Hi Def Pics To Toast.. Help With Settings

[KAM2]

I took Hi def pics in my Sony camera. Edited and transferred from Iphoto to Imovie. Added captions and music. Exported in the highest quality to my desktop. Once I pull my movie over into toast, what setting should I use to make sure I get the BEST picture quality?? I thought HiDef - Video, but this will not play on my Std DVD player. Please advise.

[tsantee]

If it needs to be playable on a standard DVD player then you won't get the best picture quality. Do you have a HDTV? Is it a smart TV that can connect to your home network? Apparently you don't have a Blu-ray player but if you have a smart HDTV you can play the exported video directly over the network from your Mac. You also can copy it to a flash drive and insert it into a USB port on the HDTV to play it. If the video doesn't play using these methods then the extension in the file name (e.g. .mov) needs to be changed to .mp4 for the TV to recognize it. Also, the flash drive needs to be in its native PC format and not reformatted for Mac HFS+.

 

If your goal is to share it with others then it might be best to burn it to disc using the DVD-Rom (UDF) setting in the Toast Data window so they can view it on their computer screens (or stream it to their smart HDTV). If they have a Blu-ray player then the disc you created works well, too.

[KAM2]

Thanks!! Yep... my tv is 5 yrs old..I need others to be able to play the copies. So, best is to just used the normal setting. However, I did learn that my camera was not set correct. So, now that I am taking high quality pictures and using the best export setting in imovie,, the quality is definetly better than before. I just figured if I took pics in the hi def setting. I could burn in hdef setting. But, obviously my limitation is not the software, it is my Bose player not recognizing the format. I'm also going to be doing a slideshow / dvd for my daughters class. Glad I found out NOW to use the normal DVD setting !!!

[tsantee]

Thanks!! Yep... my tv is 5 yrs old..I need others to be able to play the copies. So, best is to just used the normal setting. However, I did learn that my camera was not set correct. So, now that I am taking high quality pictures and using the best export setting in imovie,, the quality is definetly better than before. I just figured if I took pics in the hi def setting. I could burn in hdef setting. But, obviously my limitation is not the software, it is my Bose player not recognizing the format. I'm also going to be doing a slideshow / dvd for my daughters class. Glad I found out NOW to use the normal DVD setting !!!

Go ahead create the iMovie at a HD setting. Add it to Toast with DVD video selected in the Video window. Choose Best quality. Toast will retain the 16:9 aspect ratio and make it anamorphic so it looks decent on an HDTV. For best image quality you might use the HDTV's screen size menu to show the video with black borders all around which is close to actual size. Otherwise the TV will zoom the photos which make them look softer.

 

While you're at it put the HD video from iMovie on a flash drive just in case the place you are showing it has an HDTV with a USB drive. That's what we did for my daughter's wedding slideshow a couple weeks ago. There's no guarantee the TV will read the file, but if it does you get to see your work in HD.

 

There is another kind of slide show that plays on regular DVD players with better picture quality. It is called a DVD slide show. It is created by dragging folders of jpeg files into Toast's Video window. The problem is that it has no music, no panning or zooming and no titles. It simply shows one picture to the next every 5 seconds. If you just needed static photos playing in the background this is a good way to go. But it gets boring pretty fast.