Video looks bad

Ok, I am currently using FC: Express, but I don't see an express forums anywhere so I though I'd post it here. I would like to know how I can keep the original quality video I am done editing it in FC. Ususally when I am done and export it, the quality looks bad, really bad.
All I am doing right now is adding a title/credit created from Live Type and adding music to the FC project I have. The original .avi file I have is crystal cleaer at 1576x986 resolution.
Any help would be great

Hey,
The Final Cut Express forums are here: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=936
Because there's so many variables at play in your question, and I've not got much experience, I can't really answer your main question, though.
Matt
Yoga Maya Films - www.yogamayafilms.com
The Film Producer's Podcast - www.yogamayafilms.com/podcast

Similar Messages

  • Premiere Elements 8 video looks bad when editing

    Hi -
    I'm brand new to Premiere Elements 8 - in fact just installed it on an HP/Compaq 6530b laptop running Windows Vista (32 bit).  Initially, I tried to edit a Flip video (MPG4) and also a Flip video that I converted to AVI.  I also have a new Canon Vixia HF M31; regardless of what video I use, the video editing window looks horrible.  There's a "double image" - the one on top is heavy green and there's another "double image" of the video below it that looks better but is below the green-shaded video (see inserted image below).  I'm wondering if it's an issue with the laptop, especially since multiple video formats have the same problem.  Where do I begin to resolve this?
    NOTE: I've taken this same video and it looks fine with Windows Movie Maker (at least the MPG4 - haven't tried the Vixia .MTS video yet as I'm guessing it won't work with Movie Maker).
    Thanks,
    Calvin

    Thanks Bill and everyone else.  I appreciate all of your thoughtful responses.
    I've tried PE8 on my personal desktop PC (though its only a trial b/c my corporation has a license for PE8 but only for PC managed on our network) and things look much better, other than that annoying "Trial version" banner inserted on my videos.
    I've render some video of my daughter playing volleyball as a PC-based media file and I'm pretty surprised at all the presets available and how using one of the various MPEG2 or NTCS presets makes a huge difference in the quality of the video.  Where can I read more about this?  What I do notice is the MPEG2 video looks very clear but is choppy when the camera is moving while the NTSC that I used is a bit pixilated but the video is not choppy when the camera is moving.
    In the end, I'm trying to decide if PE8 is for me - this is my first HD camcorder and in the past I was happy with Pinnacle (way back on Version 10); I've heard that really it's down to PE8 or Sony Vegas.  I'll keep doing research and I think there's a trial download of Vegas but I always appreciate the advice of experts.
    Thanks again!

  • Video looks bad after capturing

    I've got a problem:
    I filmed with a JVC GY-DV300E and now I'm capturing the video in FCP 5.1.4. On the camera, the image looks beautiful, sharp, but on my computer, the image looks like the ISO is much too high, grainy and ugly.
    My audio/video-settings in FCP are DV PAL 48kHz, I think that's ok.
    Can anyone help me?
    Thanks.

    I used to have a JVC GY-HD100 and the gain switch was right above the power switch so it was easy to reach down and knock the gain when you were switching it on and off. I accidentally knocked it once without realizing it, shot a scene, and it looked great on the LCD. I captured it and it looked terrible. The reason for this is that the LCD screen is far too small to for you to be able to notice issues like that. You'd need an external monitor to see them. A poor man's external monitor can be made from a Windows laptop running Adobe's DV Rack software. I used this once and it was pretty good.
    As for fixing the existing footage, you can purchase / download de-grain plugins (I tend to do this stuff in Shake so someone else is probably better equipped to tell you which FCP plugins are best for this) but don't put too much faith in them. They will reduce the grain but introduce softness to the image. The trick is to find a balance between too much grain and too much blur.

  • F4v video looks bad, sometimes.

    Hey
    I'm loading a f4v video, which I have encoded using Adobe Media Encoder. It works most of the times, but sometimes it looks wierd, like a scrambled tv signal.
    Se this example: http://encourage.dk/downloads/video_error.jpg
    Have any of you ever experienced the same, and is there a solution?
    Jakob

    Hey
    I'm loading a f4v video, which I have encoded using Adobe Media Encoder. It works most of the times, but sometimes it looks wierd, like a scrambled tv signal.
    Se this example: http://encourage.dk/downloads/video_error.jpg
    Have any of you ever experienced the same, and is there a solution?
    Jakob

  • Why does my Gopro black 3+ video look so bad on PRE11 while editing & after DVD creation playback.

    Well let start with.  When I do a project with video from my Samsung S4 phone or my IPhone 5 or my Canon T4i  looks great on computer screen and when I play back a burned DVD or AVHCD.  I just directly import from file on my hard drive.  My Samsung is at 1920x1040 30fps mp4 .  I believe the IPhone is a 1920x1080 MOV format.
    It is the GoPro video that  PRE11 has a problem with.  I record at 1920x1080 30fps.  Nothing special.
    First the computer screen.  On both of my computers when I right click on the playback screen.
    Quality Highest; Magnification Fit; Safe Margin unchecked; Playback External device None; Aspect Hardware; Desktop Audio; 24Progresive Conversion Interlaced 2332; Export External Device DV 29.97 720; Checked Disable video output.
    As for Publish.  DVD I use preset NTSC widescreen dvd; AVCHD h264 1920x1080I ntsc.
    Any other ideas why the GoPro video looks bad on computer screen & on dvd on hd tv.
    Some say you first must convert GoPro mp4 to AVI then import.  That seems crazy.  Why can Samsung mp4 work great and GoPro mp4 not.
    It seems that Adobe has not correctly written code for MP4 from on of the largest camcorder producers.

    john1234321
    Thank you for starting your own new thread on your Premiere Elements workflow after initially posting in the thread of another.
    Adobe Premiere Elements 13 Latest Developments
    For your convenience, this is a copy of my reply to you in that thread which was left unanswered
    johng1234321
    Thank you for the reply. What I was looking for mostly are the properties of the 1920 x 1080p30 GoPro3+ Black footage that you are trying to use in
    Premiere Elements 11. Are you working with the H.264.mp4 format or are you working with a Cineform.avi format? If it is the H.264.mp4 format, I am not seeing why you should be doing anything else but importing the H.264.mp4 into Premiere Elements 11 using the project preset set by you manually or the project automatically. Best you set the project preset manually to assure the correct project preset in this case.
    NTSC
    DSLR
    1080p
    DSLR 1080p30@ 29.97
    There are times when the project does not interpret correctly the properties of the video when it is the first file dragged to the Timeline. When it does not do it correctly, it does not give you the closest possible fit between project preset and properties of source media, instead it gives you its default 1080i which is not appropriate for your 1080p footage.
    http://www.atr935.blogspot.com/2013/04/pe11-accuracy-of-automatic-project.html
    To get a better perspective on your comparison between your cell phone and GoPro results....are you saying that you can take the videos from the cell phones and import them into Premiere Elements 11 without issue, audio out of sync or other? Are you converting the cell phone video at any time - to change a variable to constant frame size or other?
    Depending on your details, I would offer to look at a sample of your specific H.264.mp4 file for which you cannot get a decent DVD-VIDEO on DVD or AVCHD format on DVD disc. If you opt to do this, you might consider sending the sample via a Dropbox link posted in this thread. I am concerned that your GoPro issue on Premiere Elements 11 is going to get lost in this thread on a different topic. If we do not gain ground on the issue soon, please consider starting a new thread on your issue so that the details and especially the results will be found more easily by those users seeking answers for the type of problem that you describe.
    The answers will be in the details.
    Thanks for the follow ups.
    ATR
    ATR

  • Graphics look bad on pause at end of chapters

    I've created a presentation in Keynote that I've exported as a QT movie and imported into DVDSP. Since the presentation will be manually advanced via remote control, I've set infinite pauses at the start of each chapter. My problem is that when the pause occurs, the still graphics look really bad. I realize this probably has more to do with the DVD player itself but I was wondering if anyone has found a work-around for this issue. Thanks in advance.
      Mac OS X (10.4.4)  

    Thanks EJP. I need to keep the transition effects though from Keynote so still images won't work. One thing that is kind of weird though it that the still frame at the end of a track looks fine. Its only the pauses at the chapter markers that the video looks bad.

  • Why do videos look so bad in QuickTime X and look good in everything else?

    Why do videos look so bad in QuickTime X and look good in everything else?
    Any way around this or is this something apple needs to fix?

    OK, videos!
    What kind of videos?
    Have you tried using Quicktime Player 7?
    Mac OS X 10.6 includes QuickTime versions 10.0 and 7.6.3. The QuickTime 7 player will only be present if a QuickTime Pro key was present at the time of installation, or if specified as part of a custom install, or individually downloaded.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/dl923
    Snow Leopard update 10.6.4 included an update to 7.6.6 (if installed). You can install it from the above link even though it says for 10.6.3. It's the same version of QuickTime Player 7.6.6.
    Only QuickTime Player 7.6.3 or 7.6.6 can be updated to "Pro".

  • Am I the only one getting bad quality youtube videos when running on LTE? When I'm on wifi they seem fine but I switch to lte it looks bad on the youtube app and on safari.

    Am I the only one getting bad quality youtube videos when running on LTE? When I'm on wifi they seem fine but I switch to lte it looks bad on the youtube app and on safari.

    I've never had any problems with mine ever. The only freeze I've had was from a file I recorded on tivo, cut commericals out in movie maker and then re-encoded to the lowest possible bit rate that that zens nati've resolution supports. Try turning your sensitivity in the touch pad down. Sometimes if you have it up to high you may have a chance of doing that (although I have only had slow response, instead of a freeze by doing that).
    You also have to compare to all of the other products out there: Ipod and Zune are a lot worse with pathetic little problems (annoyances). I didn't pay for tech support?

  • Why does my 24fps look bad on my TV?

    I just got the Panasonic AG-HMC150. I have shot some footage at both 1080p24 and 720p24. I transcode the files to Pro Res in FCP and they look pretty good, I realize the panning isn't as smooth as 60i. I drag one of the files into the FCP timeline and let it automatically "optimize my settings" for the sequence. I have verified that it is 23.98fps and field dominance is none. I have tried selecting "share" and going straight to AVCHD from FCP, and also taking the original MTS file, and Apple Pro Res and dropping into Toast and trying that way. The footage just looks choppy, jiddery and unsmooth. I have seen enough movies in my life to know that when they pan, or have cars drive by, that movies 24fps looks a million times better. My Sony HDTV even accepts and displays 24fps, and when I press info on the TV remote when watching one of these AVCHD discs it in fact says 1080 (or 720) 24p. It just looks bad. Even taking the HDMI output from the camera and hooking up to the TV and playing from the camera looks lousy.
    What am I doing wrong? I know a ton of post work goes into Hollywood movies, but why does their 24fps look nice and smooth and mine looks horrible? Do I need to render with pulldown in FCP or something. I can't figure it out. Any advice, suggestions?

    I transcode through FCP to apple pro res, the files shows up as 1920x1080 24fps. Field dominance is none. I edit the video and then export as quicktime movie using current settings. The Pro Res file says 23.98 when played in quicktime so I know that's good. I simply then drop the file into Toast (10.0.4) and burn blu-ray disc, selecting DVD as the media. I noticed too I need to change the field dominance under the encoding tab in Toast to progressive, as automatic doesn't work. It only burns the top half of the image. Regardless, when I make these discs and play them on PS3, my TV's info says 1080/24p. Maybe my eyes aren't use to seeing 24fps. Does it sound like I am doing anything wrong in my workflow/encoding process.
    Again, good tip on the shutter speed Jerry.

  • Video looks fine in preview... goes mosaic, loses audio on DVD????

    I have 3 and 1/2 hours of video edited in FCP and burned on a dual-layer DVD with iDVD. The video looked good in FCP and looked fine in preview in iDVD. The DVD burned without any pop-up warnings of problems, BUT when I put it in to check it, it goes bad about 40 minutes from the end. The picture goes mosaic (it looks like a satellite picture losing signal - sorry I don't know the exact technical term) and the audio completely disappears. On the menu page if I forward to the last chapter the counter (minutes) keeps counting away but we never leave the menu page and I can't move to other chapters.
    There aren't any edits or transitions where the video goes bad. I've tried re-saving to QT and reburning with the same problem in the same place. Anybody have any ideas on what's causing this and how I resolve it?

    Hi
    Just thinking. Can iDVD 5 handle DL-DVDs OK ?
    I would.
    • Use iDVD'09
    • Pro-encoding Quality
    • from FCP - Export out as QT.mov file, NOT Selfcontained, NO QT-conversion.
    • Low free space on internal boot hard disk gives all kind of strange resulst
    My mimimum 25GB for 4x3 SD video and x5 for 16x9 HD
    I use
    • Verbatim DVD-R
    • DVD-R
    • burn speed set down to x1
    Yours Bengt W

  • SonyAVCHD video looks great in iMovie11 or iDVD7.1.2. When I burn a DVD it's terrible. If I freeze frame I see squares. The picture has poor contrast. I've viewed DVD on my 6-year-old, 24 in. intel 2.16 GHz iMac, and on TV. Help!

    I just bought a very good quality Sony AVCHD camcorder. I also just upgraded my computer from Tiger to Snow Leapord. My iMac is a 6-year-old, 2.16GHz Intel 2 Duo, with a 24 inch screen and 3GB Ram.
    My Sony camcorder HD video looks great in iMovie11 and in iDVD7.1.2., but when I burn a DVD "professional" it looks terrible. If I look at a freeze frame on the DVD I see image made-up of squares. The picture has poor contrast. It looks as bad as poor quality VHS. Do I need to get a new iMac to make this work? Is it possible to make a sharp, clear DVD from AVCHD footage with a 6-year-old iMac like mine?

    That thread helped for a time.  But now it seems as though my computer is back to slow again.  But, some of the jargon is over my head as well.  Not sure I knew quoite everything they were talking about.  But thanks a lot for that, it helped I probably just need to reread it and follow the instructions again.  Thanks so much.

  • DV clips look bad, good when converted to H.264 in QuickTime and reimported

    Still a problem after 7.0.1:
    DV camera -> iMovie 08 -> looks bad when playing and exporting/sharing
    DV camera -> iMovie 08 -> "reveal in finder" -> clip opened in QuickTime -> looks good -> export as H.264 -> re-import to iMovie 08 -> looks good when playing and exporting/sharing.
    In plain words: Importing DV clips from my DV camera into iMovie gives bad results when playing and exporting/sharing. Have tried everything, but the clips look blurry and not sharp at all. The actual DV clip in the events folder looks sharp and clear.
    If I take the very same DV clip from the events folder ("reveal in finder"), open it in QuickTime, export it as H.264 and then re-import to iMovie 08, it looks brilliant, retaining the quality the DV clip in the events folder has.
    Why can't the DV clips look good in the first place? What is it that iMovie 08 does to these poor clips? Some have suggested re-encoding, re-rendering and so on, but if I do just that in QuickTime and re-import it to iMovie 08, it still looks razor sharp and crystal clear. No reason that iMovie 08 shouldn't handle the DV file in the same manner.
    Some have suggested that this is because iMovie 08 internally re-encodes to AIM or H.264, enabling edits with different kinds of formats, but if I do this myself in QuickTime before importing to iMovie 08, the problem isn't there!
    If this is difficult to achieve, why not add the option of importing from a DV camera as H.264 and not DV? That would make my day!
    (I have posted this to Apple using the feedback menu item in iMovie 08.)
    (Background here in these threads:)
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1088568
    Sample clips in Apple TV format here:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5173005

    iMovie '08 stores rendered projects in H.264 form. This happens when you render to the Media Browser. The rendered file(s) (you can have several different sizes) are in the iMovie '08 project package. The original flies in your Events folders stay in whatever format they were in.
    Yes, the movies exported to the Media Browser use the H.264 format, the same as iMovie HD 5/6 did when we exported using the presets Email, Web, Web Streaming and CD-ROM. They were all H.264 too. Apple is obviously putting the (powerful) H.264 to good use to prepare movies for Web pages and other purposes.
    As you know, the Full Quality export in 5/6 was to the project's native format, which varied according to the type of project. For DV projects, that was DV video. Everything was converted to DV when imported into the project, and to preserve the original quality we could export to a Full Quality DV movie.
    There is nothing like that in iMovie 7, at least that I've seen. As you said, nothing is converted to a "native format" when imported to the project. (Still images are added to the project's single Apple Photo - JPEG "Still Images" movie, which is a nice twist.)
    So I think of iMovie 7 as having no "native" format, but a nicely-designed path for using H.264 as the delivery format. The Media Browser — a virtual library of movies with no shared place — is a nice invention.
    When I export slideshow movies in DV format out of FotoMagico I always select 'Best' and it DOES make a difference in iDVD.
    I think of iMovie 7's problem with DV as more profoundly flawed. Exporting ANY DV video that's in the project to DV or ANY OTHER format is messed up. It's the handling of the DV inside iMovie that's messed up, not just the export to DV.
    My guess is — and it's only a guess — that FotoMagico's Best setting adjusts the content of the image delivered for iDVD. Put another way, it prepares an image that works best with iDVD's own encoding algorithms.
    One long-standing diappointment I've had with iLife is that Apple has never coordinated the image it prepares for iDVD with what(ever) iDVD does best. It's as if the programmers never talk to each other. iMovie engineers have never asked the iDVD engineers how best to deliver the image to deliver the best quality on the DVD.
    Given Apple's emphasis on H.264, one would think that iDVD would be written to embrace any H.264 video and deliver great quality on the DVD. It doesn't. And with iLife '08 it doesn't even embrace iMovie's own DV exports!
    I suppose Blu-Ray will change all that, but for now we're stuck with a version of iLife that can't deliver a quality DVD of our home movies.
    Karl

  • Videos look awful in iTunes, much better in Quicktime Player

    I was, just as many others, deceived by the quality of video clips bought on iTMS (I started with the beautiful Love Profusion, by Madonna, and M.Jackson's Thriller).
    The picture appeared in particular pixellated in sull screen, this for many videos.
    (and the interface is so stupid : why do you have to play a clip in order to be able to switch to full screen, except maybe to keep Quicktime Pro's full screen in QT Player option alive ?)
    Then I just remembered how my videos played beautifully in Quicktime Player, and often awfully in iTunes, since iTunes 4.9.
    So I tried them in Quicktime Player (I have a 7.0 Pro license). (select in iTunes, command-R, command-O, command-F, you're done)
    They look much much better.
    And same goes for my non-iTMS videos, even after being converted to the iPod-friendly format with Quicktime Player.
    I just remember reading from a member of the iTunes team how quick it had been to add video capabilities to iTunes (since 4.9 I think).
    Maybe it was dine a bit too quickly.
    I just thought it would have been fixed BEFORE the release of a video-capable iPod and the sale of video clips on the iTMS.
    I now hope that on the video capable iPod (waiting for mine), these videos look more like in QT Player than like in iTunes Mac.
    It looks like iTunes 6 forgets to or cannot do H.264 post-processing correctly. By the way, this post-processsing is part of the standard specification, according to Apple's technology brief
    (http://images.apple.com/quicktime/pdf/H264TechnologyBrief.pdf), which means that the encoding process takes into account the de-pixellization done in post-processing (unlike divx for example, if I understand correctly), and that iTunes decoding is not even compliant to the H.264 standard.
    Having such a bad, broken video player as iTunes 6 for both quality and ergonomy (at least on Mac) is SO STUPID.
    I hope someone fixes the quality issue very quickly (Itunes 6.01?). If this person had time to make a "not as stupid as it is right now" interface for playing videos, that would make me happy again.
    If anyone can confirm if this is a Mac only, or Mac WIndows issue, I'd be glad to know.

    I do see a slight difference in quality between an .m4v file (purchased from the iTunes Music Store) when played in iTunes and QT player. If freezing at a specific frame, you can definitely notice the iTunes software seems to blur things and is less sharp (colors more dull, less pronounced).
    As far as the interface is concerned for viewing videos inside of iTunes, the only real concern I have is the performance. QT player resize/scrubbing is much more effective.

  • Video looks good, text does not

    My video looks good, but the titles, Ariel  bold - 78 pt bold and 68 pt regular, white text on top of black bar set  at 50% opacity look lousy.  The text is not crisp and angular as it should be.  It  looks great on my monitor and when rendered to flv, but when rendered  mpeg-2 to dvd with the highest specs as instructed, it looks lousy.  In  fact, it  looks the same as when I rendered it with the default settings  to dvd.  Any suggestions?
    I just found this on the web, is this the best solution?
    "Never use premiere for effects, titles, ect. Use After Effects then render it to a  uncompressed animation clip - alpha settings selected. reimport to  premier lay it down and gaze at beauty. Compression is bad, premier  compresses everything it renders, the more you compress-layers, the more  degredation and pixelation"
    I posted the  Creative Cow message on the After Effects forum and was told to ignore  it.  I have rendered in so many different ways and configurations to  mpeg-2 and my titles that are 68 px and 78 px still look almost rounded  instead of angular and crisp.  Help....
    Thanks so much,
    Lisa

    Well first off i will start with mpeg2 dvd is ancient and horrible technology and always looks bad to me...  that being said what are your specific specs. If you have an hour or video or less then you should be encoding as 9mbit CBR and that is as good as your going to get.
    for all we know you could be trying to put 3 hours of video on a single layer dvd and using 3mbit data rate which will look very bad.
    there could be several issues, are your fields correct? reversed fields can make graphics look pixelated. what are you viewing your dvd on that makes it look so bad? i have noticed many hdtv lcd flat panels when given a SD DVD video look horrible.
    export a single still image of your text and view it in photoshop, then render out a mpeg2 version of your video and import it back into premiere and export a single frame of it also. then load them into photoshop and compare, you can composite them side by side and post a pic for us to see what you are describing and try to troubleshoot it for you.

  • How can I get audio to play from my TV when using hdmi cable?  Video looks great, just no sound.

    How can I get audio to play from my TV when using hdmi cable?  Video looks great, just no sound.
    I've tried plugging the hdmi into the TV directly and the receiver.
    I get video every time.  HBO to Go , Xfinity, ABC, Youtube, etc...
    just no audio.  Any suggestions? 
    I've tried starting the apps then plugging in the hdmi cable.
    I never tried this before I upgraded to IOS 5.

    Claudiamil-
    I had not tried it with mine since upgrading to iOS 5, so I just did.  I'm using a small Vizio HDTV.  I did not try YouTube, but did try several videos and musical numbers.  In all cases there was sound, including stereo when the source had it.
    I assume you are getting sound from the iPad when the adapter is not connected, so the volume is not turned down.  Dah*veed's suggestion to reset may be what you need.
    Fred

Maybe you are looking for