Jerky iPhoto slideshow
 

I have a slideshow in iPhoto (v5) with ken burns effects and music. It all plays fine when previewing in iPhoto. However, when I export it to a movie file the resulting .mov file is jerky and jumpy (even the music stops and starts a little).

Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to rectify this and get a nice smooth file to take into iDVD for burning to disc?

Jerky playback usually means the processor can not keep up with the transfer flow of data. This is very common when trying to read from a disc. Where is the .mov file located? My laptop is a G3, and the ONLY place it can manage any .mov file in real time is if that file has been copied to the hard drive. G4, G5, and intel Mac's make the transition much faster, but the issue remains a difficulty of read being slower than write.

If, however, you did not export the movie file as a "self-contained movie", then every bit of data is nothing more than a reference, or directory signpost, to original data files. Your processor and hard drive are doing at least a double-time to to find and display your project in real time. If you export the project as "self-contained movie" all video and audio will be written as a separate file. This takes more memory storage, but puts everything together and thereby easier and faster to locate and display.

Hope these thoughts help.

I am exporting a .mov from iPhoto. The resulting movie is jerky. The original iPhoto data (ie photos) are on my computer's hard drive. I have tried exporting to my external drive but the results are the same.

Should I try moving everything (ie all the photos) to my external drive and then try doing an export?

I don't know iPhoto, but if Flash is similar in operation to what you are trying to do I would ask how large are your photographs? Is is possible to preload your photos rather than have them as external references to be loaded on demand? Are the photos being loaded to their actual size or are they being resized in iPhoto?

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that? I have a feeling that what is displayed in iphoto are references to the actual photos... (but I might be wrong).

The actual photos are about 6mb each and I have about 220 in my slideshow.

It may also depend on your version of iPhoto. Back in the day when you exported a slideshow as a movie it would drop the transitions making you THINK that the movies was jerky or skipping frames, but that wasn't the problem. Can you describe "jerky" a bit more?

Watching the slideshow from within iPhoto it plays fine - ie smooth ken burns effects. By jerk I mean that it will play an every few seconds freeze for a half second or so then jump on to where it would have been if it hadn't frozen. The freezing varies in duration but usually less than a second at a time but happens every few seconds. It also causes the music to jump too (ie split second of silence then jumping on to where it should have been).

This jerking only affects the slides that have the ken burns effect on them.

Does that make sense?