[Tom Brooks]

Hi Walter, how’s the coffee this morning?
I think you and Rafael both make good points. Once video is in the digital world, anything that happens to it is a product of simply manipulating ones and zeroes. Software, or rather a computer running software, can do that. Chips of various types do some of the drudgery, while clever software supplies the intelligence and art if you will.

Those chips can help the software designer by doing things very fast and very reliably. That gives us two things–real-time speed and quality. The AJA products use hardware to good advantage. They process digital video internally at a very high quality level. Think in terms of 32-bit floating point and all that. To write software strictly for the CPU to do that is no easy task and I think I can safely say that all software is ultimately a compromise. Bits will be lost or changed in ways that hurt the final video quality.

The real value to you and me happens when somebody puts together a system of specialized hardware and software with a great understanding of what we need and want. That’s what we find in the AJA, Terranex and other products.

[Tom Brooks]

Have you tried the Adv Format Conversion in Compressor? I think the scaling is much better.

[Tom Brooks]

Same here, I have Kona. I can set the various outputs, either analog or SDI, to either the primary editing format or a secondary, down-converted format. The down-convert has choice of letterbox, crop, or anamorphic. Very slick and good quality.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, Mac OS-X 10.5.5, Quicktime 7.5.5, Adobe Prod Prem CS4, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V6, 8.5GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT 256MB, G-RAID 2x1TB FW800, 6TB RAID-5 (Enhance E8-ML, Highpoint 2322), Panasonic HVX-200P P2. Also MBP 17″ Core 2 Duo 2.5, 4GB, GeForce 8600M GT 512MB.

[Tom Brooks]

By the way, if you have Motion this newer post explains a similar method using that.
-Tom
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1017428

[Tom Brooks]

My first thought is to try converting that original H.264 clip into a normal video editing format (say, Uncompressed 10-bit or ProRes 422 HQ), synching that up in FCP and then exporting to the final format.

[Tom Brooks]

I’ll absolutely give you that David. We do could do more with your “absolutely easiest” methods. I posted mine because sometimes it helps to think about behind the scenes methods like composite modes for that time when you REALLY need it. I’m not sure but what the free plug-in is easiest of all though.

[Tom Brooks]

I believe you’re looking for what used to be called a shadow wipe. But I don’t use a wipe to create it. Here’s how:

Make a circle of the right size, white on black background. Place the circle on a track above the clip. Animate the scale and position of the circle over your detail area as needed–you may temporarily set the circle’s opacity to 50% so that you can see the video under it. When you’re done animating, set it back to 100%.

Now make a copy of the clip you wish to highlight and place that copy above both the original clip and the circle on the timeline. Make the original copy of the clip darker or the upper copy lighter–whichever works best for the look you want. Now control-click the upper clip and set its composite mode to Travel Matte-Luma. This will give you a brighter spot in your video corresponding to the shape of the circle but keep all the contrast of the original clip.

If my explanation doesn’t make sense let me know and I’ll post a picture.

[Tom Brooks]

Here are two screen grabs showing the difference in text from DV to DV50. First the DV image, then the DV50.


It may be hard to judge the overall quality with these highly magnified images, but you can clearly see the decrease in mosquito noise and perhaps color banding on the DV50 image.

A question Jack…why are you going to Photoshop and then bringing that text into Motion? Isn’t it a simpler process (and thus less prone to problems) to create the text directly in Motion?

Is the “distortion” you are referring to the jagged edge on curved letters such as the “G” in your title? I’m not sure you’re going to get much better in that regard simply because 720×576 is not a very high resolution for text of that size.

You could try another experiment. Compose the title at a higher resolution, say 1024×768 and put that on your timeline. See how that looks. I’d be curious.

[Tom Brooks]

Jack,
DV50 won’t solve all your problems with poor quality text. It is less compressed than DV and the color information in particular is less compressed. So it helps maintain the quality. The difference is minor if your text is well designed. If the text is pushing the limits of the PAL or NTSC tv system the difference can be more dramatic. Best thing is to give it a quick try on your system and see what you get. Simply duplicate your sequence and, in the copy, go to the menu under Sequence/Settings, go the section for Quicktime Video Settings and change Compressor to DV50 or Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2. Render the sequence and compare it to the original DV sequence.

You should see a noticeable improvement in the clarity and definition of the smaller text and less bleeding or smearing of the text color (if it’s a saturated color).

After that, there are things you could experiment with to see if you can get better quality. Those would be color choices, font size, shadow, stroke, font, etc. If you are moving the text you run into another set of challenges with that.
-Tom

PS-Does your supermarket also carry venison?

[Tom Brooks]

I have only had pheasant once. But it was good. It’s not readily available around here unless you are or you know a hunter.

Titles will never be great in standard definition video because it’s a pretty low resolution platform to begin with. To get the best, use a sequence setting for your final render that has less compression–something like DV50, 8-bit Uncompressed or ProRes 422 HQ. Colors that are opposites can interact badly and reduce quality–like blue text over a yellow background. Red text is always hard to get right. Finally, experiment with drop shadows and text outline or stroke to see what works best.