Moving Graphics Quality Loss

Hi,
I'm using FCE (4.0.1) and I'm encountering some problems with moving graphics loosing there original quality.
I originally imported a 300dpi RGB .psd into FCE and placed a 3D Zoom on each layer now during playback the layers are no longer crisp while moving, even appearing to break apart (the image fragments) to originally solve this I applied the de-interlace filter which seemed to correct it but I am now seeing a very pronounced drop in the image quality.
So...Can anyone help?
Cheers

FWIW, deinterlacing throws out half of the vertical resolution so you should expect the quality to drop considerably. Also keep in mind that when you place ANY media in the Timeline, it will (upon rendering) conform to the Sequence settings in FCE. So if yous Sequence settings have a lower resolution than the original media, you will see a decrease in perceived quality. Also note that DPI really has no meaning in video; it is a measure of the print world.
Instead of applying the 3D Zoom to each layer, why not apply it to the nested PSD?
-DH

Similar Messages

Motion Graphics quality loss when encoding to DVD

I have completed a logo reveal and movie titles for our short film that we will be authored to DVD. I used AE CS4 and created the compositions as 1050x756 PAL square pixels.
The uncompressed AVI renders look amazing. However, when i encode using MPEG2-DVD straight from AE there is a big hit on quality. I understand that encoding is about compressing and that we need to expect a certain amount of quality loss. But the text is especially bad.
I read somewhere that saturated reds are not particularly well handled by the MPEG-2 encoders. So we changed the color to a more subdued burned orange. We also remove the titles horizontal scroll on the screen that was causing excessive flickering. But there is still a high rate of quality loss on the text.
Is there any special workflow that i should be using, tips or tricks that you know of? I see some awesome intro titles on DVD and the text does not behave in this way.
Any pointers and suggestion you can give, would be greatly appreciated

Robert:
The MPEG-2 encoder in AE/AME is a very good, general purpose encoder.
Commercial DVD titles frequently use high-end, specialized encoders. This includes very expensive, hardware-based encoders.
That said, you could get better quality from the MPEG-2 encoder in Adobe applications by using 2 pass encoding. Unfortunately, the Render Queue in AE only can do 1 pass encoding. In order to use 2 pass encoding, you'd have to launch Adobe Media Encoder in standalone mode, pick an MPEG-2 DVD preset and enable 2 pass encoding.
Specialized encoders include, for example, Cinemacraft SP. It can do multipass encoding and offers a great deal of control over encoding settings. Even as a software-based solution, it's not cheap.
It's also worth pointing out that type for highly compressed media has its' set of do's and don't's. Applying a very subtle vertical blur (Reduce Interlace Flicker) usually helps. Fonts designed for high-resolution media (most families with serifs) need to be used at large sizes, or use sans serif typefaces for smaller sizes, etc.

Poor graphic quality on FM import

I've imported a FrameMaker file into RoboHelp HTML and the
graphics quality is terrible on many images; especially images that
have text anchored with it (the text display as xxx’s). These
images are unreadable, other are OK. I've used RoboHelp for
FrameMaker for years and love the quality of the conversion.
However, The Tech Comm Suite seems to have taken a step back in the
image conversion area. Any help you can provide is greatly
appreciated.

Hi,
First let me say that I encountered this problem back in Feb
2008 and mentioned it here.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=680&threadid=1339003
At that time, I thought it was an artifact of using tiff
files and CHM compression - too many other things were wrong with
that acquired project for me to be certain that RoboHelp had a
problem. Using PNG seemed to cure the problem.
Several months later and a couple of new projects and I'm
fairly certain that Robohelp is munging the graphics when it
imports FM8 books.
The images in my books (almost a hundred screenshots in one
300-page volume and about 100 in another 200-page volume) are all
imported by reference.
The application is a Web-based Java app with way too much
text in small fonts. I generate each screenshot at a high 300ppi
resolution and carefully crop/size them for the 7x9 page format
using Photoshop. I'm under no illusions here - downsizing bitmap
Web screenshots to fit on a printed page is going to cause loss of
resolution. However, I get crisp hi-res images in the Frame-to-PDF
output and the source images are sized so that they should work
well for both print and Webhelp output.
Now, when I first encounterd this problem in February,
converting all the images to PNG seemed to work well for CHM
output. It appears that PNG is not well supported in Webhelp, so
the images are all converted to JPEG at max qualiity, which also
adds many MB to the size of a PDF. This is documented in the RH
help at:
Home > Images and multimedia > Use images in topics
Note: If you are generating WebHelp Pro or WebHelp output,
use .GIF or .JPG image files.
So I believe that I am following all the RH import
requirements. However, when I run the FM-to-RH import, it's clear
that the images in the help folders have been resized by the import
process.

How to shoot 1080p/60, output to 720p/60, so Warp Stabilizer or zoom/crop has no quality loss?

I'm new to AE, and making a painful transition form FCP to Premiere, so please be patient, I don't understand many of the subtalties of these apps yet. :-)
Also, please forgive the long explaination, I'm having trouble articulating the problem...
I'm shooting in 1080p/60, AVCHD. I plan mainly to output to 720p/60.
The idea being, that if I need to warp stabilize footage, or zoom/crop, I can do so without any quality loss.
I don't want to edit the project in 1080p/60, because if I stabilize it, and it blows up the image, it will result in quality loss. Then when I scale down for final output, that pixilated/crapified footage will be present just in scaled down form.
I don't want the footage to be scaled down first, then, when I stabilize it, I'm blowing up 720p footage (thus defeating the whole purpose of doing this) and once again, outputting pixilated/crappified footage.
What are the steps / workflow to set up Premiere and the stabilizing shots in AE, such that I'm working in 720p, but using the 1080p footage, so that extra resolution is available when I need to crop, zoom, stabilize, etc. the footage... and can do so without any quality loss? It would be great to have that ability to zoom in on elements in post, almost 2x, and not see any loss of quality.
Thanks in advance!
-Jason Wallace

100% positive. There is a family of lesser known Prosumer Panasonic cameras (my particular model is the TM700) that record 1080p/60. It's a 3-chip, CMOS, that genuinly records at that resolution and frame rate. Has audio input, headphone output, shoe mount, zebra stripes, touch screen, good battery life, and a manual focus ring (fly by wire, can be set for exposure, framerate, or focus). Also has very good low light capabilities, that are much better than the published specs would lead you to believe. The firmware is a bit goofy, and was clearly designed by engineers, not people who have ever shot video. For example some things that should be easily accessible, are buried in menus, while other useless "fluff" features are front and quickly accessible.... but if you can live with a few stupid firmware compromises, it's absolutely AMAZING bang for the buck, and well under $1k to buy.
Note: if I'm not mistaken, the camera can only output via HDMI 1080i/60, but for absolute certain the video files being recorded are genuine 1080p/60. (This has lead to some confusion and forum arguements as to whether the camera is actually 1080p/60)
This was one of the main reasons for my moving from FCP to Premiere, as Premiere Pro handles the 1080p/60 AVCHD files, while FCP requires they first be transcoded and inflated to a intermediate codec.
-Jason W

HDV or AVCHD editing = processor utilization = import/exp. quality loss

Hello,
my question about processability of HDV/AVCHD Movies with iMovie. I have learned that HDV and AVCHD files are transfered in the AIC format. That should mean editig a movie would be always in the AIC format and I assume no difference whether I come from HDV or AVCHD format it should be similar demanding to the core2duo processor except initial transcoding from H264 to AIC - is this right?. When I save a movie out of iMovie do I save it in AIC or in HDV/AVCHD? Is there a quality loss transferring a movie back and forth from/to HDV/AVCHD to AIC since HDV employs mpeg2 and AVCHD employs H264 which are both compressed formats? Practically does this also mean that AIC can work as a bridge to between both formats?
Thanks for your replies to my several questions!

I have cut/pasted this from another thread where I posted it following a question from a Canon HV20 owner. The info applies to all HDV and AVCHD cams though. Might help you decide.
This comes from www.camcorderinfo.com
Compression (7.0)
The Canon HV20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $903) uses HDV compression, a very efficient MPEG-2 codec with a fixed data rate of 25Mbps, identical to the data rate of standard definition DV compression. HDV excels in capturing stunningly high-resolution video, but it is inferior to DV in terms of rendering motion realistically, due to its dependence on interframe compression. This means that at 1080i, only one in fifteen frames is a full-frame picture, while the intervening frames are compressed in relation to each full I frame. Interframe compression is much more efficient than intraframe compression, and allows HDV to squeeze a full 1920 x 1080 picture into a 25Mbps stream, recordable to inexpensive MiniDV tapes. DV uses intraframe compression, so each frame is a fully independent picture, allowing much better motion capture. DV also uses a superior 4:1:1 color space while HDV encodes via a truncated 4:2:0 color space.
The inherent weaknesses of HDV have led many networks to deem the format sub-standard for broadcast, but it is still the best high definition format available on the consumer camcorder market. Most consumers find the stunning resolution of HDV trumps the superior motion handling of DV. A professionally lit HDV interview (or any HDV shot without too much detail or motion) can look nearly as good as footage shot in a professional HD format on a $20,000 camera. AVCHD, a new HD format that uses H.264 compression was introduced in 2006 and compresses video even more aggressively than HDV. Our tests of Canon's UX1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $729.95) and SR1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99) last fall show that while AVCHD video is very sharp, it suffers from grain and artifacts much more than HDV compression. The wildcard in the consumer high definition arena is a new MPEG-2 format developed by JVC, the MPEG Transfer Stream codec, which appears for the first time in the Everio HD7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1529). MPEG Transport Stream compresses video at up to 30Mbps, and may rival or even outclass HDV compression.
Media (6.0)
Like other HDV camcorders, the Canon HV20 records to MiniDV cassettes, the same inexpensive and widely available format used by standard definition DV camcorders. MiniDV cassettes have a run time of 60 minutes in SP mode, but can hold up to 90 minutes of more compressed LP video. Unlike the DVD, memory card, and HDD formats, MiniDV tapes are linear media so moving clips to a PC from tape is a real-time process. For anyone serious about the quality of his or her video, HDV recorded to MiniDV cassette remains the best consumer HD option available. To date, consumer non-linear video formats do not support the highest-quality video compression codices for high definition (HDV) and standard definition (DV).

A question about quality loss...

If I export one track (or several tracks) from GB to iTunes, and then import the resulting AIFF-file back onto a GB track (ie. if I want to collide a number of tracks), does any quality loss occur?
If I export one or several GB track(s) to iTunes, then open and edit the resulting file with Audacity, and then import the new, resulting file back onto a GB track, does any quality loss occur? (Disregarding, of course, any editing or tweaking I might have done in Audacity...)
If I repeat either of these processes with a sound file, say, 30 times, does any quality loss occur?
Or perhaps a better way to phrase the question: Does bouncing the same sound file back and forth between AIFF and WAV formats, by exporting and importing, have an influence on its sound quality?
When exporting from GB, I always try to export it turned up as loud as it will go without distorting. Often, my aim is to level it out and make it louder (or make it seem louder) in Audacity, and I have this vague idea that it is better to do this with a GB file that is already as loud as possible, rather than one that could easily have been louder. Sort of a signal-to-noise-ratio thing... Is that a correct assumption?
Should you always, and under all circumstances, keep sounds/tracks from moving into the red area in the meters in GB before exporting a track/song?

If you captured using TIme Code, and you still have the (properly labeled) original tapes with no breaks in Time Code, you can safely trash your Media files as FCP will accurately recapture if needed in the future. But if you used Capture Now, without time code. you’ll need to preserve the original Media Files as they can’t be accurately re-captured.
All still images, Motion files, Titles etc etc should also be preserved in the same folder as your Project File.
If you just want to save your movie as it is, you can print to video - BUT . . . it will only give you an replica of the movie - there will be no clips to edit in the future and all transitions are embedded, so they can't be edited either.
If you had several audio tracks, they'll be boiled down to one track - so no editing there either.
Alternatively, use Media Manager to copy the project to one folder on an external drive - giving it a new name. (MM can move just the part of a long Media File that's needed - and junk the rest) .
This will free-up loads of space if you have large or duplicated Media Files.
Then, after you're satisfied that the new project will play from that drive, you can trash the original. But remember, MM won't copy Motion files etc etc - check that everything's there before you trash the original. I like to make certain of this by having the drive which contains the original, disconnected when playing back the copy. You can't be too certain!
Render files can be trashed as you can re-render at any time.
Hope this helps.
Andy
G5 Quad 8GB. 250+500 GB HDs. G-Raid 1TB. FCP 5.1.1. Shake 4.1. Sony HVR Z1E Mac OS X (10.4.7)
"I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".

IMovie HD6: HDV to AIC to HDV... quality loss?

Hi All,
I'm curious, when I use my normal workflow (HDV to AIC (imovie 6) to HDV), does it lose quality?
If so:
* Is there a way to avoid this?
* How much quality is lost? Is there a visual comparison available?
Thanks for any input!

Dear catspaw,
Here are my thoughts, based on my experiences, and what I think I understand of all this..
1. Standard-definition DV (those little tapes, or the larger 'broadcast' tapes) is pretty much compression-free ..we-ell, strictly speaking there's some, but relatively little, compression used in DV. It looks perfect, although it is slightly compressed. The material recorded onto tape - and imported into iMovie - contains every frame which the camcorder optics see. So editing it is simple: all the frames get copied into iMovie, and you can chop out, or insert, anything you want. Using iMovie HD 6, or earlier, you can then copy the edited material back to a DV camcorder ..all the frames get shuffled out of the computer and back onto tape again. (You can't do that with iMovie '08, as it has no option to Export to Camcorder.) What you see in iMovie - after importing from a DV camcorder - isn't exactly the same as what you've imported, because iMovie runs on a computer, and uses a computer display, and that generally shows complete "progressive" frames of video, whereas a TV ..or TVs with cathode ray tubes; precursors to the latest LCD or DLP or plasma TVs.. will generally show interlaced 'half-frames' one after the other, each comprising half the TV picture, but shown in such rapid succession that they blur into each other, and our brains see a succession of complete frames.
(..Here's a good visual representation from one of Adam Wilt's pages:
..There are two 'fields' of video, each made of half the entire number of lines down the screen, superimposed on each other, and blending into a full frame of video comprised of all the lines. That's what happens on a TV screen when the interlaced 'fields' of video blend together..)
So standard-def DV is really plain and simple, and there should be no quality loss after shooting, importing, editing, exporting.
2. Hi-def. A can of worms. There are several different varieties of "hi-def". What we're working with in our 'amateur' movie program, iMovie, is generally the HDV version of hi-def, or the AVCHD version. (And a few people may be working with JVC's version of 'progressive' frames, but with a lower total number of lines down the screen: 720p, instead of 1080i. 720p has 720 pixels down the screen, and records and presents an entire 'progressive' ..one-line-after-the-other.. frame of video at a time, whereas 1080i shows 1080 pixels down the screen, consisting of half that number, 540; all the 'odd-numbered' lines.. at a time, immediately followed by the other half ..the even-numbered lines.. slotting in-between the previous lot. That repeating pair of 540 'interleaved' lines gives a total of 1080 interlaced lines in every frame. Movement appears smoother using 1080i (..after all, the picture is refreshed twice as often as with single-complete-frame 'progessive' video..) but may not look as super-sharp as progressive video, because at any moment there's only half the total information of a frame onscreen. 'Interlaced' video is smoother, and any action flows more "creamily", whereas 'progressive' may be considered 'sharper' (..it is if you freeze a frame..) but more jerky.)
So our 'amateur' hi-def movies may be recorded as HDV, AVCHD or some other similar format. 'Professional', or broadcast-intended, hi-def may consist of several other non-amateur formats, some of which are completely uncompressed and require extremely fast links between the cameras and recording equipment, and massive-capacity hard discs to capture and edit the huge quantity of data which such cameras..
..deliver ..for $150,000. Or here's a remote-control broadcast hi-def camera for (only) $7,995..
(..Tell me if I'm boring you..)
The hi-def cameras which we're more likely to be using..
..record compressed video in MPEG-2 format, or H.264, or some similar codec. The idea behind HDV was that the companies which make 'consumer-grade' (amateur) camcorders wanted a method to record hi-def - with about 4x the data of standard-def - onto the little miniDV tapes which we were all familiar with. So a method was found to squeeze 4x the data onto a tape which normally records standard-def DV data at 25 megabits per second. The method decided upon was MPEG-2 ..the same codec which is used to squeeze a two-hour Hollywood film onto a little 4.7GB capacity DVD. (Bollywood movies, as distinct from Hollywood movies, tend to be three hours long!)
If MPEG-2 was good enough for the latest cinema releases, in nice, sharp, sharper-than Super-VHS form, then it was thought to be good enough for 'domestic' hi-def recordings. The only awkward thing about that - from an editing point of view.. (..but which of the camcorder manufacturers are seriously interested in editing..? ..they primarily want to sell 'product' which - according to their advertising - is terrific at simply recording and playing-back video. Like car advertising shows you how wonderful cars are to sit in and for travelling to places, but the adverts don't tell you about how tricky it may be to get into the rear sidelights and replace a blown bulb..) ..is that in HDV there's only one 'real' frame for every 15 frames recorded on the tape. The other 14 are just indications of what's different between the various frames. Therefore, for editing, the 'missing' frames must be rebuilt during import into iMovie.
Steve Jobs heralded 2005 - at MacWorld, you may remember - as the "Year of HD!" ..It became possible to import and edit hi-def in iMovie ..that is, the HDV version of hi-def, not the uncompressed 'professional' broadcast version of hi-def, of course.. but ONLY with a fast enough computer ..and many weren't fast enough to import and convert HDV to editable-format in real-time (..no mention of it being the year you would import at half, or a quarter, or an eighth, real-time ..ugh-ugh).
So HDV gets converted to AIC to make it editable ..and then what d'you do with it? ..Few (none of them?) HDV camcorders let you import HDV back to tape from iMovie. No Macs had/have Blu-Ray burners ..although you can burn about 20 mins of hi-def onto normal DVDs with a Mac's normal inbuilt SuperDrive DVD burner with the appropriate software ..DVD Studio Pro, or Toast, etc.
(..Once again, there was some omission from the hoopla ..yes; you can import HDV! ..yes; you can edit HDV! ..er, no, sorry; no mention that you can't burn a 1 hour hi-def home video onto a hi-def DVD with a Mac ..iDVD would/will only burn in standard-def, and there are no Blu-Ray burners built into Macs..)
Then came AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec; High Definition). This compresses video even more than HDV (whose compression is pretty much invisible, and is in regular use for broadcast material) by using a different method. And along came progressive hi-def recording, trying to supersede HDV's generally 'interlaced' 1080i hi-def.
But the problem with progressive, non-interlaced AVCHD is that if there's rapid movement in a scene - if you move the camera, or something rapidly crosses the picture - instead of the "creamy flow" of interlaced video, there's a jerky lurch from one frame to the next. And with the added extra compression of AVCHD this jerkiness can be (..to my mind..) even more horribly evident.
Anyway, unscrambling ..and then re-assembling.. hi-def interlaced MPEG-2 HDV is pretty much invisible - to me, anyway. The video looks sharp, moves smoothly, looks 'true-to-life' and doesn't have terrible artifacts and jerks.
Unscrambling ..and then re-assembling.. hi-def interlaced or progressive AVCHD (..which is sometimes described as MPEG-4 or H.264..) - I know that you know this, but I'm also writing for others here - isn't quite as simple as doing the same for tape-based MPEG-2 hi-def HDV. Here's all the gobbledegook about what AVCHD can consist of.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_AVC
..Oh, and here's a bit about the "usability" of AVCHD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
There are many more 'varieties' of encoding in AVCHD than in 'simpler' hi-def, such as HDV. There's less data sent in an AVCHD data stream than HDV (..AVCHD has jumped from 17MBits/sec to 24MBits/sec ..just below HDV's 25MBits/sec..) so the video is more compressed than HDV. And there are all sorts of video formats (interlaced, progressive, HD, 'Full' HD) which are recorded by different cameras under the all-embracing 'AVCHD' label. iMovie - or a Mac - has to work much harder to unscramble and convert the more-compressed AVCHD format(s) than uncompressing HDV. And has to work harder to compress the output of iMovie to H.264 (an AVCHD codec) than when re-compressing to MPEG-2 (the codec for standard-def DVDs and hi-def HDV).
To - finally! - come back to your question "..is there therefore no advantage in using DV tape-based vidcams for editing purposes.." I'd say that there ARE advantages in using tape-based vidcams for editing purposes ..using your two categories:
1. Non-hi-def tape-based DV is ..to all intents and purposes.. lossless. And the material can be imported in real-time, and be output - with no loss - in real-time, too, using any Mac from an old G3 onwards. Importing non-tape material into iMovie ..e.g; miniDVDs, or chip-based, more compressed video.. is more long-winded, and generally has to go through various external bits of software (..e.g; MPEG Streamclip or somesuch..) to put it into a format that's editable in iMovie. AVCHD can, theoretically - as 'AVC', without the 'HD' - be used for recording in standard-def, but there are currently few AVCHD camcorders which are built to record standard-def video as well ..there is the Sony HDR-SR12. But only iMovie running on an Intel-powered Mac will decode AVCHD, apart from separate standalone Mac software such as 'Voltaic'.
2. Hi-def tape-based recording IS an advantage on anything that's less than the fastest, or highest-powered, of Macs, because it needs less "horsepower" to "unpack" the compressed data and to get it into an editable format through recovering, or rebuilding, the necessary individual frames. I think it's an advantage in every case, as not only can tape-based hi-def be edited on older, slower Macs (including pre-Intel Macs) but also:
(a) HDV data's less compressed, and so motion is generally expressed - currently - more "fluidly" than with the more compressed hard-disc or chip-stored AVCHD,
(b) HDV original material is "self-archived" onto its tapes ..you don't have to "empty" a camcorder's hard disc or memory chips onto something else - such as a separate hard drive - in order to re-use, or continue using, the camcorder: you just drop in another cheap 1-hour tape,
(c) Tape-containing camcorders tend to be heavier, less lightweight, than fewer-moving-parts chip-based AVCHD camcorders. They're therefore inherently less "wobbly" and don't tremble so much in your hand ..that gives smoother, less "jiggled-about" recordings ..even taking into account the stabilisation built into most camcorders,
(d) Tape-based camcorders are less likely to lose an entire 'shoot' by being dropped or mis-treated. Material already recorded onto a tape will not be damaged if you drop the camera and its tape-heads thereby become misaligned. The data can be recovered by simply ejecting the tape and popping it into another camcorder. If a hard-disc camcorder is dropped, subsequent head misalignment may mean that all data already on the hard disc is irrecoverable. If a memory chip becomes corrupted, all data may similarly become irrecoverable. If a tape becomes damaged, it's usually only a few seconds' worth which be lost. (..I dropped a tape-based camcorder in the sea when I was trying to get shots of waves coming in onto the beach from an offshore viewpoint, and a wave washed right over me and knocked me down. The camcorder was a write-off, but I managed to prise the tape out, and recover the 30 minutes of movie I'd already recorded. I don't really want to test it, but I have doubts about whether I'd have been able to recover my video from a similarly-drowned hard-disc based camcorder ..maybe, in the interests of factual objectivity I'll try it some day with an old, no-longer-used 2.5" hard disc..)
(e) AVCHD camcorders - unless you're looking at 'semi-pro' or professional 'cost-a-plenty' record-to-chip camcorders, or that Sony HD12..
..are generally built for "point-and-shoot" amateurs. This means that AVCHD camcorders generally do not have the assortment of manual controls which you find on most tape-based HDV camcorders (..because the camcorder makers also aim, or aimed, HDV at low-cost broadcast users, too). There's usually far greater flexibility and more shooting options (shutter speeds, exposure, audio handling) on tape-based HDV camcorders than can be found on AVCHD camcorders. If you're just pointing and shooting, that doesn't matter ..but if you want to shoot good-looking video, there are generally - and it is a generalisation - more adjustment options to be found on a tape-based camcorder than on a chip-based or hard-disc AVCHD camcorder. In my experience - yours may be different - people tempted by AVCHD camcorders tend to buy (..and manufacturers tend to publicise..) high pixel counts (like "Full HD 1920x1080") and that magic word "progressive" (perhaps because it has the flavour, in English, of "futuristic" or "more advanced") rather than their being concerned with choices of apertures or shutter speeds and the clearest representation of what the camcorder's pointing at.
In summary ..at last!.. "..is there therefore no advantage in using DV tape-based vidcams for editing purposes.." Yes; the advantages, I believe, are that HDV converts fast into AIC for editing; my perception is that HDV delivers smoother action (onscreen movement) than AVCHD; and with a suitable deck..
..HDV can be returned back to tape, whereas it's more long-winded and needs more subterfuge to export AVCHD back to a chip, or a camcorder's hard disc, for in-camera replay ..and thence out to an HDTV.
As always, these are simply my opinions ..others may disagree.

How to compress a pdf file without quality loss

How to compress a pdf file without quality loss? Please help....

With the way you worded the question, your only option is to zip (or equivalent) the PDF. There are options in terms of graphic compression (this is generally a loss of quality in reducing the pixels) and nonstorage of fonts (likely making the file unreadable to some). So there are techniques, but with a tradeoff. It all depends on what you mean by loss of quality.
The other techniques that do not lose quality, but give up on some functionality are to remove links, bookmarks, and tags. The tags are often necessary only for converting a PDF back to another form and maintaining accessibility - important in some business situations. These are all tradeoffs that give something up.

Significant quality loss and jagged diagonal lines when exporting from FCP

I've been working on this problem for several days and I'm going insane! Every time I export my movie from Final Cut, there is a significant quality loss. It is most noticeable in two ways: diagonal lines become very jagged (looking somewhat like diagonal lines in an older video game -- more a diagonal sequence of blocks); also, in some areas such as faces, the colors get a little blurry and there seems to some "pooling" of colors around the edges of the face.
I'm pretty sure the problem's not in capture: the Quicktime clips that I captured from the camera are all pristine. When I play them in Quicktime, I can blow them up several times their original size, and they maintain their sharp lines. (I also Reverse Telecined them all with Cinema Tools, if that's relevant.) I also know the problem's not just my computer monitor; when I play these movies on my external monitor and TV, they look bad too. The clips look bad after I bring them into Final Cut, and while I'm editing, but at first I figured that was because Final Cut sometimes doesn't show full resolution in the timeline. Still, when I export, the quality of the original captures just isn't there.
Some details:
Captured from 24A progressive, Sony HVR V1U HDV.
Using Final Cut 6.0.1, Compressor 3.0.1, Quicktime 7.2.0, OS 10.4.10 (all the most recent versions I believe).
I've exported in many different ways: using Compressor (and have tried a number of different settings: the DVD Best Quality 90 Minutes default Setting, as well as using a variety of bit rates from 3.0-8.0, One pass CBR, Two pass CBR, Two pass VBR, Two pass VBR best; Video Formats NTSC, HD 1440x1080...I have tried many combinations. Regardless of the size of the m2v created, the files seem to have the same problem over and over. I've also tried exporting from Final Cut as a Quicktime Movie and with Quicktime Conversion. Same result. I also tried using different compressors with my Final Cut sequence: Apple Intermediate Codec (which I used when capturing -- you have to with the Sony HVR), HDV 1080p24, HDV 1080i60, Apple Pro Res 422, H.264...
What's happening? Why is Final Cut turning my nice pristine captures into jagged foulness? What can I try that I haven't yet?

Welcome to the forums!
Unfortunately, you seem to have tried everything I can think of, and I don't have the latest versions of FCP to know if it is a bug. However, in the off chance that you haven't given this a shot:
Take a problematic 10 second section of your timeline (set in and out points) and the Export -> Quicktime (not QT Conversion) and make sure that you have it on Quality settings that you captured, and select the "Make Self Contained" box.
Look at that in Quicktime and see if it's bad. If it's not problematic, use that video file in Compressor for your render.
Hope that helps!
~Luke

Lower PDf graphics quality after upgrade from v8 to v9

Some PDF Graphic quality is poorer whne using the new Acrobat compared to version 8.
I recently purchased Acrobat 9 Pro extended as part of the TCS2 and installe dhtis on a new machine. The installation replaces Acrobat 8 professional installed on a different machine.
I have checked the job options in detail on each machine and they appear to be identical.
The problem is most notable in a graphic header which appears on the first page of the Word document template from which the PDF is generated. The file is an imported PNG with a complex blue gradient band and the company logo across the top of the page. The band is underlined by a thinner grey band which fades vertically to white. In the resulting output, blue colors show too bright and quite different to the original PNG graphic. The grey band does not fade smoothly and appears as separate bands.
My colleague has installed Acrobat 9 on the same machine as the previous Acrobat 8 installation and is experiencing the same issue.
I have tried generating a PDf with an old known good file base don the same word template and the result is the same so this probably rules out the Word template. Older PDFs generated with the v8 Acrobat do not do not display this way and i still can generate PDFs using the old machine and version 8 Acrobat without any problems.
Can anyone suggest how i might progress with this?

There are no display problems because i can satisfactorily generate the file using the Print option and selecting the AdobePDf printer.
I have set the Color Management Policies of the joboption to Convert all Colors to CMYK from Leave Color Unchnaged and this seems to improve the quality considerably so i'll stick with that. Some gray color gradient doesnt seem to convert smoothly and shows as varying bands of shades of gray but i can live with that, unless i can find a setitng that handles that.

Tif export quality loss

hi,
i exported a tif sequence from a mp4 in premiere (cs6) to do some compositing on it. the exported images look the same but when doing some color correction on it the tif sequence reveals that it's in lower quality.
the left side is the tif export with significant less detail.
i also tried ae with color management but i always had the same problem.
rendering with 'use max depth' and 'use max quality' did not solve the problem.
did i miss something or is premiere processing some colors wrong internally?
(as a sidenote, quicktime player, nuke, vegas12 worked just fine)

hi,
it looks like the problem is related to mpeg 4. i did not have time to do further testing. here is the file info:
Format                         : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                 : Advanced Simple@L3
Format settings, BVOP          : Yes
Format settings, QPel          : No
Format settings, GMC           : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix        : Default (H.263)
it did not occur with other videos.
the interesting thing is that the quality is fine within the timeline. but upon output there is a quality loss.
no, output is 8bit. as mentioned in the first post 'use max depth' did not solve the problem.
quicktime based applications did not have the issue.
as for the color shift problem i thought it is related to the same issue but it was something different and is fixed now. i was unable to edit the post to remove it.

Sound Quality Loss

When I create a track on an audio instrument track using the Vienna Symphonic Library Special Edition, the sounds are great. But then, when I export it to an audio track in order to save room, the sound quality goes way down. Is this because I am using the built-in audio on my macbook pro? 16 and 24 bit exporting doesn't seem to make a difference.

Colin, theorectically, there should be no difference.
theory sometimes lets us down.
it does here.
i find the same thing: everything sounds like a million bucks then you press bounce or export and the resulting file sounds like a quarter of a million.
some things you can do to keep up the dub quality are: get the instrument to peak at no more than -6 on logics meter.
keep the playback tracks level down, especially if you have a full orchestra going (25-40 tracks). mine end up somewhere around -18.
a frozen track results in a 32bit file. 24bit is the max for export and bounce.
i can hear a difference there too.
this is nothing compared to the quality loss, as in Waveburner, when dropping to 16bit for CDs...... THAT is very noticable.
let's not mention CD to mp3(:
maybe things will change in a future edition of logic where 32bit files may be used anywhere.
make sure you are listening to the playback at the same level (spl) as before dubbing.
The built in audio has nothing to do with the quality of a bounce, it only outputs the result.
apples conversion is not top grade, never has been.
it might be time to invest in a pro D/A. Benchmark make a beauty.
if you don't need 8in/8out, just go for a 2in/2out. at the same price point, the 2/2 should be of better quality.
the loss with digital is nowhere near as bad as with analog, if that makes you feel any better.
best, david r.

Quality Loss When Importing Video into Timeline...Any Ideas??

Hey all -
I'm fairly new to CS4, so excuse me if this question is a little dumb.
I've offered to edit a friend's actor showreel to familiarize myself with CS4. He gave me a bunch of HD clips: they're .MOV files, and are 1920x1080 and 23.976fps.
I can import a clip and drag it into the preview screen in the middle: it looks fine. However, when I drag it onto the timeline, it suddenly looks faded and blurred. It's not horrible, but it loses the vibrancy of color, the sharpness and the contrast of the original clip. A lot of the quality is gone.
I've tried opening the project with a number of different settings, no difference. I thought it might look OK when I exported it, but it looks just like it does on the timeline monitor: a little washed-out, blurred, just not as nice as the original.....
I'd hate to present it to my pal looking like this, can anyone suggest a solution? I tried everything I could think of already....
Thanks!!
B

Hi Hunt -
many thanks for your reply. I've spent the last couple of days trying to follow your advice and do more research.....still no luck.
Firstly, I upgraded my OS to Windows 7, thought it might help for some reason. Didn't. I downloaded a bunch of codec packs.
Gspot reports:
Codec: AVC1
Name: H.264
Codec Status: undetermined
So I'm basically running through all the possible output formats, but really it doesn't seem to be an encoding problem: the quality loss happens as soon as I move the file from the preview screen to the timeline.
If you have any othe suggestions I'be very pleased!!
Thanks
Bruce

Another quality loss issue: exporting

I see a lot of people have problems with quality loss.
I am importing an movie of an animated screengrab (using Snapzpro). This movie looks great - nice and sharp when viewed in QT. After importing into iMovie it's slightly blurred, notr a big deal just looks a bit "warm".
However when I export it looks bad, diagonal lines are very jagged. I've tried export at Full quality, I've tried expert settings with DV-PAL and many other codecs.
It's just about OK if I use "none", and then import into QT Pro and export with DV-PAL - what I don't understand is why I can't just use DV-PAL direct from iMovie.
Is this something I just have to put up with? Would it better with Final Cut Express?

Actually I discovered since posting the question, that the dimension is something to due with it, but too small rather than too large. I was capturing at 640 x 480 and I discovered that capturing 768 x 576.
I also think that the nature of the image is crucial. This is large scale musical notation - lots of diagonal black and white straight lines so any jaggedness becomes very obvious.
What I still don't understand is why the export from iMovie using DV PAL is not as good as the export from QT using DV PAL - I have to export from iMovie with no compression, then re export from QT Pro.
Although I,m totally ready to accept this is a human operator error, I've also seen lots of people say iMovie does degrade on importing which is why I wonder if I need final Cut Express or Pro

Huge quality loss in iMove '11

Hello fellow iMovie users.
Yesterday I upgraded to iLife 11 to get the new iMovie and its "new" audio editing capabilities. I could ofcourse just buy it from Mac App Store, but I am principally against App Store and its strict rules, so I choosed to get it the old way.
Anyway, I liked what i saw. Finally the new iMovie was about as good as the five year old one, and had some neat features like chroma key and cropping.
So I decided to start practicing and create a short video based on some old DV-videos filmed with my Canon MV950 DV-PAL camera.
I imported the footage into iMovie, and noticed some significant quality loss after the import.
And it get worse. After I exported the video, it seems like it is heavily compressed, even if I'm exporting to QuickTime and selects the highest quality possible.
I have some screenshots to show you the differences.
This is the original DV-footage.
The imported video. Notice the higher compression and the choppy edges.
And this is the exported video. Notice the insanely bad quality, especially in dark areas.
Is there any way to fix this, or do I have go back to iMovie HD?
PS. Sorry if my post is a bit unreadable. I'm from Norway.

Steve,
While I agree everyone should have owned a HD camera by now, there are a lot of low-end SD cameras that are still being sold today. In this era of our economy, consumers are sensitive to prices; especially low or lower prices.
And unlike the video camcorder boom of the 80s with Sony introducing the Video8 handycam (shoulder mounted camcorder), people today do not video using traditional camcorders. Most either do it through a digital camera, DSLR, iPhone or blogger cameras and are already mostly in an acceptable progressive format. There is nothing wrong with DV style cam. Canon GL-2 and the Panasonic DVX-100 are still commanding such a very high price tag for cameras of older technology and still being repaired goes to show that there are people out there still using it.
If one can convert quality interlaced footage into quality progressive footage, you can use that footage and create good results using iMovie 11. I agree with you and Tom that iMovie 11 captures interlaced footage in full. But what's the use if it can't make a good product in the end that looks like what iMovie 6HD can do and when there are PC software out there including the free Windows Movie Maker that can do this with no problem.
Consumers, unlike some of us, only relate to past software used and are usually benign to the fact of progressive vs interlaced. I have dealt with some mis-informed customers that they believed FULL HD only means 1080p at 60fps; anything else is not. I digress.
With Mac users, they don't necessarily follow the same upgrade frequency as PC users either. Macs generally last a lot longer between upgrades compared to a PC because they don't have to run a barage of virus/spam/anti-malware growing definition files which ultimately slow an otherwise healthy PC down. Macs do not have to worry about this.

Moving Graphics Quality Loss

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