Text over dark backgrounds

[Mike Kujbida]

Can you post a screenshot here?
I’ve done this several times and have never had any problems.

[Brian Tallant]

Here is a screen shot…the project settings are 720x480x32, 29.970i, and I rendered it as NTSC Widescreen Interlaced. Notice the “teeth”, particularly on the “N”.

The logo has been sized to fit the screen, and its dimensions are 720×116.

2660_screenshotntscwidescreeninterlaced.png.zip

[Mike Kujbida]

Your zipped file is asking for a password.
Just use the “Image Upload” feature available on here instead.

[Brian Tallant]

Sorry, here is the screen shot.

By the way, having done more research, I think it might not be a problem with the background color. It seems to be a problem with the color of the text. Some dark colors, like red, produce the “teeth” you see in this shot, and others don’t.

[Mike Kujbida]

The text colour is one problem.
The other is your choice of font.
Video does not like text with fine lines like in the font you’ve chosen.
The article (here on the Cow) called Great Titles with the DV Codec gives several excellent suggestions on how to get the best looking titles you can.

[Brian Tallant]

Thanks for taking the time to help me!

I took a look at the article you referenced. But there are a couple of things that may make this a different case than the one the author is describing.

First of all, the codec Vegas is using in this case is not DV, it’s YUV.

Second of all, I was reading through the article and was noticing some of the things the author said don’t work well with DV. One of them was fine-lined text, and another was white text on black background. However, I tried using a very fine-lined white text, and it looked great.

So maybe the YUV codec operates a little differently than DV in this regard?

[Mike Kujbida]

[Brian Tallant] “So maybe the YUV codec operates a little differently than DV in this regard?”

I’ve never used the YUV codec so that’s quite possible.
The other points about not exceeding allowable colour limits still apply though and are probably a reason for the poor text quality.
The other problem is that the titler in Vegas is not a very good one as it doesn’t anti-alias the text when it generates it.
What I find helps is to create the text at 2X my project resolution.
That is, if I’m in the NTSC DV realm, I’ll make my text at 1440 x 960 instead of 720 x 480.
This does make it a bit smoother.
You do this by changing the numbers in the Frame size boxes in your generated media.
Hope this helps.

[Brian Tallant]

Okay, here is what I have figured out:

When I try to render that red logo as NTSC interlaced, it looks toothy or stairstepped. When I render it as NTSC progressive, it looks much better (though not perfect).

When I render the logo in a light color (like white, or light yellow…anything light colored) it looks fine whether interlaced or progressive NTSC.

However, when I render the logo as an HD file, like 1280×720, it looks perfect in any color, interlaced or progressive.

So, what I have learned is that red really only works in progressive scan, and it works best as an HD file. Interlacing, especially in NTSC, does not handle the color red.

Since this video will be burned to a DVD and played on a closed-circuit hotel television station from a DVD player, I have no choice but to use interlaced NTSC…therefore I will have to pick another color for the logo.

Unless you have any other suggestions.

[Mike Kujbida]

[Brian Tallant] “Interlacing, especially in NTSC, does not handle the color red.”

That is an unfortunate reality of the world of NTSC and the colour red 🙁
I can only offer two suggestions.
The first is not to put it over pure (0-0-0) black.
In the NTSC world, black is 16-16-16.
Try that and see if it makes any difference before trying my next suggestion.
The other is to raise the saturation so it’s not a pure red.
Photoshop says it’s 186-0-32.
Try 180-30-30 (or a slight variation thereof) and see if that helps.
It won’t be quite as deep in colour but it should still look OK.
BTW, the red in the colour bar test pattern is 180-16-16.

[Brian Tallant]

Well, it’s just no good. I tried both of your suggestions and still the stairsteps are there. I’m just going to have to go with a light color. I’m certainly not stuck on red, although it is the official color of the university where that museum is located. I don’t think they would have a problem with a different color.

However, all of this makes me realize even more that we need to upgrade our equipment to deliver HD video. Like I said in a previous post, when I render the files in HD the red color works just fine.