thanks.
I followed all of steps above. I don’t have QT pro but I was going to attempt to use mpeg stream clip or hand brake. As far as I understand they are mpeg encoders? I had an error on first try of JES. The second time the error told me I didn’t have enough room on my HD. I have 121 gb available. I have two files on my desktop one is a .mov from iMovie export correct? The other is a temp file from JES? The temp file says it’s 1920 x 1080p it’s 12 minutes long and over 10gb in size wow! My question is I had all the screen shots as you but I don’t have pro. When I hit ok on the export as mpeg4 I get the screens that you list and jes shows the stas and finishes with the errors. But my complete movie is there and the temp is complete. Where does QT pro come in? What is it’s purpose? Can’t I just burn the temp file to a BR if I had one with TT 10? Or if the file was a bit smaller burn it to a standard DVD with toast in HD with the BR option? Very very frustrated avchd camera owner here. I just want to be able to edit and make a great home movies and burn them in HD to standard DVD. I guees I can fit alot more with no option to edit or menus to standard DVD by just burning the mts files to DVD. It looks awesome in 1080p on my PS3 but clips just play one after the other and there is a slight pause and blur between clips. Sorry to be so long. Just looking for help with this as many are with avchd and a mac. Thanks.
why wont this work with iMovie ‘08. I just used it and it worked? I also skipped the Quicktime step since QT 7 doesn’t exist anymore on Snow Leopard so I exported using the same settings right out of JES.. I burned to Toast and played on my BD player no problem (thanks!)
I’ve seen some posts asking how to burn, etc. Here is a basic workflow that I just figured out (with a cost of $89) and it works *perfectly*. My needs are very basic as follows:
Goal: Either directly burn BD from my Canon HF10 to disc or back up to my Mac first then burn later..viewing of course everything in original quality via my Blue Ray player (1080i/60i)
Steps: Buy Shedworx Flamingo and Revolver ( you dont need Flamingo but it helps)..If your footage is still on the cam, use Revolver to find it (MTS streams), import them, put a DVD in your drive, press burn and you are done. The resulting disc plays automatically on my BD player in *original quality*..Fantastic! One very slight nuisance: I get a short 1 sec studder in between each scene (ideally I want all the clips ‘joined’ but I haven’t figured out how to do that without losing quality). If your footage is already on your HD, use flamingo to find it (its a great little program to organize your footage into clips, dates, etc) and press “send to Revolver”, follow steps above and you are once again done.
Lastly, if you do want/need to edit your footage David’s process works for me too using Shedworx programs but I can’t seem to get the same original quality as with the unedited versions. I’m not technical, but maybe I’ll figure it out and post if so. Thanks!
Hei
This manual was great, thanks a lot…
Can you please put out the last picture again (about sound tab.), This will be very usefull.
Thanks!!!
Sorry about that, it’s fixed now.
No, it’s a Sony HDR-TG3. As far as I know, the 5D shoots in progressive, not interlaced, so you don’t need this guide.
You don’t need to choose Both Fields to get 1080p – Top Field Only will do the job perfectly so yes, you can get 1920×1080. The difference between the two options are frame rate:
Top Field Only: 1080p30 (or 25 for PAL)
Both Fields: 1080p60 (or 50 for PAL)
If you’re encoding to H264, pick a bitrate of 16200 for 1080p.
PS. I am the same as poster 2.
Yes, otherwise it will be reduced in size to 540p.
It will work fine.
Nothing, except that you have to deinterlace the clip files one by one. I often have hundreds.
Yes, most blu-ray players have standard-definition output – but I can’t see why you would ever want to do this. Just make a normal DVD.
I don’t know if you’re lost, but I certainly am.
I’ve never used Compressor, Final Cut, or anything like it. Sorry.
As far as I know, 60i doesn’t actually exist – it’s a silly way of describing 30i. So “60i” should work fine. 30p and 24p may also work fine, but you don’t need do to any of my tricks, just a standard export will work fine.
1. No. Your camera doesn’t shoot interlaced video.
2. “Export using QuickTime” using the settings from Step 5. If you’re happy with 720p, you can use the regular export.
3. That will work fine too.
The filesize is much less than the 40gb/hour specified by iMovie – this is only for the mostly-uncompressed version that iMovie uses for editing. You can control the resulting file size by adjusting the export bitrate.
The only way to figure out what your old PC will be able to play will be to try it – if your PC is very old you may find that neither work and you’ll have to resort to 720p30. (Though you’ll find this still looks pretty good.)
Yes, JES converts your video to progressive, but it doesn’t fix noise.
nclc is a new option, you can leave it on “None”.
Follow these instructions, making sure to choose the 1080p30 options where instructed and you’ll end up with suitable video for burning.
You’re probably seeing interlacing artefacts, so yes, this guide should help. The TG3 doesn’t actually have a 720 recording mode, only 1080i.
The “current size” is misleading. Ignore it. 1080p exports work correctly.
I haven’t tried it, it didn’t exist when I wrote this guide. – give it a go!
You can burn HD videos with Toast, but if you just want to watch it on a PS3, by far the easiest way is just to copy the mp4 onto a USB drive and plug it into your PS3.
The “current size” is misleading. Ignore it. 1080p exports work correctly.
Probably Toast.
1080p60 looks better simply because it has twice the number of frames per second – 60 instead of 30. To learn more about interlacing, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlace
I generally allocate 128kb per pixel, so (1920×1080)/128 = 16200. But this is only a suggestion, feel free to experiment.
Block match threshold is an option in the algorithm that determines when to deinterlace a part of the picture, and when not to, based on how much the picture is moving.
It doesn’t actually work.
You can re-import the deinterlaced AIC clips if you want to use stabilization. That works fine.
1. The quality will not be as good as a native 1080p camera since you’re interpolating the contents of every other line. And yes, you can view 1080p footage on a normal TV, it’s not a problem.
2. You can’t put HD video on a DVD, unless you’re going to watch it on a PC or Mac. For a normal TV you’ll need a blu-ray burner and player, and it won’t play in normal DVD players.
3. You can delete the originals.
Since your camera doesn’t shoot in interlaced, you don’t need to follow my guide.
I’m pretty sure iMovie can’t import 60fps video. You’ll probably need to use Final Cut.
DVD players cannot play HD video. It’s not possible.
As far as I’m aware, iMovie doesn’t support 1080i60 video – it downsamples it back to 30fps which rather ruins it.
30p should work just fine – but you don’t need to follow my guide as the video will not be interlaced. Just edit and export as normal.
AppleTV has some odd limitations. Your best bet is to encode the final mp4 using Handbrake instead of QuickTime, and use the Apple TV preset. Handbrake is free – just Google for it.
I followed the instructions but I get the following error message. any thoughts?
NIB Error 10960
Sorry, I don’t know!
Thanks for the excellent blog David
Any suggestions on what to do with a project that contains footage from a AVCHD 1080p camcorder and 1080i from a mini-DV camcorder? Is it best to treat them separately and de-interlace the 1081i footage first?
Your best bet is to deinterlace the 1080i footage and then re-import it so that everything is 1080p.
will this JES thing fix Pixlation problems. with imovie ?
You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid. I don’t know what problems you’re referring to.
1) I think it is an interlaced video so your guide will be very useful, isn’t it?
Yes.
2) After rendering, I’d like to play the movie to a SP3. Could you help me about final settings in QT, in order to lose as less as possible in quality?
A PS3 will happily play 1080p50 video – just follow the guide.
3) At last, I’ve noticed comparing PC Sony vegas with imovie 09 that imovie is worse (in HD) because it displays noticeable bands in shadows. Vegas works better because the shadows are degrading and there aren’t bands.
I haven’t seen this problem myself.
Is there any setting that you can suggest to me in order to eliminate this bands?
I tried this with WDTV. My video would not play. Do you know the settings to export HD content to play on a WDTV, which is a great little device. Thanks!
Sorry, I’ve never used one.
Any suggestion? Vegas works better than imovie but render has a lot of bugs and program stops frequently – as using four angles titles in imovie 09….)
Sorry but I don’t know anything about Vegas, so I can’t really help out with any comparison.
Are your export suggestions here for youtube?
Exporting 720p will work fine for YouTube, but you don’t really need to do it my way. iMovie’s own YouTube export function works fine.
Still photos won’t need deinterlacing. You’re best off sticking with iMovie’s own 720p export function.
Let’s say I want to make an HD version and a standard DVD version. Can the two formats exists on the same DVD where the user can pick which one they want to play?
DVDs cannot store HD video in any format. You need a blu-ray writer.
Hi David,
so if I get a blueray writer can a blue ray player connect to an older regular tv and be watched ( not worried about HD at that point) what I do is video football games for the coach and when team viewing they do not have the best of equipment even though my stuff is not to bad.
I’ve found WD TV player to be easy to use, and only use it for standard DVD quality video. I have a huge library of dvds that are standard rips from laserdisks. I converted them to a format for MP4 or M4v, by changing the extension to M4v the MP4 rips will often work in WD TV. The problem I’ve found and I’ve been using handbrake for that process is some videos play fine on the mac for a mac kiosk but my mom has better luck using the controller and WD TV player. Unfortunately the movies don’t all play as well on the WD player as they do without problems on the mac. I think it’s because there’s a real bottleneck in how high a frame rate or how high a quality of video you can create. I’m using pretty conservative settings and this is for standard dvd not Blue Ray or HD quality rips. And the WD player doesn’t handle all of my standard quality rips. I get some stuttering that is strange and looks like interlaced odd field errors or something, giving a stuttering look that is strange and almost looks to be related to field errors in the render. It happens for 20 to 30% of my ripped videos for the WD kiosk setup. I’m not sure why this happens, but I think it’s a hardware bottleneck with the WD player. That is likely what you are running into with HD content. The WD player is just to cheap to be able to handle the high frame rates for some renders that work perfectly well on the Mac.