Re: Project looks better on CRT than HD LCD?

[Cliff Vaughn] "o y'all think it's normal for a SD Hollywood studio DVD to look a lot better (though by no means perfect) on a HD display than what I might author using DVDSP?"


What's your source? Mpeg-2 compression is very much optimized for exactly that-- Hollywood film, meaning shallow depth of field shot to grainy celluloid. It hides the majority of its compression in the "soft focus" areas and grain. Whereas most video that you will shoot, even HD has a very deep DoF, meaning lots of image detail that really exceeds the amount of data available-- so lots more noise.


One thing I've notices is that LCDs show compression artifacts in much higher contrast than CRTs, probably to do with the enhanced contrast ratios (they boost these for "sharpness")

Keep in mind that LCDs have a native display resolution, and unless you have a 720x480 LCD (you don't) You're scaling the video-- and this is going to make things look not as good as they do at native resolution (or native upscaled resolution)
CRTs show things in "native resolution" of course.. :-)

Furthermore, as others have said, make sure to go through all the settings on compressor. Even on "best" there is still one or two settings that can be cranked higher-- the bitrate, resize filter, and rate conversion (if applicable) can all be set "higher" than the default DVD "best quality"

Finally, you might even try different encoders. Encore's encoder is really nice for some stuff. I've never tried to quantify exactly *what* type of source does better, but I have noticed occasional better results.

I still use procoder on occasion (especially from my Avid system) Slow on best settings, but superb compression result, with tons of tweakable options.