I have been playing around with my HV20 today (first time) at my grandfathers birthday. I took about 30 mins of footage which I imported into iMovie HD (v5).
I plan to use the HV20 to film my own wedding in 6 weeks and was wondering what is the best way to import footage from the HV20 to the Mac to preserve maximum quality.
I have noticed that with the footage I took today, iMovie makes each clip into a .mov file. From what I have read on the internet, is this .mov encoded in the Apple Intermediate Codec. What I would like to know is whether or not this is as high a quality as the original tape.

I have also read that in order to import footage in "raw" MPEG2 format, I will need final cut studio. Does importing into Final Cut Studio as a direct m2t file (I think this is what this is) result in better quality than the .mov from iMovie.

Essentially what I want to know is the best way to archive my wedding to my Mac with the highest picture quality.

Thanks for any help from a video n00b.

iMovie converts the movie to DV (I believe) to play around with it and then exports it to your filetype of choice, so some conversion and possible loss in quality (combined with MASSIVE file size during playing around with it) could occur.

Archive the original file if possible to DVD-Rs (Or DVD-DLs or whatever long-term optical storage medium that I can use is best able to store it all without having to resort to zipping the file) is my preferred way of keeping an archived copy of the thing. I should reckon anything that imports the media as "raw" will give better quality than anything that converts it to import it. Remember, quality can't go up, only down.

I hope that was helpful.

The question you really need to ask, is what is the final delivery format you are presenting your final video on (IE.. SD DVD, Blue Ray/HD DVD, H264 format on a Computer?) web based?

If its Standard Def (SD) DVD then imovie will be just fine, as you still have twice as many pixels than a SD DVD can show.. so it wont matter much.

Final output will be Blu-ray or HD-DVD when apple start supporting the burners, and of course when the media becomes more affordable. I will be keeping the tapes as masters, but I just wanted to know whether or not I needed to bother purchasing something better than iMovie in order to transfer tape to HDD without too much re-encoding.

Apple havnt perfected the tools for the common user for Blue ray or HD DVD yet, and new compression methods etc for those formats havnt been streamlined yet. (though there is some in DVD studio pro). If you wanted you could do your final edit and output to h264 format.. and that is the same codec as both BLUE RAY and HDDVD, so they would transfer fine to either of those.. then you could file away that file till such time as those HD DVD formats become affordable.. till then you can move a h264 file to SD DVD. I think Final Cut studio would be the go, but if this is just a one off, then still IMOVE HD will still look fine.

Will the imported footage from Final Cut be of higher quality than that from iMovie HD? I have seen differing statements on the internet where some people say that there isn't any difference when comparing m2t from FCS vs. .mov from iMovie.

My personal opinion would be that the m2t would be of higher quality than the .mov from iMovie as the iMovie file has been re-encoded to be AIC, but as I am new to video I don't know what to believe.

the last 3 years I have used both imove and final cut extensively.. (more imove than FC pro), and in certain circumstances Final cut (compressor) will give you a slightly better image (with multiplass compression) again it all depends on the footage, what it shot with, how much fast motion there is in it, what titles you have put in it (lower 3rds etc) from what source they were done (live type etc). If I was doing just a one off project for one client, and its needed in a hurry, then I use imove for allot of things... if its going to 1000 people, with multitudes of displays, and i have some time to work on it, then I use final cut... all depends...

if you want to discuss it more, then please feel free to PM me

I am mainly talking about is the image quality before I begin to fiddle with it. What I want to know is whether FCS does a better job of importing HDV from the camera as m2t, versus the files that iMovie imports (.mov encoded as AIC).

the answer to that is a definite yes. the apple intermediate codec is awful to work with . if i were in your position i would be working in pro res 4.2.2 within final cut a much more hardy codec which can withstand much more manipulation than aic can. i thought imovie was now using hdv for its hd, shame if it hasnt as even hdv is better than aic.

I know you say you're going to export to HD-DVD/etc... and I don't know how long your family/friends will wait for a copy of the wedding video... but in reality, for them at least, standard DVD would be the most likely format they could make use of...

I've currently editing my final uni film, which we recorded using Sony XD Cams... HD 1440x1080. Which gives great pictures... but our presentation in November at the Palace Centro is only going to be on a SD projector. Longer term of course, we're hoping to enter film festivals etc, but again, not all of them will be able to use HD material.

I am planning for Blu-ray/HD-DVD in the future. Until then I would like to keep an archive of the raw unedited footage on tape as well as an unedited "raw" on a HDD. For the archiving purpose to HDD, I want to know what will give me the best quality file, iMovie or FCS2 which I can then use as a reference file to edit later on, or use as a backup if something happens to the tape master.

Essentially what I am getting at is the best way to archive HDV tape media to a HDD. My understanding is that the AIC is a form of re-encoding, and therefore will not be as "good" as the HDV data on the tape. With FCS2 my understanding is that the first original import file is not re-encoded and therefore is a better "reference" file to begin with.