[Jeff Pulera]

With most text documents, such as a Word doc, the text is going to be far too small to convert to DVD, and in fact may not even work well for HD video. You will have to decide what font size will be legible for NTSC SD video, and then copy/paste only as much as will fit per Titler page, also keeping in mind to observe the Safe Areas and not put text too near the edges where the TV bezel may cut off parts of it. So each typed page may equal several on-screen pages at a larger size.

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Well then it almost has to be the DVD player

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Rather than typing up text documents, then trying to convert them, why not make title screen right in Premiere, then you will know how the font size looks from the get-go.

You ought to be able to copy/paste from text doc into Premiere Titler.

Plus, documents are typically 8.5×11 (portrait mode) while screens are landscape mode, so better off to create that media natively in Premiere.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

How does video look in Encore preview, before burning?

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Have you changed any defaults/presets in Encore? Basically, if you export an “MPEG-2 DVD” clip as 16:9, and simply Import that into a NEW Encore project using existing defaults, it just ought to work…something is amiss somewhere. I’m assuming that in Premiere, the video fills the Program Monitor view correctly, and also in the Export preview?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Your settings look fine, so I would suspect the DVD player. While most will auto-detect whether the DVD should be displayed at 4:3 or 16:9, I have seen some where you must go into the DVD setup menu and tell it what to do. Do you have another player you can test on, or perhaps use the computer with free viewer software such as VLC Media Player?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Agata,

Your export format is “MPEG-2” at 1920×1080, when it should be “MPEG-2 DVD” at 720×480 (the only size for NTSC DVD). Please note the “DVD” part of the format. If you send anything else to Encore, it WILL need to transcode the footage again.

Once you choose “MPEG-2 DVD”, then select a Preset, such as “NTSC DV Widescreen”.

You can manually change the export field order to “Upper” to match the source. You might also adjust the bitrate depending on the length of the program.

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I actually don’t have much PP experience. I can tell you that if Grandma only has an old SD CRT television, any document/website text that you try to have her view will be illegible unless you can use much larger than normal fonts.

Years ago, I used a screen recording software to create a software tutorial that was then delivered as DVD. Looked like mush and I ended up redoing the project and delivering for PC viewing only, at a higher resolution, where the words were then quite clear.

What is the expected length of the finished video? One can usually go 90-120 minutes on DVD with decent quality. You mentioned a 10GB export file size, what format was that? When exporting for DVD, you want to use “MPEG-2 DVD” and nothing else. The bitrate can be adjusted according to the program length to make it fit (within reason).

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jeff,

The first thing to realize is that DVD is always “Standard Definition”, which limits the resolution to just 720×480. Period. This is low-quality compared to computer displays, which years ago were maybe 1024×768 at minimum, but now average full HD at 1920×1080 pixels.

Computers also use RGB color for very crisp display of any color, while DVD uses NTSC (television) color which is sub-par and cannot display oversaturated colors common to computer programs and web content.

Plus, DVD uses lossy MPEG-2 compression. Therefore, when trying to convert sharp, high-resolution RGB computer graphics to NTSC, MPEG-2 compression for DVD, the result is for the most part unreadable unfortunately, looking like mud compared to the original. Web sites use small text that just does not work in NTSC/DVD format.

You may wish to rethink the delivery method, perhaps using Blu-ray 1080 HD instead, or an H.264 file. If she has a newer HD display, many of them have a USB port into which you just insert a USB memory stick with the H.264 file on it and the TV then plays it in HD quality.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Agata,

Please show a screen grab of the Export Settings window, that will often tell us a lot that we need to know about the situation.

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers