Aliased Jagged Text

[David Roth weiss]

How are you monitoring?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Wolfgang]

I am monitoring with a Kona 2 card and a HD LCD monitor plugged into the component out of the K2 card.

I also looks the same on my second computer monitor when I switch over to that. Or in the canvas window at 100%. It all looks bad.

The only place text looks good is in the Boris Text editor. I can
zoom that up and down and it never looks bad. As soon as I drop it into the timeline,it all goes jagged.

[Wolfgang]

Another thing I have noticed is that the jagged edge doesn’t seem to be on the shadow or the border that Boris puts on the font. Only the font face it’s self is jagged. ??????????

Very strange.

[Alexander Kallas]

Try the text tools in MOTION.

Cheers
Alexander

[Wolfgang]

So Final Cut Pro text generators are no good? That is a new
one. I have been using The Title 3D text in FCP for several
years with no problems.

This is a new issue with the last update of something.

There must be some Anti-aliasing setting that got screwed up somewhere.

Anyone??? Please help. This is a problem. I don’t want to always go out to Motion to do a simple title.

By the way, Photoshop text comes in jagged too. It only happens when I drop in into the timeline. Until then it looks smooth.

Thanks for any help. I have seen other people with this issue but no one has had an answer.

[David Cooke]

Sorry, but even today, our text and graphics look fine. We use the text editor tool in FCP, its Boris 3D Text and
Photoshop every day in our work and so far has looked good. With the nature of NTSC, we sometimes
have to use the Motion tab in the viewer to “move up” or “down” by 1 scanline certain graphics/fonts
to get them to look a bit better. You know, ends up with that great NTSC “interlacing”. The only time
we have some “jaggies” is when we have to use “italicised” fonts which we avoid unless a client demands
them.

FCP 6.0.4
Dual Core 3.0ghz, 4gigram
Caldigit e-sata drive system
Kona LhE
Radeon XT1900

D’s Video

[Wolfgang]

yeah, I have talked to some other producers who are having no
problem with Title 3D or Text in FCP.

I am working in a 720p sequence so no interlace to worry about.

It’s really strange. I have just gone through an upgrade/re-install of
everything on the box and it is still the same problem.

Not sure when it started, I do a lot of stuff in Motion and Livetype so I haven’t been using the FCP titles lately. Since I upgraded to FCP 6 I think.

[Kevin Monahan]

Did you move the text with the Wireframe? It is better to place text in the Controls tab for any text generator.

Also, view the text with your Canvas set precisely at 100%. How does it look then?

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Loanne Do]

Hi,

I realize that this post is a year old. But I just upgraded to V6 of FCP and encountered the exact same problems with basic text generation (Boris). Text looks smooth on canvas but jagged during playback.

I ran a quick test by exporting a short 2 second clip to Quicktime. I changed the default export to “uncompressed 10 bit” and it worked. So I exported my entire file using that settings and all my text is smooth again. I never had this problem prior to v6 so I don’t know if the upgrade had anything to do with basic text editing.

I am working with SD 720×480/ Mac 10.5/ 4 gb ram/ Macbook pro/ no external monitoring.

I hope this helps although I cannot say it its an exact solution. I just know that this simple export worked for me.

Good luck for others who encounter this.