Need Some Help With Text Aliasing

[David Roth weiss]

[Akbar Ukani] “4. In compressor, when Down Converting it to SD, I turn on frame Control and leave everything as is..(since its progressive material I really don’t need to de-interlace it). The only setting I change is the Anti-Aliasing (100) “

Down-converting to what SD codec? There are about 1000 flavors of SD.

[Akbar Ukani] “When viewing it on a HD tv, the down-converted Text looks like “crap”…very amateur and not very appealing…the edges are definitely not smooth…
“

This could be a product of you HD television’s poor display of SD material
or
This could be a product of the answer you give to my question above

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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

[Akbar Ukani]

Hey David…I appreciate you responding to my inquiry

The QT Reference file is in ProRes and I am down converting it into MPEG-2 for DVD Studio Pro 4. I am using Compressor 3.5.1.

As far as the TV, well its a brand new HD television from Samsung so I don’t think that would be the fix.

[David Roth weiss]

Well, don’t totally discount the TV as an issue, some HDTVs just don’t display SD very well. However, let’s assume that’s not the issue, and let’s try to track down another source of the problem.

Please explain your steps precisely. You said you started with XDCAM, and you said you somehow ended up with a Pro Res reference file, but you did not explain the steps you followed to created that Pro Res reference file. Knowing how you got from an XDCAM timeline to a Pro Res file will definitely help me to help you.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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

[Akbar Ukani]

Hey,

In order to create the Reference file, here is what I did after exporting the xdcam clips from my Camera

1. Within Final Cut, I create a new sequence with the following settings

Frame Size: 1920×1080 with HDTV 1080i Aspect Ratio
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square
Editing Timebase: 23.98

Quicktime Video Settings
Compressor: xdcam ex 1080p24 (35Mbits per second VBR)
Quality 100%

2. I ingest the footage on the timeline and edit as necessary.

3. After editing, I right click on the sequence and select “export”->Quicktime Movie. This is where I change the Quicktime Video Settings. Everything I mentioned above is the same, EXCEPT the Quicktime Video Settings. I change that to “Apple Pro Res”. In addition, I have even made the QT Reference file with the compressor settings as “XDCAM EX 1080p24 (35Mbits per second VBR), but without any luck.

To keep everything in one post, I am reposting the steps I take further to produce the result

4. Bring the QT Ref File in Compressor 3.5.1, and select the DVD Best 90min MPEG-2 Codec (2 Pass VBR Best).

5. Turn On Frame Controls and leave all the settings as they are. Since its Progressive Material, I am not modifying the de-interlace options. However, I do set the “Anti-Alias” slider all the way to 100. (The QT Ref File is only 10 Seconds Long for testing purposes)

The Font setting with LiveType is “Skia Regular”…The text Size is 100…Its Red with a black outline (weight of 3.3 pixels)

Hope this helps..Thank you once again sir.

[David Roth weiss]

[Akbar Ukani] “3. After editing, I right click on the sequence and select “export”->Quicktime Movie. This is where I change the Quicktime Video Settings. Everything I mentioned above is the same, EXCEPT the Quicktime Video Settings. I change that to “Apple Pro Res”.”

BINGO!!! I’m glad I asked. The weak link in your workflow is most likely the extra compression step that you’re building in.

By rendering the timeline as XDCAM, then simply exporting from that sequence as Pro Res, you hit the media with compression 2X on the way out. Instead, you should go to Sequence>>Settings and change the compressor to Pro Res, then re-render the timeline, then Export >>Quicktime Movie using current settings, and make sure you don’t check the recompress all frames box.

This creates a Pro Res file without an additional recompression.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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

[Akbar Ukani]

Great..I appreciate the help..I’ll give it a try and see what happens..Thanks once again

[Rob Maffeo]

From what I have found DVDSP 4 considers progressive SD video “480p” to be “High Definition” and therefore will only allow you to author 480p to a HD DVD……. which is absolutely ridiculous! That is why your text is falling apart, it is being displayed as interlaced. I am having the same problem with still menus as well. It will not allow you to specify it as progressive when the project is NTSC SD. Only solution so far is to use DVDSP 3.