Quality issues

[Ann Bens]

Make the psd project size, so no scaling will occur.

[Carlos Angeli]

Hi Ann. Thanks for answering.

A couple more questions:

1. Do you think that scalling down the psd is what´s making it look worse?

2.This is suposed to play on a dvd. The TV is a 42″ LCD TV that has a 1366 x 768 px resolution. I first made the psd and the project with that same size but it wouldn´t fit entirely on the screen. I then took that same sequence and put it inside a smaller one(DVPAL preset). That solved the fitting issue but may have caused quality loss.

3.I`m not sure wether to use a DV PAL preset or a NTSC preset. The TV is suposed to be PAL, but does it matter since the video is coming from a DVD?

[Andy Prada]

Ah!!! to scale or not to scale?

Ann is quite right in that stills in Premiere will always appear better if the software doesn’t have to rescale them. Unfortunately, for all of us (including Ann) we all wish to track and zoom within stills to add value to them and therein lies the problem. We are all limited to our formats – in our case PAL SD requires 720×576 (square or rectangular) so we have to put up with that end resolution. HD is better of course but only blue-ray can facilitate that properly in DVD form.

I think you’ll find that the end result for DVD will be better than you think when played on an SD CRT. Unfortunately we’ve all been hoodwinked by HD Ready technology so upscaling on to a 1080p LCD makes SD look a bit soft. Ce la Vie!

One tip that might help…when you zoom in on a still add a small amount of PPro SHARPEN incrementally (say 15%). Alternatively, use an upscaler filter from BCC or Magic Bullets.

[Carlos Angeli]

Andy,

thanks for the quick response and advice. But I´m not zooming in on a still. Actually I had to scale down the hole sequence with a psd in it, because part of it wouldn´t fit inside the screen area.

I first started on a 1366 x 768 px sequence because I looked up on the internet for the TV specs. When I sent it to the client, it didn´t fit on the screen. So I scaled it down by putting it inside another sequence, this time DV PAL preset. That seems to fit just fine (haven´t been able to see it in person) but I do know that when I look at the end result on my monitor the psd images look blurry.

I would expect some quality loss in the mpeg file that plays in one part of the screen since I guess is being recompressed, but I thought that the psd next to it would look perfect being still image with great quality. Maybe I´m mistaken about this.

[Andy Prada]

Mmm! I think I’ve misinterpreted your post a little…sorry!

But I might be able to add a few more pence. I recently had a problem a little like this with a background psd still (c/w text) in a menu in Encore. It felt soft but I couldn’t think why as I presumed Encore would look at the still as a full frame rather than a field. In the end I couldn’t get a good resolution so I created a moving m2v background (PAL SD 16:9 lower field) in PPro using the same image and it improved resolution considerably.

This is probably not helpful but if it is let me know.

[Carlos Angeli]

Thanks Andy. I´ll give it a try.

What still doesn´t seem right is that having used the same resolution from the TV specs, the image wouldn´t fit into the screen area.

I guess I´ll make o psd with the same DV PAL size (720 x 576) and see what happens. Any other ideas are welcome.

[Andy Prada]

Are you working in PAL? 1366 x 768 is certainly quite an odd spec!

A Proper PAL image can only ever be 720×576. What makes it 4:3 or 16:9 is the pixel aspect ratio – square or rectangular. In the latter a 720×576 image is expanded in playback to create a wide screen image – effectively 1024×576. Encore will respond accordingly to your interpretation of a file and add (or not) a wide screen flag so the picture looks right when it plays back on either a 4:3 or a 16:9 TV.

[Carlos Angeli]

That I din´t know. I took 1366 x 768 from th TV specs and thought that was the size I was suposed to work on.

[Andy Prada]

I suggest you set up a brand new sequence – Standard PAL DV or Widescreen PAL DV depending on what you want to output.

When you import your psd it will be oversized. You need to reduce the scale in the Motion tab of the Effects Control until you get what you want. (It’s better to resize to the correct ratio in Photoshop if you have it but not essential.)

If your psd is square pixels – size/crop it to 1024×576 before importing if you want widescreen. If you want standard aspect ratio use 720×576.

[Carlos Angeli]

Thanks Andy. I have the original PSD, so I will resize it to the same size than the DV PAL Widescreen sequence before importing it as an asset.

I will let you know how it went. You´ve been really helpfull.