Imovie saving (sharing) settings for YouTube viewing

[stephenbyron]

Please check out my first film here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/mindifilms

 

It's my first attempt at uploading anything to YouTube and I'm finding the playback on the site a lesser quality then the mpeg4 i play through Quicktime on my computer...is this typical?

I can see digital noise and it' has more contrast than the original.

I edited it in Imovie, can anyone give me the proper setting for "sharing' when I export it?

Thank you.

[Alessandro Machi]

What are we supposed to compare this two? It appears to be primarily front lit so the background is inevitably going to go black, especially because your "dancer" was in white. As for your settings, just avoid the zero black setting if you can, usually go with the 7.5 IRE setting.

 

If you did not shoot a lot of footage you should have this professionally transfered so you can evaluate if you pick up an extra quality.

[stephenbyron]

Thanks Al,

I guess there isn't really a need to compare, I was just inquiring about the proper settings to ensure no digital noise and contrast that matches my offline Quicktime file.

Please explain this IRE setting, I cant seem to find it in the iMovie preferences. Do you set this upon importing or exporting?

Thanks again,

Stephen

[Adrian Sierkowski]

IRE isn't going to be in iMovie.

Youtube compression is really bad overall; just how it goes once it converts to the .flv format. I find FCP exporting into compressor with an h.264 for iPod and iPhone (under studio 2) is how I get the best results onto online. But, for this of course, you're need to go out and buy/learn the FCP suite (in which there is IRE and the like under the vectrascope/waveform) IRE is basically a quantification of video signal, with 100% being white and 7.5% being analog black. Middle grey would be 50%, or so. It's what those little white zebra lines on video camera viewfinders cameras are measuring/displaying.

[Alessandro Machi]

Thanks Al,

I guess there isn't really a need to compare, I was just inquiring about the proper settings to ensure no digital noise and contrast that matches my offline Quicktime file.

Please explain this IRE setting, I cant seem to find it in the iMovie preferences. Do you set this upon importing or exporting?

Thanks again,

Stephen

 

The simple answer is don't make the blacks pitch black because when compressed odds are they will become more black than what you expected. It also depends how new your computer screen is as well. As time goes on computer monitors in general seem to get more contrasty.