Converting MOV to DV

[kdanielclark]

14 years with desktop publishing and this has me stumped...

I'm about to create a number of QuickTime movies (commercials, infomercials, Flash animations) that I want to assemble into a complete movie on either VHS or DVD. I've been running some tests with After Effects, QuickTime Pro, Premier, Discreet, and other random utilities so that I make sure these files are created properly the first time.

I have been using demo apps until I get this all figured out and will probably buy Premier, Final Cut Pro, or whatever, as long as it will do what I want. I'm running on a 500MHz Ti PowerBook, and have done some work on my fairly fast NT box.

My original test MOV file (a 10-second animation) looks awesome in QT Player - 640x480, full-color, smooth motion with audio. But when I convert it to DV for use in iMovie, I get crap...

QuickTime Pro exports crappy DV. Pathetic.

File exported from Premier on my Windows machine will not import into iMovie on my Mac. And, the DV AVI file looks great on the Win machine, but bad on the Mac.

Discreet creates the crappiest output - not sure if this is a condition of the demo app or what, but it's a joke.

After Effects (not a demo app) exports crappy DV.

--In most cases, the output is all fuzzy--

(I'm borrowing a DV camcorder, but it doesn't have S-video out to check it on a TV, I can only see it on the small viewfinder, so I'm unsure of the final exported quality.)

It seems to me that all of these programs should export high-quality footage, and I'm using an adequate machine. So, what's the deal? Is digital video just not as clean as QuickTime? Are these demo apps crippled? If I buy Premier, will I experience such hassles?

This shouldn't be so hard, I'm freaking out.

Thanks in advance!
dan

[WizyWyg]

Well its easy to clear this up:

QUICKTIME is already a compressed video format.
So, trying to convert something from a compressed format into another compressed format ends up with crappy looking compressed format

If you want uncompresed; capture to UNCOMPRESSED AVI.

AS for the FLASH stuff, no going around it save for exporting it out at the highest settings possible, but since its uses compression, you can't get good quality out of it. (i've only used flash to do some title overlays and animations).

Your only choice in this matter is to capture uncompressed formats. Once you use a compressed format, its forver going to be stuck in that quality.

[kdanielclark]

This is an interesting and helpful response, but my original QuickTime file is clean and perfect. Only when the file is converted to DV does it look bad.

So, is there a program that converts QuickTime to DV without quality loss?

I tried the Cleaner demo, which was horrible.
I tried Premier on my Windows machine, but the AVI file wouldn't open on my Mac (?)
I tried QuickTime Pro, which was also horrible.

Is the Cleaner demo disabled for quality as well as with the watermark?

Thanks!
dan