iMovie videos on facebook - how to get high quality results
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008Last week I learned that iMovie is amazingly easy to use. I googled “how to make an iMovie” and found this post. In less than two hours I had created my first 2 minute film! Easy as pie.
Sharing my video on facebook was step two. I exported my video for “web streaming” on iMovie and sadly my video looked like this (it is grainy and horrible in every way):
BEFORE
The crappy
After some (actually a ton of trying and reading everywhere) I now believe I have found the best way to get great quality from your iMovie and upload it to facebook. Here is the same video AFTER my experimenting (you can see that it is BIG CLEAR and beautiful):
AFTER
The better way to upload to facebook from iMovie
HOW TO TURN YOUR IMOVIE GREAT QUALITY FACEBOOK VIDEO
For the settings I used Vimeo’s tutorial on iMovie. They said you can keep it at the current frame rate, or shrink it to 15 per second if you need a smaller file. At the current frame rate my 6 minute video exceeded the 300 mb allowed on facebook. That is when I changed it to 15.
What size do I export my iMovie to be on facebook so I don’t loose quality when facebook resizes it? I learned from Scobleizer’s blog that facebook’s standard width is 606 pixels. Height? Facebook doesn’t change your video according to height, so just leave it blank and check the box “preserve your aspect ratio”.
DON’T FORGET TO CHECK THE “DEINTERLACE SOURCE VIDEO”. If you don’t your video will come out looking really bad.
You are done! Now just finish up and upload your new video to facebook.
In the end, I think Apple would be wise to make a dummy proof export for facebook, Youtube, Vimeo, MySpace, and the top 10 video sites. It just doesn’t make any sense to have a lame little “web streaming” export that doesn’t look good on the web.
Apple guys, if you are reading this, here is my wish list: an automatic uploader for the top 10 video sites that lets you pick from a simple “low quality”, “medium quality”, or “best possible quality”; if the file is too big it can automatically pick the best possible quality available (for example on facebook you are limited to 300 mbs or 20 minutes, if I have a 20 minute video there is no possible way I will get the same quality I can with a 2 minute video jammed in 300 mbs, so iMovie could just figure out the best for me and do it); if the video is too long for the site it could automatically split it into shorter sections and upload it as a play list.
Just some ideas. I am sure they would go over well.