Resolving poor image quality in DV QuickTime movies

QuickTime movies imported into Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Pro HD, and Final Cut Express with the DV codec and played with another QuickTime aware application may appear to be of lower resolution. Learn how to force QuickTime to display DV movie clips at their highest resolution.
When DV QuickTime files are opened with either the QuickTime Player or some other QuickTime aware application, the opened DV movie may look as if it is jagged or at low resolution. This is not an indication that something is wrong with your DV movie.

When DV movies are rendered or imported, they are created with a default High Quality setting turned off. This setting allows these movies to be played back at higher framerates with no additional decompression hardware by lowering the apparent video quality displayed by the monitor. This is only a display setting. The full resolution of the video track remains untouched, and can in fact be toggled to display the movie's full resolution, although playback with the High Quality setting turned on will result in dropped frames.

This setting can be accessed by anyone with QuickTime Pro (users of Final Cut Pro already have this license, others may purchase one at the QuickTime web site). With your clip open in the QuickTime player:

  1. From the Movie menu, choose Get Movie Properties (the clip we use in this example is called "Outside 001")



  2. In the resulting dialog box, from the left-hand pop-up menu, choose Video Track and then from the right-hand pop-up, choose Quality.



  3. Select the High Quality Enabled check-box to enable or disable this setting



    As you toggle back and forth, notice how the movie goes from jagged to sharp.

    If you leave High Quality toggled on, you may be asked if you want to save this clip when either closing it or quitting out of the QuickTime Player. Saving at this time will only preserve this setting internally to the file, and will not do anything to change the video track itself.

Published Date: Feb 18, 2012