iMovie to iDVD slideshow problem

[Shane]

Can anyone out there help out what should be a simple problem to solve but is driving me mad !
Basically I'm trying to do a slideshow (just photos) on a iMovie timeline, then export it to iDVD.
I can do this no problem, but the finished pictures look so unsharp and that is my problem, why are they looking so out of focus ?
The original photos are razor sharp (I'm a pro phot by trade) and the one's I'm importing into iMovie are saved at 300dpi and are high-res pics about 3-4Mb in size. I can usually enlarge these to print up to 20x16, so I know they are sharp enough for that.
I'm trying to achieve a slideshow of such photos to run on a 42' plasma screen at an event I'm going to be at next month, just showing a selection of my work, but not if the photos don't look sharp.
The version of iMovie is iMovie HD 6.0.3 and I'm using a MacBook on OSX 10.6.8.
To summarise, I can get my photos from iMovie to iDVD, but they are clearly not sharp enough. Is there something I'm missing somewhere or a setting I'm not applying during the process.
Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks Shane.

 

[Kaveman]

You are far better making the Movie in iPhoto.

But if you are using iMove Transitions and stuff then use Export via Quicktime then add that to the iDVD project. Choose high setting for the export, but not so high that it will take forever to encode.

 

[Shane]

I've had a quick go with iPhoto, but the problem seems the same, the photos don't look sharp when I put them into a slideshow and that is looking on a 13' MacBook. There is no way I can put these on a 42' plasma TV screen.

Tried the Quicktime suggestion as well, again the same result and I couldn't get it into iDVD.

You may have guessed I'm not technologically advanced, but what seems so simple is proving problematic.

Will do a bit more reading up on the options, before trying again.

Thanks for the info anyway.

Shane.

 

[Kaveman]

If your photos are going from Great Quality as from a digital camera to Standard Def for a DVD you are going to get a LOT of quality loss! My SLR does 2136 x 1424 px, Standard Def DVD is 720 × 576 pixels max.

This is why Apple TV photos look so great as they don't go through this cropping.

There is also a problem of moving pixels, if the image is too sharp you get strange patterns as it moves.

Getting the right balance is an Art not a science.

The only way you will get a good quality file is to export via Quicktime, if you still have a problem at this point change the settings and try again. It has to be the right file type for iDVD.

To get it into iDVD, you drag and drop it.