Note: This post originally appeared on MacScreencasting at http://www.macscreencasting.com/iphone-imovie-export-settings-and-quality on 7.5.2010. Due to recent WordPress hacking, I’m moving all the MacScreencasting posts over to SkillCasting.com and shutting down the MacScreencasting site.
A lot of people have commented that iMovie on the iPhone won’t wirelessly export HD movies. And at first, I too was disappointed. However, it’s not that bad. Here’s why.
This video shows the differences between the HD, Large, and Medium export settings in iMovie. Yes, the HD version looks bad, but if you’re doing mobile video editing, you’re not going to be able to upload it anyway. The files are way too big. I exported the exact same video all 3 ways into iPhoto. Here are the sizes for the exact same 1:49 minute movie:
1280 x 720 HD 138 MB
960 x 540 Large 70 MB
640 x 360 Medium 47 MB
There is no way AT&T or any other carrier would let you upload those types of file sizes. But for web video, I don’t think this is a problem. That’s because most websites and blogs do best with 640 x 360 video anyway. The HD and Large videos are just too big for most web pages. Therefore, I think you’ll be surprised with the quality of the Medium 360p output setting.
The other thing I noticed was that YouTube degraded the quality further. It wasn’t much, but it was noticeable.
This video wasn’t shot with my iPhone obviously. But the video I’ve seen and knowing that I embed 640 x 360 into my blog page anyway, I think the Medium 640 x360 iPhone output is acceptable. Can you live with your 640 x 360 output for now?
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