[MacDV] Re: Moving a graphic file into iMovie

[Dennis R. Cohen]

On 10/22/04 at 20:28 PM, Brian Olesky <brian4 at sbcglobal.net> transmitted
the following electronic message:

>
>How do I put my logo on the front of a short video I'm doing?
>
>When I import it as a .jpg file, it looks horrible on screen. Same
>thing when I use a .tif, .bmp or .gif file. Do they just look bad in
>the iMovie preview window, but they'll look fine when I burn to a DVD?
>
>Which image file named above is best to use with iMovie?
>
>And if I can import it, how do I adjust the color of the background of
>the frame it'll appear in?
>
>Finally, and this may be the best solution, I have a professionally
>produced video with my logo on the opening frames, and it also
>incorporates a nice graphic effect. I'd like to be able to just pull
>it from that DVD and import it into iMovie, where I can just edit out
>the logo section, adjust it's length, and use that for my video.
>
>So last question, how do I rip that video to my hard drive (it's about
>7 minutes long) and extract the section with my logo in a format I can
>use in iMovie?
>

TIFF seems to work best. You should size it to 640x480 in a graphics
program before importing it -- either by matting, scaling, or a
combination of the two; otherwise, iMovie will just scale it for you and
you'll probably not appreciate the result. By performing the sizing in
your graphics program, you'll have control over the background color as
well (otherwise, iMovie gives you the choice of any color you want, so
long as you want black).

If you want to pull it from your "professionally produced video,"
extract the VOB using DVDBackup, Mac the Ripper, or some other ripping
software, then use a tool like MPEG StreamClip to convert to DV Stream
files, sized for use with iMovie. Import the DV file and trim away what
you don't want included.

-- 
Dennis R. Cohen
FileMaker Pro 7 Bible
Teach Yourself Visually iLife04
Mac Digital Photography (and other titles)