Newbie dissatisfied with iMovie CD-ROM export quality

[smsd]

And looking for alternatives.

I'm new both to Mac (PowerBook DVI G4 800, OS X 10.2.2) and to video editing (only done a bit on PC's previously with ulead Video Studio Pro).

Using iMovie was a dream and I am very pleased with my results (loaded in from a Sony DV camera), and I had planned on exporting back to DV for copying to SVHS tapes. However, some friends in another country who wanted a copy asked for a Video CD. After the all night export to Vid-CD I was very dissapointed to see the resulting movie in Quicktime - blocky, diffuse, unclear, full of artifacts and in general not nice at all. (The footage is from a martial arts seminar and has a lot of motion and movement).

I read a bit on the net and heard about SVCD, and am now (unsuccessfully) trying to get it to work with the help of MediaPipe and MMT. I'm able to encode the video itself (after first exporting to iDVD format - which also apears to be of lesser quality than the preview shown when editing the file in iMovie - dunno why) but am having great trouble getting the audio extracted and encoded (it gives me a file of 0 bytes, and extracting the audio from iMovie doesn't work for the movie as a whole, only single clips. Since I have titles at start and end and middle without sound, it would be a nightmare syncing everything back up).

I'm hoping some people here can give me some good tips for both encoding at a high quality and resolving the audio problems I seem to be having.

Regards,
SMSD
Norway

[SCB]

Here's how you can make an SVCD for what you are doing:

After you are done editing your iMovie, export it as Quicktime: Full Quality, Large.

Install ffmpegX and mpeg2enc.

Open ffmpegX and choose the exported file. Use the Quick preset MOV, VOB, or DivX to MPEG-2 SVCD. Depending on the length of the movie, you can adjust the bit rate so it wil fit and/or have higher quality. This will make an xsvcd. If you want to adjust the bit rate from the standard 2500, make sure that you have "XSVCD" chosen under the vcd/svcd tab.

Under the audio tab, DE-select encode audio.

Again, under the VCD/SVCD tab, choose whether you want an X or regular SVCD. Also, just choose altivec and either normal or dual threading depending on what you have.

Under tools, only select keep elementary streams (and echo command line, if you like).

Once that is done encoding, open up ffmpegX again, choose the same original file and preset, select passthrough on video, and just keep elem streams in tools.

When that's done, open up ffmpegX once again, select the video and audio files in tools and select mux as SVCD and postprocess. Make sure you split into the correct amount of chunks depending on how many CD's you use.

Always have keep elementary streams selected in case something goes wrong.

*There are of course many other ways to accomplish the end result. Don't flame me.

[smsd]

>Here's how you can make an SVCD for what you are doing:

Thx,

>After you are done editing your iMovie, export it as Quicktime: Full >Quality, Large.

Done. Why is the quality here worse than the original DV files as shown in iMovie while editing?

>Install ffmpegX and mpeg2enc.

Done. Do I need mplex as well?

>Open ffmpegX and choose the exported file. Use the Quick preset MOV, >VOB, or DivX to MPEG-2 SVCD. Depending on the length of the movie, >you can adjust the bit rate so it wil fit and/or have higher quality. This will >make an xsvcd. If you want to adjust the bit rate from the standard >2500, make sure that you have "XSVCD" chosen under the vcd/svcd tab.

Ok, I chose MOV-SVCD, everything as default.

>Under the audio tab, DE-select encode audio.

ok.

>Again, under the VCD/SVCD tab, choose whether you want an X or >regular SVCD. Also, just choose altivec and either normal or dual >threading depending on what you have.

Ok. Mine shows VOB letterbox and bicubic as checked- do I need these?

>Under tools, only select keep elementary streams (and echo command >line, if you like).

That's on the left under MPEG -1/2 post-processing. What should I choose on the right (MPEG Tools)? Mux as... and Postprocess are checked as default.

>Once that is done encoding, open up ffmpegX again, choose the same >original file and preset, select passthrough on video, and just keep elem >streams in tools.

Before I go back to the original file, the results gave me 3 files: m2v, mp2 and mov. Is this right?

I don't see a passthrough option for video (I'm a newbie, remember
Should I change anything on audio?

>When that's done, open up ffmpegX once again, select the video and >audio files in tools and select mux as SVCD and postprocess. Make sure >you split into the correct amount of chunks depending on how many CD's >you use.

How do I know how many CD's I should use?

>Always have keep elementary streams selected in case something goes >wrong.

What's an elementary stream?
I think I need a user manual. Do you know the URL to the/a manual?

>*There are of course many other ways to accomplish the end result. >Don't flame me.

No flames, thanks again for helping. It's just I have no idea what I'm doing, and it would help me understand what I'm doing if I understood the process better and how FFmpegX functions to know what I need to choose.

Regards,
SMSD

[smcnally]

Greetings, SMSD -

I am interested in precisely the same thing as you (i.e. creating (*)VCDs from iMovie and iPhoto .MOV files.

The first response to your question helps me a lot; my hope is that poster follows-up, as well. Here, I'm working to address some of your follow-up questions as best I can.

--------

I don't see a passthrough option for video (I'm a newbie, remember)

"Passthrough" is an option on the Video tab in the Video Codec dropdown.

How do I know how many CD's I should use?

This depends on several things: how long your content is, but rate, etc. You can find it out easily enough at http://www.vcdhelp.com/vcd or /svcd

What's an elementary stream?
I think I need a user manual. Do you know the URL to the/a manual?

"Keep Elementary Streams" is an option on the Tools tab. It let's you keep all your source (input) files.

w/r/t a manual, there's a recent post here with a good one (to start) by the author (who can write well as well as code well). That's here: http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=126672