Section 11.1. Why Export to Tape | iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

11.1. Why Export to Tape

There are any number of reasons you might want to send your finished product back to the camcorder. The following pages outline some of the most popular scenarios.

11.1.1. To Watch It on TV

Once your iMovie creations are back on the camcorder's tape, you can then pass them along to a television. To pull this off, you must connect the camcorder to your TV, using one of the following cables, listed here in order of preference:

Component video . If you're editing high-definition video, sending the result back to your high-def camcorder is just about the only way to play it on a TV. After all, the era of commonplace high-definition DVDs has not yet arrived.

Your HDTV camcorder came, therefore, with a special cable that ends with three small round jacks colored green, blue, and red. These are component video cables, and they must be connected to matching inputs on a high-end (if not high-definition) TV. You'll have to use an additional cable for audio ( RCA cables).
S-video . If both your camcorder and your VCR or TV have S-video connectors, use an S-video cable to join the two (see Figure 11-1). You'll still have to use the red- and white-ended RCA cables for the audio.
RCA cables . Most TVs and VCRs don't have S-video connectors, but almost all have RCA phono jacks, usually labeled Audio In and Video In. Connect them to the double- or triple-ended cable that came with the camcorder, like the one shown in Figure 11-1. (If it has three connectors at each end, the yellow one is for the video signal, and the red and white ends are for left and right stereo sound.)

Tip: If your TV is very old, it may not have auxiliary input jacks. In this case, plug your camcorder into the VCR's auxiliary inputs instead. It will patch the signal through to the TV.

Figure 11-1. Most camcorders come with a special, proprietary cable. The miniplug end goes into a special output jack on the camcorder; the far ends are RCA cables (or, on HDTV camcorders, component cables) for your TV or VCR. If your TV accepts only one sound cable (and not stereo inputs), plug the camcorder's left-channel connector (usually the red one) into the sole TV audio jack.
(This camcorder also has an S-video connector. It's the large, round, black jack at the top of the connector panel. S-video transfer produces better transfer quality between your DV camcorder and non-DV equipment than RCA cables.)
Coaxial inputs . TVs of a certain era don't have the RCA-style cables shown in Figure 11-1, but do have a cable-TV ( coaxial ) inputa round connector with a single pin in the center. You can buy an adapter (at Radio Shack, for example) that lets you connect your camcorder's output cables to this kind of jack.
RF modulator . If your TV doesn't even have that connector, it probably has two screws to which you can attach a "rabbit ears" antenna. You can buy an adapter called an RF modulator for this kind of connector, too.
Special patch cable . Most camcorders come with a special input/output cable with RCA or component connectors at one end and a special miniplug at the camcorder end (see Figure 11-1, bottom). Plug this skinny end into the appropriate camcorder jack, often labeled "Audio/Video ID2" or "AV In/Out."

11.1.2. To Transfer It to Your VCR

The glorious thing about DV tape, of course, is that its picture quality and sound quality are sensational. Unfortunately, most of the world's citizens don't have DV camcorders or DV decks. They have standard VCRs or DVD players.

Chapters 15 and 16 guide you through turning iMovie masterpieces into DVDsbut that's a stunt you can pull off only if your Mac has a DVD burner . For everyone else, the best way to get your movies to the TV screens of the masses is to transfer them (the movies, not the masses) to VHS cassettes.

You lose a lot of picture and sound quality when you transfer footage to a VHS cassette, whose lines-of-resolution capacity is lower than any other kind of tape. Still, your viewers will likely remark how good your movies look, not how bad. They're used to playing back VHS recordings made from television, which (unless it's a satellite system) has its own low-resolution problems. The transfers you make from your Mac, even when played back on VHS, look terrific in comparison.

To make a transfer to your VCR, you can either copy the movie back onto a DV cassette in the camcorder, so that you'll have a high-quality DV copy, and then play it from there to your VCR; or you can pour the video directly from the Mac, through the camcorder into the VCR. Both techniques are described in the coming pages.

11.1.3. To Create a Perfect Backup

Offloading the movie to your DV camcorder is the only method of exporting an iMovie project that maintains 100 percent of the original, gorgeous video quality. Remember, a key advantage of digital video is that you can transfer footage back and forth between the camcorder and your Mac as many times as you like with no deterioration in quality . You can safely unlearn the years of experience you've had with VHS and 8 mm video and feel free to transfer video between your Macintosh and DV camcorder whenever and however you like.

Now, you're probably thinking: What about burning the finished movie to a DVD? Isn't that perfect quality?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. The quality is terrific, no doubt about thatbut the video files on a DVD are compressed to fit the disc, resulting in a subtle drop in quality when compared with the original.

Note: When you transfer an iMovie back to your camcorderto a fresh tape, if you're wisethe footage remains in perfect, pristine condition. Remember, however, that there's a downside to doing so: Once you've thrown away the digital video files from your Mac, you've lost the ability to adjust titles, effects, transitions, and soundtracks . For best results, therefore, transfer footage back to the camcorder either when you're finished editing the movie, or haven't edited it much at all.

11.1.4. To Reclaim Disk Space

Another great reason to transfer your iMovie work back to the camcorder is simply to get it off your hard drive. As you know, video files occupy an enormous amount of disk space. After you've made a couple of movies, your hard drive might be so full that you can't make any more iMovies.

After transferring the movie to a DV cassette in your camcorder, you can throw away the corresponding project file on your hard drive, which frees up an enormous amount of disk space.