stills loose quality after render

[13]

What are your sequence settings?

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Jon,
Which is the codec of your sequence? If you put high quality footage, graphics or stills in a very compressed codec sequence (DV), everything will be compressed with that codec, so the quality will drop.
If you set your sequence with a high quality codec (8?10b Unc) your footage, graphics and still will keep the original quality.
Rafael

PPC G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM/BlackMagic SD/PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM
JVC DTV-17″/FCS2/AE CS3/COMBUSTION/SHAKE

[Jeremy Garchow]

[jon maloney] “Anyone have any ideas on what I am doing wrong, or what I can do?
“

Look at your footage on a proper monitor and not on your canvas.

Jeremy

[Michael Gossen]

Possible you have to render in high-precision YUV…

Michael Gossen
Helium Digital Media

[Jonomaloney]

Sequence Settings:

Frame size- 720*480
aspect ratio- NTSC DV 3:2
pixel aspect ratio- NTSC CCIR 601/DV
Field Dominance- lower (even)
editing timebase- 29.97
QT video settings- dv/dvc-pro – ntsc
audio settings – 48.00

Video processing-
“always render in RGB” is unchecked.
process maximum white as: super-white

It seems I should change my QT video settings for Compressor to something else. I tried “video” and that seemed to fix the problem. but is there any fallback from that? Is there a better choice?

Thank you all so much for the help,
Jon

[Jeremy Garchow]

Sorry to be rude, but until you hook up a monitor (even a cheap tv) you will never know what your footage looks like.

Jeremy

[Jonomaloney]

I totally agree I should be using a monitor, and of course absolutely no offense taken, but I still no that my images loose quality after rendering when they look one way in the canvas before render, and have a poorer quality after the render.

[Jeremy Garchow]

You are watching a low rez preview of dv compression.

Humor us at least.

Export a small section of your video a a self contained (a second will be fine). Open that movie in Quicktime. GO in to quicktime prefs and make sure that the high quality option is enabled. QUit Quicktime, then open the movie again (in quicktime). Tell me how it looks then.

Jeremy

[Rafael Amador]

[jon maloney] “change my QT video settings for Compressor to something else. I tried “video” and that seemed to fix the problem”
Your stills are RGB 8b 444. If you don’t want to loose quality you need to render with a similar codec. if you edit in a DV time line, you are going to YCrCb 8b 420. Lot of compression.
This is why your picture looks better when you changed the compressor (codec) to Apple Video. However, try to choose other codec. Apple Video is really pre-historic. Was the first QT codec.( I’ve been looking for the specs but i haven’t found hem. I guess is 8b RGB).
You have many option and you must choose depending of your final output format.
If you are editing only stills you can use a RGB codec and render in RGB (your stills are RGB) like Animation or (better if you don’t need export Alpha channel) PhotoJPG at 100%.
If you go to finish in a DVD use a YCbCr codec. From DV50 up.
All this apart of the recommendation of Jeremy about monitoring.
Rafael

PPC G5 2x2Gh 4GbRAM/BlackMagic SD/PMBP 17″Core2Duo 4GbRAM
JVC DTV-17″/FCS2/AE CS3/COMBUSTION/SHAKE

[Neil Ryan]

I’ve just finished onlining a program which had some video and a lot of stills in it.
After batching in the video elements, I Rendered All so I could play the SEQ and see what needed to be fixed/graded etc.
I found just a couple of the stills looked like they were playing in preview mode – not high quality at all. The stills were large, not being blown up. Didn’t make sense.
I forced them to become unrendered, then re-rendered them, without changing any SEQ settings or anything, and found the re-renders were fine; excellent, in fact.
FCP 6.0.2

Doesn’t answer your question, but there is certainly something whacky going on.
I’ll keep an eye on it, and see if it relates to anything; just wanted to pass it on, in case anyone else comes across it …

Cheers,
Neil.