This article describes why QuickTime movies imported into Final Cut Pro with the DV codec and played with another QuickTime aware application may appear to be of lower resolution, as well as 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 diplay 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 http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ ). With your clip open in the Quicktime player:

1. Select Get Info from the Movie menu (the clip we use in this example is called "Interview")

Figure 1 Get Info Menu Selection

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

Figure 2 Get Info Windows

3. Now, simply toggle the High Quality check-box to enable or disable this setting

Figure 3 High Quality Enabled

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

Figure 4 AQuicktime Image Before and After High Quality Enabled Button is Toggled

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.