DVD A3 – Jagged Letters With Certain Colors in Menus on TV or Computer

[Mike Kujbida]

The article Great Titles with the DV Codec may be of some help.

Mike

[Stubenkastl]

Thank you very much for your response and this article. I see I am not the only one having this problem. But one of the main problems I have is that the text looks great in DVD A3 but awful (useless) in PowerDVD on the same computer monitor. I think it is a question of the color. But there is no guidance at all since DVD A3 shows a different picture than PowerDVD or a normal TV. I do not see this as shortcoming of DVD A3 – but it is not easy since I get 3 different results – DVD A3, PowerDVD and TV. Some write about a DVD standard…just kidding I guess…

[Peter Wright]

Are you using the option to render Menus as progressive?

[Stubenkastl]

“Enable progressive render of DVD menus” is on in the options, “reduce interlace flicker” is on in the menu options, and there is no warning that the color is outside the range of NTSC or PAL. If I take a different color with the same text properties there is no problem at all.

Why not simply change the color? One reason is that without testing it with PowerDVD and normal TV there is no way to find it out if there is a problem since DVD A3 shows great text. The other reason is that the background picture “needs” this color. So why not change the background picture? Because the topic requires a background picture like this 🙂 One problem color at PowerDVD is for instance R 204 G 8 B 0 A 255 with Quixley Let 20 B + I ( a kind of red). This works quite well on the TV with a DVD player. The same font with R 156 G 170 B 152 A 255 B + I looks great on all screens. To give up the red would add a different color to the background what is pretty much in those 2 colors and black.

But this is just one example of not fitting colors. It is somehow trial and error. You think everything is great and render and check on the computer and on the TV and change the color and render and check on…and change…and render…and…give up.

[Peter Wright]

Are you using an external monitor with DVDA?

[Stubenkastl]

No since I made a not so good experience with Sony Vegas and the external monitor. The final picture that the DVD player shows on TV looks a bit different.

The problem could be that I have to use my Sony camera to pass the video to the TV directly using fire wire. The result is not the same as with the DVD player. So I avoid using this camera approach and rely only on the real DVD player and PowerDVD.

But I am worried a bit since there are so many different TV systems out now. No idea how they might react. My brother has a projector, a friend of mine has a plasma and so on… They all live in different parts of the world. So it is not to go there and check 😉 This DVD is of special interest to all of them – so they will get it by mail.

For sure they will forgive me… But it is simply a bit frustrating if you have endless menus and features + everything in real Dolby 5.1 and then you end up with such problems :-((( Perhaps it all has to do with PowerDVD and my Sony TV…and nothing more? I guess from the setting side at DVD A3 I did what is possible. This at least I wanted to make sure. Not that I overlook a setting like in the Vegas project definition…what I got told in this forum…and what helped me so much!!!

[Donatello]

color titles are very difficult in NTSC land ..
for much better results you might consider creating your color titles in photoshop.

[Stubenkastl]

I do not use N ever T he S ame C olor. I use PAL – the last step before HDTV 😉 And the problem is not only with simple text. The text works as buttons too. Then it gets not so easy anymore with Photoshop and DVD A. But I am not sure where the problem really comes from – DVD A or the playback devices. WinDVD does not work at all on my system (XP SP2) – at least not the latest version. Got tired of checking why… So I use PowerDVD on the computer. Have to look for a software DVD player I can compare with – at least on the computer side. But this topic must cause problems to the big DVD companies too. Perhaps I find a phone number 🙂

[Stubenkastl]

Now I have tried several software players. They ALL show EXACTLY the same problems with the text. The only software player that does not show the problems is the player in DVD A3. Perhaps some work to do… Should look at chapter jumps too 😉

[Stubenkastl]

Have to correct something. The letter/color problem is not caused by DVD Architect. I tried the same settings at Adobe Encore DVD 2.0 and got the same problem. Perhaps something for Microsoft or is it even my graphic card? But in any case a not so good color idea at least at my system.