keeping picture quality

[David Roth weiss]

Brett,

The scaler in FCP is pretty decent and does a very reasonable job of anti-alaising, or smoothing, the pixelation that often happens when zooming in on video over at 100 percent. For instance, I’ve gotten very good results when scaling up to 133% when using 4×3 SD video in a 16×9 SD project. However, there are limits to everything. Just how much are you zooming in?

David

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.

[Brett Juchniewicz]

The highest one of my clips is scaled to is 120. The quality is good but if you look closely enough you can see the slightest blur in the video, especially when an object is moving.

[David Roth weiss]

What you’re seeing is in fact the anti-aliasing at work, which smooths the image slightly and hides the blockiness that would otherwise be a much worse alternative. The bottom line is, when scaling-up to over 100% you’ve got to give away something. By the time your project get to it’s final destination, whether that’s broadcast, the Web, DVD, etc., no one will see that softness as whatever compression your project will encounter will degrade the video even more and make that softness less than apparent to the eye.

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.