Apple makes it easy for newbies to export their movies for the most common uses, like iPhone, YouTube, or even an HD format (720p). This HD format’s size is about half of the full HD.

What if you want the full HD from iMovie? After all, most consumer level HD cameras record full HD, not 720 progressive. Quite easy as we’re still allowed a powerful QuickTime export option found in the menu under Share > Save as QuickTime.

Select here “save as MP4”, change MP4 drop-down to MP4 (not MP4 isa or whatever) and fill in the values seen in the above screenshot. All done. In one step, directly out of iMovie. No special software, add-ons, helper utilities (like the duo JES Deinterlacer and MPEG Streamclip) required.

There are other options that involve the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC), but I’ve found this to be the easiest and fastest of all producing excellent output quality.