Loss of quality through iMovieHD

[kroguk]

Hi all,

I have recently purchased an HV20 and was glad to see that there was already a forum to discuss this great camcorder.

My first impressions of the camera are very good and so far, it has exceeded my expectations.

Its first test footage (apart from a few minutes in the garden) was taken at last weekends MotoGP event at Donington Park. I was pleased to see that it handled the fast moving subjects very well and the slower footage was flawless.

At this stage I guess I should point out that I have played back the footage on a Panasonic 50" plasma (via HDMI) and it is simply crystal clear and highly detailed.

Okay, onto the thread topic ! I have imported the footage into iMovieHD on my Mac and have edited it very simply by adding some transitions between clips and also some titling. I also experimented with slowing some footage down. After finishing the edit and waiting three and a half hours for my Mac to send it back to my camera, I played back the footage to see what the results were like. For the most part they were fine. The slow-mo experiment failed...not sure why....might be an interlacing issue?!?.

However, the one thing that was very noticeable was a distinct drop in quality where transitions or titling had been added. It was almost as if the software had processed the frame affected by the transition at a lower resolution and when the frame went back to its unedited portion, it returned to its noticeably higher quality. It kinda' looked like the edited part was in DV whilst the rest was obviously still in HDV.

I think that if I had not been watching it on such a big screen, it may not have been so obvious, and indeed, it did not seem to be the case on my computer screen.

Has anyone had a similar experience or maybe know if I am committing a schoolboy error somewhere !

At this early stage, it has almost put me off using iMovie or at the very least, only using it to edit very sparingly.

Cheers,

kroguk.

[skinnyboy]

I don't know what iMovie may be doing there. You'll be much happier in the long run using Final Cut - even the Express version. Yes, it's expensive, but it handles editing so much better. iMovie is designed to do a lot of the thinking for you, and you can't control what it's doing.
Final Cut let's you decide.

[kroguk]

Thanks for the reply.
After posting my thread I did start to look at Final Cut Express.

Is there anyone out there who has used FCE and can confirm that there is no loss of quality in editing.

Also, are there any tech-heads who can explain why iMovie is doing what it is doing.

Cheers.

[pmpete]

I noticed the same thing with my footage in iMovie. Try doing some color correction or other effects in iMovie, it trashed the footage.
I will have to upgrade to FCE, my old copy was for my G4 an was prior to HD/Intel.
BTW the workflow of FCE is a pain. I just hated it. Hopefully Apple will get serious and revise them both. Since it has been a while since they have.
Paul

[kroguk]

@pmpete

Thanks for the reply. Kinda' glad that someone else has noticed this problem.
I guess an upgrade to FCE is in order although on other forums there is talk of iMovie7 being more capable in terms of editing HD footage.

Obviously iLife07 will be cheaper than FCE and so I may wait to see what improvements, if any, are made.

Editing in HD is also showing up the lack of horsepower in my eMac ! So that'll be a new computer as well ! Quite an expensive hobby I appear to be developing :hv20-smilie03:

[pmpete]

Yeah that it may be time to downgrade the eMac. A newer Core 2 Duo machine will speed things up for you considerably. Plus if you wait it will come decked out with the new version of iLife and Leopard too.
Paul

[angryofmayfair]

You might still see the loss of quality even using FCE - it uses the same 'intermeadiate codec' as iMovie - I can see a slight loss when comparing raw HD footage and editied FCE footage via my HC3 plugged into a Pioneer 50" plasma via HDMI, it is noticable but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's like SD compared to HD, just the whole recaptured footage sent back to the HC3 from the FCE timeline looks a fraction less sharp...
If you want a total 'loss-free' editing expriance with no in-between codec losses (IMHO the FCE i-codec is damn good but not perfect) then you need to got all the way to Final Cut Pro (Suite) to acheive this

[thewinelake]

That's all very interesting. What about the option of using something like Vegas from within Parallels? It seems to be a pretty affordable package, but I've no idea if it does a good job of HD.