Break up of solid colours in rendered movie

	Re: Break up of solid colours in rendered movie by Dave LaRonde on Aug 14, 2008 at 4:35:39 pm [Andrew Brown] "I have used this hi res mov in imovie and exported as the highest resolution expert settings. When I watch the movie full size the orange outline of the circle breaks up really badly and look really low resolution." iMovie works with DV only, right? That's probably the problem. Basically, the DV codec does NO favors to animations with sharp, well-defined edges like motion graphics. It treats 'em the way a baby treats a diaper, and it has to do with the way DV deals with color. It's called Color Resolution. The very best video uses what's called 4-4-4 color resolution, but DV uses 4-1-1 color resolution. So what does that mean? There's a VERY good explanation of the color resolution in DV in this video podcast: http://macbreak.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=70596 The podcast itself deals a lot with chroma keying, but remember that chroma keying depends on the details in the colors. If you watch it, you'll at least know what's going on with DV. Personally, I think it's the best description of color resolution out there. Now, if iMovie can use OTHER codecs, you'd be better off using one that's higher quality than DV. Another strategy: lose the sharp edges in your motion graphics, and maybe you can trick DV into doing a better job. Dave LaRonde Sr. Promotion Producer KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index

	Re: Break up of solid colours in rendered movie by Dave LaRonde on Aug 15, 2008 at 3:08:24 pm [Andrew Brown] " am exporting from AE using MPEG4 codec as this seems to be giving me the best output with smallest file size, the solid colours are far better on the TV screen, although when I play the DVD on my Mac the colour breaks up again." I'm not surprised, and for a couple of reasons: • MPEG4 is a final-delivery codec. It's intended to be the final use for the file because it contains quality loss in the picture. It is NOT an intermediate codec, which is a codec you use to preserve picture quality from one step in the production process to the next. But you're using MPEG4 as an intermediate codec. And how do I know that? Because..... • For any standard-definition authored DVD, the video MUST be MPEG2. It's part of the technical standard. You can't get around it. So when you author the DVD, you're converting that MPEG4 to MPEG2 and you're losing picture quality. It it were my DVD, I'd Render using the Render Que (no exporting!) in Quicktime's Animation codec set to best quality. It's lossless. Screw the big file size you get. You'll quickly learn that the terms "high picture quality" and "small file size" are pretty much mutually exclusive. Just get used to it, and make the appropriate allowances in terms of storage... or you can always live with poorer picture quality if you like. Then I'd use DVD Studio Pro, iDVD or a third-party compression application like Sorenson Squeeze to do the conversion to MPEG2 for the authored DVD. Dave LaRonde Sr. Promotion Producer KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA Respond to this post   •   Return to posts index