Splasm Software Discussions

Hello,

I have a large number of iMovie projects to export and runthrough Podner. Can you please give me a rough idea of the optimum recommended iMovie export settings for the various encoding (main) options i.e., 320x240 MPEG-4, 480x480 MPEG-4, H.264 & H.264 Multipass?

Thank you

BTW... very nice product. Exactly what I was looking for. Did you see the video review on Screencasts? It sold me.

Also, here is a product feature idea. Hot folders ala Adobe Acrobat Distiller. With these movies that I need to export, it would be awesome if I could set up hot folders from within Podner and export from iMovie diirectly to the folder that has the settings that I want and have Podner automatically grab it, process it and stick it into iTunes. Just a thought

I posted this question three days ago and people who have posted questions after mine have received responses. I have many movies that I am waiting to process.

Well, I dug a little deeper and found that iMovie has a custom export "Movie to iPod video" already included and that I do not need Podner for this at all. Still a great app and I have used it for other things so I am still glad that i got it. Support could be a bit more responsive though.

I understand how you feel about waiting for a response here. We let our desire to see the community respond to your post, and the timing of the holidays, get in the way of helping you use Podner effectively.

Here's our advice:

A few days before your post we provided a detailed explanation of each Encoding and Quality setting in response to another user's question. I think that's some good background info for answering your question. If you haven't already, please take a look at http://www.splasm.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=122 .

Now, you don't have to export from iMovie to a temporary file at all, which opens up some of Podner's performance enhancements for you to enjoy without much fuss. The key is iMovie stores your project in a QuickTime reference movie, which Podner can handle directly. Find the reference movie and you're in business.

If you have iMovie HD, the reference movie is available by Control-clicking the project file and selecting Show Package Contents from the menu that appears. Inside, you will see a folder named Cache. Open that folder and inside you will see a movie file named Timeline.mov. Drag that file to Podner and you're set.

If you have an older version of iMovie, the reference movie is alongside the project file inside the project folder, and should be named similarly to the project itself. If the project is named "Test Project" then the reference movie will be named "Test Project.mov". You should be able to drag that file to Podner and process as usual.

The image quality and data size with iMovie's Movie to iPod option is almost identical to Podner's 320x240, H.264 MultiPass Encoding with Quality set to Best. While Podner's processing time for iMovie projects will generally be similar, as well, some simple iMovie projects will see the same performance enhancements as with regular movie files. Regardless, iMovie's Movie to iPod option is the slowest possible way to export iPod-compatible videos. You can usually get away with our standard recommendation of MPEG-4, 320x240, at Better or Best Quality, and see your videos processed in a quarter of the time or less. There's some potential for somewhat decreased image quality, but our recent MPEG-4 improvements continue to amaze us when held up against H.264 output. Please give it a shot and let everyone know your results.

_________________
Keith Gugliotto
Primordial Sea Captain
Splasm Software
https://www.splasm.com