poor titles quality

[Jeanne Hilary]

Hi Chris,hi Tom,

I’m sending the HD sequence to Compressor. Since your post I’m sending the 1920 x 960 file instead of nesting it in another sequence.
The sequence settings and Compressor settings are listed above, but since yours and Tom’s last posts I’m now doing this in compressor:

using dvd: best quality 90 minutes
file format mpeg-2
extension m2v
sd dvd
video format ntsc
frame rate 29.97 (but can you tell me if a dvd can play my movie in its native 23.98 fps?)
aspect ratio 16:9
field dominance bottom first

As for the color settings, I could just as easily have said:

R: 0
G: 0.0398
B: 0.498

It’s just from habit that I used the hexadecimal notation, since I work usually on things for the web.
If there’s a problem with this color, I would be interested to know.
And do you know why the text looks so much more terrible than the video and graphics?

Thank you both so much for your help.

Jeanne

[Chris Tompkins]

Nice. You’re on the right track. This will yield much better results.

Keep in mind that SD will never look as sharp as HD. Just the way it is.
Text will suffer from compression. Try to avoid small thin fonts will help.

When your mpeg files are complete and if you have room on the disc for more, recompress at a higher rate.
You can fit 4.2GB or so on a single side disc. This will help you maximize your quality to space ratio.

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC

[Tom Wolsky]

Where are you seeing the terrible text? On the output file? Are you looking at it in the QT7 player set to high quality playback? Could you post a screen shot somewhere?

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Jeanne Hilary]

The text quality degrades when I output to m2v, or to SD tape (I haven’t tried HD tape yet).
In the quicktime output file from fcp or ae, it looks fine.
It looks equally terrible on my apple monitor, and on an ntsc monitor.

The way I am making this type is: in ae I use the type tool. Then I am exporting it to fcp as a quicktime file using pro res 4444, 32bit, RGB + alpha. I’ve also tried making it as a photoshop file because what I can’t understand is why the type looks so much worse than the graphics, which I am importing into fcp in exactly the same way, not to mention the video which looks ok, too, although neither as good as they do in HD.

Here are the screenshots.

Thanks for your help.

Jeanne

[Tom Wolsky]

Trying look at these in the QT7 pro player with the clips set to high quality playback. The MPEG-2 doesn’t look bad for a heavily compressed format, a little soft, but about what I’d expect for MPEG-2.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Jeanne Hilary]

It’s the text I’m concerned about. The type quality isn’t normal or acceptable, especially on the thinner type. I agree the graphics look ok, normal even, which is why I posted them along with the type screen shots, to show the difference in quality between the text and the images in the same project.

As I said in my earlier post, I have looked at this text on tape output as well, and it looks awful there too.
I have seen dvds of digital video projects like mine and the type looks readable and crisp, not the way this looks at all.
There must be something wrong with how I’m making this text; can you indicate to me what is the correct way to make it, or direct me to a resource.

Thanks,

Jeanne

[Tom Wolsky]

What kind of tape? Digibeta? Recorded from the FCP timeline?

The text in the first image is pretty dreadful. I suspect it’s the MPEG-2 encoding, the dark blue and black is very hard to do on the edges, almost like a gradient. The third is not so bad because of the size of the text. Take a look at the credits on the end of a DVD. They’re just dreadful. There is only so much you can do with MPEG-2.

Philip Hodgetts has an excellent article on creating titles for video https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/perfect_titles_phil.html It’s old but it still applies, especially if you’re going to MPEG-2, which is the same size and heavily compressed like DV.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Jeanne Hilary]

Hi Tom,
The output was to betaSP, from a quicktime proRes 4444 file.

Here are the most dreadful titles with the following settings, from the link in your post.
R: 16
G: 16
B: 235

Opacity: 80%
Gaussian blur (on type): 0.3
Noise (on background) 2%

Made in AE, saved as a proRes 4444 file, imported to FCP then sent to compressor, using the settings above.

They definitely look better! Sadly, my question is: is this the best I can hope for?

And one last question: must I set the frame rate to 29.97 for dvd, or can any regular dvd player play 23.98?

Thanks for your help!

Jeanne

Previous settings for comparison

new settings above

[Tom Wolsky]

For MPEG-2 that may be as good as she goes. For me the blue’s still too dark for good legibility. I’m just not getting enough separation from the black for my taste. Maybe a gray edge, not wild about that either.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Jeanne Hilary]

Thanks.
Any final words on the 23.98 vs 29.97 for dvd question? Are there any drawbacks to 23.98fps for dvd?

Thanks for all your help.

Jeanne