[Tom Nelson]

Here’s a still out of Sorenson that represents the issue I’m having. Squeeze doesn’t normally represent the final product very well, but in this case it does; the areas with more defined lines look choppy during quick movement when I play back the DVD (My A/V combined bitrate is 8500k). This is odd, right?

[Tom Nelson]

Usually I encode with a QT Ref – that’s the first thing I did with these clips – I brought the refs into Squeeze and encoded them with the correct field order. All field orders were unsuccessful, so I exported a clip as a self-contained quicktime movie, because Avid gives you more options, including compression type, field order, etc. Still looks like I’m getting banding – and jumpy playback. The next thing I’m going to try is different settings in that QT movie export dialogue box in avid – perhaps trying different types of compression could solve the issue.

Thanks again, everyone, for helping me troubleshoot.

-Tom

[Tom Nelson]

If you’re working in 3d, I would suggest adding a few lights. Look at the way the lighting acts when you open a real greeting card, and try to emulate that in AE. I think it will add a realism to it that’ll make it pretty convincing.

[Tom Nelson]

Thanks for the quick response!

I exported the video as an uncompressed Quicktime Movie, Upper field first, from Avid. Then, I Squeezed it in sorenson as upper field first (Auto remove interlacing off) and brought it into Encore. The video clip looks crisp when I preview it in Encore, but when I burn the DVD and view the disc on a set-top player, that’s when the artifacting/jitteryness shows up. I would assume it isn’t a field order issue because I’ve got text at the top of the video that is super crisp around the edges.

[Tom Nelson]

Thanks, everybody, for the fantastic support. I’ve experimented with the methods you’ve provided, and still continue to do so. I’ve found that printing and then scanning a documentas a pdf works well, because it roughs up the edges of the thin lines; after I scan it, I can bring it into photoshop and give it a very minimal directional blur to further soften the lines but not take them too out of focus.

The sure-fire method, of course, is re-designing the document in photoshop or a similar program, and avoiding lines that are too thin. I’ve used this method on a more recent project where I didn’t have to deal with a great number of documents. If there was a pile of word and excel documents I had to deal with, I would definitely go with the scanning method. However, I have yet to try the scan converter method, which I plan to do when I get some down time in the future (Probably, Summer 2009, I’d say).

Thanks again for all the help, guys. This is the first time I’ve posted anything in the message board here, and I must say there seems to be quite a bit of professional help available here. I’ll be back, and I’ll provide more feedback to other posts as well.

[Tom Nelson]

Thanks, everybody, for the help. I’ve experimented with multiple techniques for this. If I bring the file in as is, the lines are very hard, and cause the most jitter. When I print the file and then scan it (as a pdf), it softens the lines a bit and causes it to jitter less. The best bet for me has been to scan the document and focus in on the document with close-ups. Then, my lines are thicker and don’t cause as much jitter. I can also apply a small amount of blur in Photoshop. I haven’t tried the scan converter yet, however. Thanks for the help, all.