Output doesn't match what I built...

Question

Hey Thrillseekers....Project is HDV1080i 1440X1080
Tried sharing as a quicktime and boy did that stink up the joint.  Looked like you were watching it through a wrinkled piece of privacy glass with rain falling on it.   And my soundtrack ended a minute before the video.  Weird.
Tried sharing as a windows media file.  Looked a little better, but still pretty awful quality.  Also, there were two things thast looked pretty strange.  There were several placed where I'd zoomed in on an image, be it the background video or a still.  In the editor, it filled the frame, which I'd assumed was a Maximum of 1440X1080.  But in the output, the width seemed to have a set maximum but the height would display the entire height of the image when I'd zoomed in.  Some sections looked almost square?  Is there a way to limit the output to what I see in the editor?
There are also severl placed where I'd cropped a still and had it pan across a scene that in the output were cropped differently.  For instance, there were a series of images that when stitched together would be a 180 degree panorama.  I had them all slide across the scene in a roughly stitched together format.  The output had all the stills panning across the scene, but there was a big gap between each still that shouldn't be there.
Then I output it in flash, and it looks pretty good quality wise, but it still has the proportion issue and the cropping issue.
I've ordered Steve's book, but I'd sure like to put this thing to bed without having to wait for the book.
Any ideas?
Windows 7 64 Bit Is the OS if htat helps.

Answer 1

Hey, thanks for supporting the book, Andy!
I'm just not sure I have quite enough information to help you out.
But this much I know: When you're saving as a WMV, MOV or FLV file, you're saving at a greatly reduced resolution. Possibly as low as 320x240. (I'm not sure which setting you're using, so I can't say.) That's only about 5% of the resolution of your original file, so it's no wonder it doesn't look very good.
I don't know what your goal is to output or how you plan to distribute it (computer file? BluRay disc? DVD?), but that will determine what output format to use and what resolution to set it at.
Meantime, if you want to see what a high quality MOV output looks like, try creating a custom output preset. Try 1920 x 1080 with square pixels.
As for the issues you're having with your photos, it's hard to say. I don't know what resolution your photos are, but optimizing your photo sizes definitely makes them perform better (and with less unpredictable results).
I'm not sure how your panarama turned into a bunch of individual pictures -- but I guess I'm assuming you created the panarama using PhotoMerge in Photoshop Elements and then saved it as a single JPEG. I'm not sure of another way to create a continuous panarama.
Anyway, hope that gets you started. If you can post a sample of your video and then link your response to it, we can have a look at it and maybe then offer more insight.