exporting IMovie to FCE

I've used IMovie to put together montages using the Ken Burns effect. Exporting them then to FCE I notice a big drop in quality. Can I improve this problem?
Thanks,
Ray

That's kind of vague... Can you elaborate what the drop in quality is?



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks for the quick response. What's happening is when I export an IMovie project, using stills, with the K. Burns effect, the actually video quality of the stills are not as sharp as the Imovie original. I exported this through the shared Media Browser.
I tried exporting the IMovie project as a quick time file and that seemed to improve the quality but after I rendered it the quality diminished again. I hope some of this makes sense.
Thanks,
Ray

i havent done this recently but you should be able to OPEN the imovie project from Final Cut. It will import all your footage and clips, sequence. no effects or titles. but this should work without a problem. without quality loss.

Which version of iMovie of you using first of all? Second, how did you export from iMovie exactly? What settings did you use? QuickTime doesn't mean anything. It's a thousand permutations of formats and codecs. What settings are you using in FCP?

Wow. I'm using IMovies08. I export the Imovie going to "Share" in the tool bar and then exporting the movie through the Quicktime submenu. There I set export for Movie to "Quicktime movie setting" I set the compressor for best quality. Unfortunately for me you're much more technical than I am. Hope i'm answering this right. In Final Cut I have the Easy Setup menu at "DV-NTSC.
The reason i'm doing this portion of my project through IMovies is because it's easier for me to combine stills and music using this application, and it's coming out 16x9. I've tried importing the stills straight to FC but they import 4X3 and i'm not sure how to get them to 16x9. The video i'm using for this project was shot 16x9 so I want to keep the formats the same. Hope i've made some sense.
Thanks,
Ray

It'd be better if you were just cutting in Final Cut. Now, if you were cutting in iMovie, why do you want to bring those into Final Cut Express again?

I suspect your iMovie project is using .dv media. That is NOT the same as DV NTSC. .dv means DV Stream; DV NTSC in Final Cut means a QuickTime movie in DV NTSC codec.

To mark imported media as anamorphic 16:9, find the "Anamorphic" column in the Browser and click on it. Or, select all the clips you want to flag as anamorphic, then CONTROL-click them at the Anamorphic column and select Yes:

[www.lafcpug.org]


www.derekmok.com

>The video i'm using for this project was shot 16x9 so I want to keep the formats the
>same.

You're in DV. Hit apple 0 to bring up sequence settings. There will be a checkbox on "anamorphic". Make sure that is checked... Hell, this is in the FAQ... [www.lafcpug.org]

>I've tried importing the stills straight to FC but they import 4X3 and i'm not sure how to
>get them to 16x9.

FCP may scale the footage to fit the frame, adding a letterbox or pillarbox. Launch the clip in the viewer and enlarge it so that it fits the frame. It is a good practice to resize still before you import them into FCP.

[www.lafcpug.org]



www.strypesinpost.com

Actually a portion of the project is edited in IMovies then exported to FC where I'm doing the bulk of the project. The Project will ultimately be output through FC. I used Imovies to build a few montages because it was easier for me. I'll now try and do everything in FC. Thanks for the help.
Ray