Yes, you could sort of do that Dr. G.. but it would work better playing out to the camcorder first, then to VHS... You could even set it up so that the video goes out through firewire to the camcorder and straight passes through the camcorder directly to VCR.
The reason this is better is kind of hard to explain. The video playing from iMovie is not full quality. iMovie scales back the video your are previewing so that it runs smoother. At least in iMovie 2... haven't got a chance to play in iMovie 3 a lot (What I'm doing tonight)
When you send the video back out to camcorder your getting the full monty. Ahh... here's a better explanation from Apple's knowledge Base:
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Topic
Sometimes when I play back a digital video (DV) clip that I captured with my DV camera, it appears blotchy, blocky, out of focus, and the colors are washed out. Why is this?
DISCUSSION
Reason: The process of decoding DV data, even over FireWire, requires large amounts of data and many computations. To maintain frame rate and view the movie at a normal size, only about one-fourth of the DV data is used in displaying the movie to the screen. However, the underlying DV data is still at full quality.
Computer Display Solution: The QuickTime Pro-enabled QuickTime Player can be used to display a DV movie at High Quality. To do this, open the movie with QuickTime Player, and select Get Movie Properties from the Movie menu. In the Movie Info window, select Video Track in the left popup menu, and select High Quality in the right popup menu. Check the High Quality Enabled checkbox to view the movie at full quality.
Frame rate will decrease substantially with this setting. The movie can be saved with this setting and from then on, when the Movie is played back in any application, it will be played at High Quality.
In order to maintain full frame rate during the editing and playback of DV clips, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, and other QuickTime-based applications typically default to using Low Quality. The important thing to remember is that Low Quality is strictly a playback mode for computer monitors, and does not affect the quality of the DV image that is sent out through FireWire to the DV device or NTSC monitor. The Apple FireWire output is always High Quality.
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You should note that only the new 17" iMac has the S-Video out.. And you do need a doo-hickey.
Sells seperatly for about $39 Cdn at most Apple Resellers. Can do S-Video or Composite. Great watching the DVD's you created or rented on TV!
