iMovie Title font "pixelized"

[hazmat]

I made a little movie in iMovie, and I put in a title. The font is not smooth, but smooths out in the preview. When I view the movie from within iMovie, it stays choppy, as well as when I export it to Quicktime CD-ROM quality, 320x240. Anyone know why this is?

Thanks.

[themacko]

Is the text size your using maybe too small? I know that I goofed up my first couple of iMovies by using standard title sizes .. if you make it bigger using the slider it will be much more readable when you export it to QuickTime.

I hope that's what you're referring to.

[hazmat]

Actually, it is the largest allowed.

[Matrix Agent]

Try looking through the help system. I believe that ithad some tips on when to use "quicktime margins" in titles, and when not to. I believe that using them incorrectly results in the kind of titles you've talked about, but then again it could be any number of things.

Note: I've witnessed less than optimal titles after messing with settings for very long periods. Perhaps iMovie can only render that well? The previews and sometimes the actual clips shown to you are merely superimpositions of standard text, and do not represent what the rendered text will actually look like.

[hazmat]

Annoyingly, launching help from within iMolve crashes iMovie. I played around with the Quicktime margin, and it made no difference in the text quality. As far as preview quality, I would think that the finished product would be better quality than the preview. Oh well.

[karavite]

sort of a bump - Has anybody worked around this? I have tried every combination in iMovie and my titles render very poorly to any format - Quicktime or back to tape, especially with a black background (which is what I want to do the most). It seems absurd, but I am contemplating making my titles in Photoshop, complete with text and black bacground, then importing them into iMovie.

I have searched for third party title applications (cheap ones), but have had no luck. Should I just take the plunge for Final Cut Pro? I think I would like to use it for all kinds of things besides titles, but I have to assume it provides a title feature and that it renders very well. Am I right?

[hazmat]

I have heard that FCP renders titles very cleanly.

[karavite]

Thanks - I think that was the quickest reply ever!

It's really too bad iMovie doesn't handle titles better. Since Apple is targeting home users who want to make movies, I can't see most of these people going to Final Cut Pro - I would argue that the cost and complexity is too much for most people.