iLife '04: The Missing Manual

Exporting to a QuickTime Movie

For the best and most cinematic viewing experience, play your finished iMovie productions on TV, via VHS tape or DVD. That way, your public gets to see the full-sized picture that your camcorder captured.

But when you want to distribute your movies electronically, convert them into QuickTime files instead. Both Mac and Windows machines can play these files right on the screen with little more than a double-click.

Your distribution options for QuickTime files are far greater than for videocassette or DVD, too. You can email a QuickTime file to somebody or post it on the Web for all the world to see. You can put bigger QuickTime files onto a disk, like a recordable CD, a Zip disk, or an Apple iPod, to transport them.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Choose File → Share.

   The Share dialog box appears.

2. Click the QuickTime icon at the top.

   Now the dialog box looks like Figure 19-4.

3. Using the Formats pop-up menu, choose one of the preset export formats such as Email, Web, CD-ROM, or Expert Settings.

   This decision dramatically affects the picture quality, motion smoothness, file size, and window size of the finished QuickTime movie.

   Making a smart choice in this step requires some comprehension of the QuickTime technology itself, so although “Understanding QuickTime” in the next section is many pages long, it’s well worth absorbing. It’s critical to your grasp of QuickTime movies, what they are, and what they can do.

   That section also describes the choices in this pop-up ...