My project is simple and is only one menu with two buttons that link to two short movies. The client is very picky, she sent me a photo shop mock up of what she wanted. I 've had to resize a few things but made it work- except the text in the photoshop file . It looks great in DVDSP but once burned and checked on a normal TV, it looks jagged around the edges. I've tried many things to correct this that the manual suggests, but the best fix seems to be importing the menu without text and adding text using the DVDSP editor.
To me , it looks as good as any dvd menu you would see on something from Blockbuster. Those fonts ( hollywood releases) look a little "uncrisp" too on an older tv or even an HD, depending on the font and background.
My question is not a technical one. I want to know how you pros go about explaining ,to a fussy client, why text doesnt look " perfect" on thier TV.
Thanks, Dean
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Noah Kadner on Oct 9, 2008 at 12:39:42 am
Redo it in photoshop and soften it up. Or send over a test DVD with various levels of softened text and see which one she likes. Not much you can do about fussy clients other than not work with them more than once.
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Corey Rybicki on Oct 9, 2008 at 5:30:14 am
I've heard a ton of problems with text created in both photoshop and DVDSP. The most common solutions are to either fix the aspect ratio or to mimic anti-ailiasing by setting the color to different opacity levels in the advanced color settings tab. The four different levels should be set to an opacity of 15-9-4-0 respectively, but this still may not be to your clients standards.
I generally just create menus and text using After Effects and render to an Uncompressed AVI or Quicktime Animation file prior to encoding. The final result is very crisp and clean text.
I would just import the photoshop file into AE or perhaps into another compositing or editing program, recreate the text and export to an uncompressed video format. If its just a still menu, you'll only need to export a 1-2 second video and then in DVDSP, set the menu to "still" rather than "loop" or "timeout"
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Michael Sacci on Oct 9, 2008 at 5:44:34 am
Honestly if you look at hollywood DVDs very few use text for highlights and when they do they use heavy text that fills a thick black border. I try to design around this shortcoming and use simple shapes for the highlights.
Have you client pull 10 movie DVDs at random and see what is being using as highlights.
If they insist Noah's and Corey advice will help, if they still complain, hit them over the head with a lead pipe. :-)
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Corey Rybicki on Oct 9, 2008 at 6:14:28 am
Just wanted to add that you could also just export a still image in AE instaed of the uncompressed video file and see how that works for ya...should work fine.
Also, it doesn't sound like you are using a layered photoshop menu to create text highlights...but if you are, using AE is not an option and you'd be stuck with using the common solutions listed earlier.
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Dean Mikulla on Oct 9, 2008 at 6:31:50 am
I'm sorry, I wasnt talking about the layers for buttons. I'm speaking of the text that makes up the menu over the graphics,(picture). I do know what you mean with the layered buttons though.
I just tried using FCP to add the text, and that didnt work. It looks worse. Just a shot in the dark:)
I didnt think it would make much difference, but I'm using Fireworks, not Photoshop. And like I said, the text, when added after I import the menu pic, with DVDSP looks fine using the same font and colors ( as the original mock up). Although I 've noticed text doesnt look as good when placed over top of a gradient.
Thanks for all the help!
Just another quick question, I see the text editor in DVDSP is limited, but does it automatically add some anti aliasing? I just cant figure out why it looks better in the end (when burned and viewed on a TV).
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Steve Kirkham on Oct 11, 2008 at 5:15:07 pm
we create menus all the time and the text looks fine when created in Photoshop. It may be you are coming up against the way DVD-SP handles the resizing of the menus. We usually save menus out as PICT files for the background and overlays. It may be worth then resizing them to the 'proper' size - 720x480 for NTSC and 720 x 576 for Pal before bringing in to DVD-SP.
Course it may not be this but I have seen recent versions 'mangle' text.
Re: Client complaining about text crispness by Steve Kirkham on Oct 11, 2008 at 5:15:14 pm
we create menus all the time and the text looks fine when created in Photoshop. It may be you are coming up against the way DVD-SP handles the resizing of the menus. We usually save menus out as PICT files for the background and overlays. It may be worth then resizing them to the 'proper' size - 720x480 for NTSC and 720 x 576 for Pal before bringing in to DVD-SP.
Course it may not be this but I have seen recent versions 'mangle' text.
