[jhartman]

I've created a number of short DVideos for my presentation in Keynote. They've been edited in iMovie and Exported to QuickTime with the highest resolution/DVD quality setting.
Whether the movie is played back in the QuickTime Player or is imported and played in Keynote, the playback quality leaves something to be desired. The text is "pixelated" and the image is not great, either.
If I burn the files to a DVD in iDVD and play them back through a portable DVD player, the same files are near-broadcast quality (well, OK, they look much better than the computer movies, anyway). The text is smooth, the playback isn't choppy and the images look very sharp.
My question is, can I get that same quality running directly off the computer (G4 1gHz 17" PB)? Am I missing something in the QT Export settings? I have and can use the portable DVD player, but from a presention standpoint it's obviously not as smooth a transition to be switching from computer to video on the projector each time a new movie needs to be shown.
Thanks for your advice.
John Hartman

[Daft&Dewey-eyed]

Exporting in the highest quality is not always the best option if you are playing the video back on a computer.
Try exporting your movie at 320x240 using the Sorensen 3 Codec. You should end up with a movie that looks better on your computer screen. You can probably use larger sizes and full frame rate with your computer, so play around with the settings and see what looks the best.
You'll need to go into the expert settings to do this. The DVD Quality export setting in iMovie exports your movie in the DV codec, which is the same as a DV camcorder uses. This codec is not played back at full quality on your computer, so fine edges and text look particularly bad. DV cameras and DVD players have chips to decode the video at full quality, so it looks better.