iMovie 11 Slideshow to DVD for Wedding Screen Projection Questions

[carneasada]

Hello everyone,

I will keep this as brief as possible. I've been tasked with creating a photo slideshow to be displayed at my niece's wedding later this week.

The content basics: approx 120 images- most are from scans(at 600 ppi) of photos of various sizes- 3x3 up to 5x7 and saved as high-quality jpegs(also saved as .tifs but I didn't notice any perceptable quality difference on my 27" Cinema display).

The output and display requirements:

Output #1: a DVD of the iMovie slideshow that will be played on a DVD player connected to an HD capable projector that will display the slideshow on a 100" diagonal screen(4:3 format). The slideshow will run passively in the backgound(not a viewing 'event') and loop throughout the night during the wedding reception. No music or sound from the DVD will be played during this playback of the DVD; it will be muted.

Output #2: a handful of DVDs of the slideshow(16:9 format) to be passed out as gifts to family members that will be played on either their HDTV(most are 720p) or their computer at home. The DVD slideshow will have transitions between photos, a few title slides, and integrated music clips.

I did a test export today(15 slides plus a music clip) from iMovie to iDVD and saw a pretty noticible reduction in photo quality comparing(on my same Mac screen) the photos in iPhoto to the photos in the rendered iMovie slideshow.

I'm fairly new at creating photo slideshows. Specifically, my questions are what settings in iMovie and iDVD should I set to optimized video quality for both of these output needs? I was told to set up my iMovie slideshow in 16:9 format for Output #1(the large screen at the wedding) to optimize visual quality- knowing it will letterbox. I also read somewhere that it might be better to create the slideshow in iDVD vs iMovie for quality purposes. However, I have multiple music clips for the slideshow and iDVD doesn't support that.

Anyhow, ANY tips at all would be greatly appreciated so I optimize the slideshow quality and try to avoid any technical surprises at the wedding.
Thank you!

[Case]

When choosing DVD-Video as the medium, you are also reducing the resolution to 480px vertically. This is often notably less visual quality compared to iPhoto’s full resolution renderings. More so for you, as you are in the position to compare the two.

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, @600ppi, a 3x3 is 1800x1800 and a 5x7 is 3000x4200. That's compared to 720x480! At BEST, it's 1/4 of the previous size (and thus, resolution). What would you expect?

Scott

[carneasada]

Ok- I'm realizing the limitations of DVD quality. I'm pretty new at this. It sounds like connecting a laptop to the projector and playing the photo slideshow from the digital file would be the best option for quality then? Since the venue and staff won't accomodate a laptop, what other options are there to provide better slideshow quality other than Blue-ray disc? I presume I would need a Blue-Ray burner then or would my 2 yr old Mac burn to a Blue ray disk?

[jimraff]

I've just been through this with a similar project, and the bad news is that you will lose some quality in the iMovie export process regardless of how you display it (iDVD or otherwise). Getting more out of iMovie involves some fairly heavy lifting, replacing codecs and such for better export quality. If you can put up with some blotchiness in the dark colors, probably best to leave it be. But if you're feeling ambitious, here's a video about the process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htT-5y3zyb8

The good news is that you can adjust settings in iDVD to get the best quality it's capable of: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1645. If it's been set to the default "Best Performance," you will see a difference by choosing "Professional Quality."

Good luck.

[rumplestiltskin]

Best advice I can provide: Forget iMovie. Use Keynote. It does slideshows better than any other Apple product. Export with as high a quality video as you require. Drop into iDVD if you really need a DVD Video disc. If you can host the video from your Mac, make the resolution of the Keynote file equal to the resolution of the projector.

[Cornucopia]

Guys, that won't work, because:

Ok- I'm realizing the limitations of DVD quality. I'm pretty new at this. It sounds like connecting a laptop to the projector and playing the photo slideshow from the digital file would be the best option for quality then? Since the venue and staff won't accomodate a laptop, what other options are there to provide better slideshow quality other than Blue-ray disc? I presume I would need a Blue-Ray burner then or would my 2 yr old Mac burn to a Blue ray disk?

, so clearly direct-from-laptop options are OUT.

If you can burn an AVCHD disc (aka BD-quality content burned -often- onto a DVD size disc), then I would try that (doubt that either iPhoto or iMovie natively support AVCHD, but you could export an HD video stream and then use one of the freeware mac options available from this site to finish the job), but that still requires a BD player that supports AVCHD.

Otherwise, I'd say you are stuck with DVD quality.

Scott

<edit> or export to a friend with a PC and have them using MutliAVCHD, etc.

[rumplestiltskin]

1. Determine the -native- resolution of the projector (and how you can connect to it).
2. Use Keynote to make your slideshow at the projector's native resolution.
3. Export as H264/AAC.
4. Copy the movie to a flash drive.
5. Connect a WDTV to the projector and insert the flash drive.
6. Play the video from the WDTV.

Seems to me that's the only way (short of going down the BluRay route) to get anything better than DVD quality (and that assumes the projector is capable of HD native resolution).

[carneasada]

Just got back from the wedding. Thanks to all for your help and suggestions. Interesting to read about the Keynote solution. Not familiar with WDTV but will research it and keep this option in mind for future events. I'll also look into whether or not iMovie '11 natively supports AVCHD. Also, thanks jimraff for the great tip on changing the iDVD default setting of 'Best Quality' to 'Professional Quality'. I actually bought a book on iMovie and iDVD and didn't see any mention of that.

I was crunched for time and got the iMovie project burned to DVD- in 16:9 and 4:3 formats in time for the wedding. As it turned out- since the wedding was an outside late afternoon wedding, the A/V contractor decided to provide a 50" HDTV for display instead of the projection screen which really helped given the lighting and low-def DVD output.