Video output quality worse than AppleTv 1

Anyone else who owns an atv1 found video looks worse?
I'm not talking about actual video playback but the video output on 2
AppleTV1 looked great through my plasma even though it's not full HD
1080p over hdmi on 1 scaled by the plasma consistently looked best, with crisp but smooth edges to text and GUI.
Atv2 720p over hdmi looks consistently worse - it all looks oversharpened and over contrasty, with text in particular looking very jagged as well as the spinning timer wheel looking pixellated now
Watching a slideshow there seemed to be visible artefacts as some images moved or scaled whereas atv1 just looked silky smooth
Maybe the current GUI text and icons are not as smooth, maybe less antialiasing, poorer quality gpu
Maybe my plasma downscales 720p worse than 1080p - I need to check on the full HD set in another room but first impressions are not that good
Video playback seems strangely artificial too, almost as though the frame rate has been sped up slightly
Weird as the set should handle 50/60Hz without issue

So a few days in it's growing on me.
There's definitely something different about menu graphics but actual video quality for playback is excellent though I'm not sure it's not dropping/catching up frames at times.
I've watched some HD movie trailers and they look excellent.
Video navigation is considerably improved over ATV1, with FF / RW actually working reasonably well when they didn't before over the same connection. Changing chapters gives immediate starts and buffering seems considerably quicker - at least some of this must be due to newer hardware.
I don't like the top level menu much and preferred the older system but you can pretty much stay in Computers to watch own content.
Video playlists don't work properly which is poor but it took ages to get them enabled on ATV1.
There are many glitches but hopefully they'll get ironed out over time.

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FCE export quality worse than iMovie with same settings

Hi, I'm having real problems exporting video from FCE. If I import an HD clip from my Panasonic sd200 into iMovie and export it as a .mov and do exactly the same in FCE using the same export settings, the quality of the exported movie from FCE is much worse than the same from iMovie. I have been struggling with this problem for months and cannot seem to get any sort of decent quality export from FCE (using H264) and spent hours trying different settings.
Also, the colours in the exported videos from iMovie and FCE are less saturated and look really bland next to the same clip in FCE canvas.
Please can anyone help? Even the guys in the Apple shop could not figure this one out.

Sorry the camera is actually a Panasonic HS200.
The native format is .MTS and films in 1920x1080 50i. Imported via iMovie as a .MOV which gives the same quality footage as if I imported via Log and Transfer.
I will expand on the problem I am experiencing. When I export from FCE4 using "QuickTime conversion" I use the following settings:
Codec: h.264 Key Frames: every 25
Frame rate: 25fps Frame Reordering: on
Data Rate Restricted to: 10mbps
Optimised for: Download
Quality: High Encoding: Best quality (multi-pass)
Dimensions: 1920x1080
Deinterlace Source Video: ticked
When the deinterlacing is ticked, the final exported video appears ghosted, with two of the same images projected side by side rather than one on top of the other, creating a very bad image. However when deinterlacing is not ticked the final exported video ends up with horizontal lines across the entire image. This is seen even more clearly when not in full screen.
When I export from iMovie 09, using Share>Export using QuickTime using the same settings as in FCE4 (deinterlacing ticked) the footage is very clear and there is no noticeable ghosting or horizontal lines.
When I export footage from FCE the video also end up desaturated and washed out, with low contrast. The same happens when I export from iMovie, but to an even greater extent!
My 'Easy Setup' for FCE4 is:
Format: Apple intermediate Codec Rate: 25fps
Use: AVCHD- Apple Intermediate Codec 1920x1080i50
These are the problems I experience; described above.
I do no know whether the problem is something to do with my export settings; settings in FCE; or whether FCE exaggerates the quality of my images (which i highly doubt); or if it is because FCE4 is now around 4 years old, and iMovie is from 2009, and therefore has more advanced settings for AVCHD?
I am by no means a professional when it comes to talking video jargon.
Any help is truly appreciated as i have completed over 150 test exports in FCE and the Final Cut experts at the Apple store spent almost 2 hours trying to work something about, but could not think of anything!
Thanks in advance.

Output quality less than source file in sequence FCP 7

I imported a .mov file into my sequence. It is 1920X1080 Apple ProRes.422. 7 1/2 mins. long. 6.18GB.
I added a new audio file for the entire sequence. Inserted a few edits to the credits using Motion.
I exported, first at Apple ProRes 422 HD also 1920X1080. It ended up being over 9GB. The quality was worse than the
source .mov file. These were both auditioned in Quicktime. The original .mov file looks fine at full resolution,
but not after my export. I've read the manual, consulted my online tutorials, read forums. I believe I have set all my
export settings correctly, yet it doesn't export with the crispness of the original file.
If it is important, the thin color bar just above the playhead and timeline is light purple.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Two things are screwing you up.
1. Your sequence frame size is not the same as your original media.
2. Your sequence compressor is h.264 not ProRes.
Take the original clip and drop it into a new sequence.
When FCP asks if you want to match the clip settings, click yes.
Delete that clip then go to your original sequence and copy all the clips then shift over to the new sequence and past them into the timeline.
You may have to remove any distortions (resizing) to have the clips play in full screen.
Export that edit using Export Quicktime (NOT quicktime conversion) with "current settings" and "make self contained" selected.
Once you have that file, use Compressor to create any non ProRes deliverable.
x

How Do I Change Video Output Quality When Capturing .DV Video From Camera?

I am experimenting with both this Premiere Elements 10 trial, as well as other brands of software, finding the best one to purchase for my needs.
In some other software, I not only indicate the source quality, but the output quality to the computer. If I want to upload the full quality video files to edit for retransferring back to a DV video tape, that's fine, but I will take up a lot of computer memory, relatively speaking. On the other hand, if I know that I'm going to be editing the video for replay on the computer or over the web, I can tell the program to upload to MPEG4 or some other conversion.
I am not seeing this as an option with the Premiere Elements. Can anyone tell me where, if possible, I can alter the output quality before the program begins the download? I certainly can find the input quality (such as .dv 4:3 ratio). I'd prefer not to always have to download the full quality video, THEN have to covert it as a separate step.
Thank you!

The PRE workflow is (1) Create your project (2) import your assets (3) sequence and edit your assets (4) create your menus (5) share your project.
The quality of intended output has no effect on your project settings which should match your source footage. Done this way optimises PRE's performance - as it can internally process far more effectively when matched to a 'native' format.
For standard definition the ideal format for PRE is DV-AVI Type 2. This is almost lossless and operates at around 13GB per hour.
Compression to an output format (e.g. DVD, or an iPod, or viewing online) is managed through the share process.
You could:
Import your footage - e.g AVCHD, HDV, DV-AVI, VOB
Share it to a compressed format - e.g. MP4
Delete the original capture source (in Step 1)
Work in a new project using the compressed output (in step 2).
But if you do this your final output quality will be lessened through working with a compressed original that you will then compress again. I can't see what you feel you will gain by this - disk space is so cheap now why wouldn't you want to give yourself the best quality source to work with.
Note that once you are finished with a project you can archive it off to free up your disk space.
Cheers,
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

MAXIMUM iPod video output quality.

Because a few have asked me for some specs...
The iPod is designed to play back video files that have square pixels.
DVDs use non-square pixels to fit widescreen images into 720x480 native rez of DVD standard.
When you square the pixels of a 2.35 aspect ratio movie (like "Ep III" for example) you get an image that has a native rez of 720x304(=218,880)pixels, mathmatically speaking, the iPod can play back MPEG-4 at 480x480(=230,400) pixels, cha-ching!
The iPod CAN playback the full VIEWABLE resolution of a widescreen movie. You can "think" of it this way, the black bar pixels are excluded. The iPod does not care how they are arranged as long as the pixel count falls at or below 230,400. The specs of one of my typical files is: MPEG-4 SP 720x304 2-pass VBR 1.4Mbps average bit rate/Stereo 2-pass AAC-LC at 48kHz 160kbps average bit rate. When played back on my PC using the native Nero7 (not iTunes) application that I use for encoding I can also read the subtitle info embedded in the file and I also get chapter marks. You should see the difference between this and the 320x240 H.264 files most everyone else seem to be getting from iTunes purchased files or using some freeware or paid encoders. My files look at least twice as good at less than double the file size, to me that is an accomplishment. Output image quality is most important to me, file size falls where it does Ep III = 1.41Gigs for example.
I have a 60 Gig iPod and am able to carry (approx) 5000 songs AND 45 movies of varying lengths with me when I travel, and the videos are WORTH viewing, they are not just an adequate looking fascimilie of a movie. So if anyone want's to bag on my file size for being bigger than H.264 at 768kbps, too late I beat you to it, again, for me, the image comes first.
I'd love to see what other people are doing.
FJ1

The iPod is designed to play back video files that have square pixels.
DVDs use non-square pixels to fit widescreen images into 720x480 native rez of DVD standard.
I fail to see the relevance of your comment. The DVD (a non-square pixel encoded file container) is made to play on a TV/TV monitor device (which displays non-square pixels). The iPod, like all computer monitors, is a square pixel, non-interlaced device. Most good computer software multimedia applications are intelligent enough to know the difference and display the video information at the correct aspect ratio irrespective of the pixel shape in question.
When you square the pixels of a 2.35 aspect ratio movie (like "Ep III" for example) you get an image that has a native rez of 720x304(=218,880)pixels, mathmatically speaking, the iPod can play back MPEG-4 at 480x480(=230,400) pixels, cha-ching! The iPod CAN playback the full VIEWABLE resolution of a widescreen movie.
While it is true that your file resolution does meet restrictions for both total pixels allowed (218,880 of 230,400) and total number of macro-16 blocks (855 of 900), it is untrue that "The iPod CAN playback the full VIEWABLE resolution of a widescreen movie." What you are actually seeing on the iPod is a "scaled to fit" version of your original data. However, if you plan to view your files on multiple displays (iPod, TV, Computer Monitor), then I whole heartedly endorse with your approach for those devices capable of display at the full resolution.
My files look at least twice as good at less than double the file size, to me that is an accomplishment. Output image quality is most important to me, file size falls where it does Ep III = 1.41Gigs for example.
Believe this statement requires further qualification. Once again, while there is little doubt that your files should look better when displayed on larger display devices (greater resolution quality), the differences become less significant when viewed on the iPod (where greater "per pixel" compression quality becomes more significant when you resolution is scaled to fit the smaller screen).
I have a 60 Gig iPod and am able to carry (approx) 5000 songs AND 45 movies of varying lengths with me when I travel, and the videos are WORTH viewing, they are not just an adequate looking fascimilie of a movie.
"WORTH" is in the eye of the beholder. And since my eyes aren't what they used to be, I have gone the other route. I only have 101 audio files and 391 movies on my 60G iPod which is about 60% full at the current time.
So if anyone want's to bag on my file size for being bigger than H.264 at 768kbps, too late I beat you to it, again, for me, the image comes first.
In these cases one must choose efficiency in terms of time, space, or complexity. I can't fault your choice but merely point out that my priorities are different than yours. At native iPod viewing resolutions I achieve the same quality as you using the H.264 codec at 400 kbps which yields roughly 4MBs/min of source material or approximately 6 hours of program material in the space of your average files.
Hope that answers your E-mail question, Rich.

*** What video output quality can I do from iPod video onto a tv?

I have HDV footage. Wondering if I have to squish it to mpeg-4 to get it onto my iPod or could I load it as full quality onto my iPod video (about 1.3 gb) and then connect it to a tv and show it full quality on the tv? Would that work? What kind of output connectors does the iPod video have?

You do have to convert it to mp4. And the resolution is only 320 X 240, so you'll be pretty disappointed in the picture quality on a tv. Video on the iPod is primarilly for viewing on the pod itself. I was however surprised how good some dvd material I have looked considering that small resolution. I had considered loading tons of movies onto mine for camping trips and travel, but I think I'll just continue to pack up a bunch of DVDs and a player for that considering how much better it looks. 320 x 240 is pretty tiny. But it is pretty novel to play movies and tv from such a compact player. Oh yeah, you'll also need an iPod-specific video cord to attach to a tv or monitor. A regular A/V mini plug won't work.
Good luck and have fun.
AMD 2400 Windows 2000

Aperture book quality - worse than before?

Hello everyone,
My photo studio has been using Aperture for 8 months now and we are very happy with it. We love the organization, web output, etc. We also LOVE the book design layouts, but the quality of the book printing has been degrading over that past few months.
The first books we printed with Apple (around Nov/Dec 2006) were great, then about 3 months ago, we noticed the labels on the hardcover books went down in qulaity (almost like they were just using a color laser printer), and today we received five books in the mail and the quality is terrible. Also, two of the books have the "Made on a Mac" page in the back (like iPhoto).
It seemed to me (since I have had books printed by both Aperture & iPhoto) that the older Aperture books were of higher quality than the iPhoto books. Now, it seems as though they are one-in-the-same and our studio cannot have this lower quality book - it is not up to our standards.
I would gladly use another manufacturer, but every other design software out there for each respective company is terrible and takes three times as long for us to design a single book. I LOVE the integration of the books in Aperture and it makes our timeline two weeks shorter with our clients and that is what sets us apart from other studios in this town.
Has anyone else had these problems or noticed the change/degridation in the quality of the books?
Thanks!

C'mon Apple,
There is no way you don't know that the quality of your "sticker" covers is horrible. Maybe when you first launched your book service, but it has now been years. I just received three books, and all three have tacky, peeling front stickers.
Please give us an alternative, even if it costs more, that allows us to show our work with pride. After spending thousands and thousands on computers, software, cameras, lenses, etc., the cover of the books drags that first impression into the ground.
Thanks!

Horrible video output quality with Premiere Pro CS4 + Adobe Media Encoder

I am trying to make some changes to a DV format file, and output as the same DV format. When the video is brought into Premiere, it looks crisp in the left-hand video box. But, when playing it on the right window and when encoding it, it comes out as a mess with substantial compression artifacts.
What confuses me is, I have experimented with a lot of codecs--even uncompressed AVI. There is no change in the video resolution--source is 720x480, as is output. I am keeping all the pixel aspect ratios the same as the source footage.
What is creating this distortion? I have no scaling of the video whatsoever in the sequence...
Is there some compression box I'm not seeing here?
I've attached a screenshot of a still from the video. As you can see, substantial artifacting around the lettering, making the text unreadable.

Some suggestions and answer at least the 16 questions at the end of the Wiki article.

Why does Compressor's HDV output look worse than iDVD's output of same?

Okay, here's the thing... for weekly updates I've been sending the client outputs via iDVD. And they've honestly looked great. The HDV footage fills the screen and doesn't show any noticeable compression funkiness. But for the screening of the completed first cut I wanted to deliver what I thought would be an even higher quality look (esp since I intended to deliver the completed project mpeg and AC3), so I exported the HDV cut out of FCP via QT and converted it with Compressor's DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes to turn the HDV into SD 720x480 16:9 letterboxed. I then burned it with DVDSP, complete with nice looking menus, etc. And I was shocked viewing the output. The two clips I'd reversed in FCP stuttered, and even a clip with nothing on it was strobing. Plus, close ups showed noticeable compression on the faces. So what gives? Why does it look so much better when I just slammed it out on iDVD? What don't I "get?" I've scoured the books I have and nothing seems to give me a clue.
Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

Lightroom uses its own raw converter and its own camera profiles to convert the raw data into an image. This will never be the same as the camera-manufacturer’s raw image decoding either in camera or using camera-manufacturer-supplied software or any other third-party software.
Here is a general explanation from a few years ago, that is mostly valid, with the one exception that there are no camera-matching profiles for your brand of camera:
http://www.lightroomforums.net/showthread.php?1285-Why-did-Lightroom-ruin-my-photo
The IDC is apparently using camera settings and is clearly sharpening the image and quashing some of the lens-flare, oversharpening in my opinion.
You can do these sorts of things in LR, too, but you have to tell it to do things, it won’t do this by default.
The 2010 and 2012 are related to Process Version not Profile, and one difference between the two PVs is how the toning responds to near clipping conditions. Your reds are very saturated and near if not actually clipping so it is not surprising that the two raw conversions are not the same.
Can you provide a link to the raw file, using DropBox.com or similar large-file-hosting-service and maybe someone will give some tips on how to make the LR processing closer to what you’re seeing with the camera-manufacturer version.?

Reception Signal Strength Quality worse than 1st Gen

At home, I get worse reception on my 3G iPhone than my 1st Gen iPhone. Is it just my phone or one of ATT's towers went down? Or did I just get a defective iPhone 3G? If anyone else has noticed this difference I would like to know.
Thanks.

Same here. I know I live in an area where the signal is very strong ("best", according to AT&T), and my Sprint phone had full-strength here. My roommates have no problems, either.
However, with my new iPhone 3G, the bars are usually almost flat. If I turn 3G off, sometimes I get a better signal (at least according to the "bars") but I shouldn't have to do that.
I'm sitting right next to a window and it's almost flatlined. I walk around the house or drive around and it keeps changing....but full strength? I don't think I've seen it yet.
I'm really hoping this gets fixed asap, particularly if the bar graphic is an accurate reflection of the actual signal strength being received....because if not, I'm going to have to give up my iPhone, and I've been waiting over a YEAR to have this phone.

IPhone 6 screen quality worse than 4S?

My wife and I got our iPhone 6's a few days ago and I noticed that the screen quality on either is not as good as that of our previous iPhone 4S'. What I can only describe as a uniform netting/screen door/pixel grid pattern is easily visible over the entire screen from 8 inches away and worse closer up. It makes everything seem blurrier and colors not as solid. It is most pronounced when viewing a lot of white/grey/light colors (Settings, Mail, etc) and seems to be worsened when viewing slightly off-angle. I thought the Retina Display "PPI" remained the same as the smaller 4S/5S iPhone screens, so it can't be a resolution issue. Did we both get junk screens? Do good ones exist? Nobody else seems to be posting about this issue.
I'm really getting tired of every new Apple product launch having some sort of Achilles heel that has to be corrected by swapping hardware until one worthy of the price paid is obtained. Is this another case of that? Do you see this on your new phone as well? Most people probably won't even notice or care, I understand. But is this seriously the screen that we all get and have to live with? Like the hollow/plasticky iPad Air screen? It's supposed to be better, right? Should I bother going through the exchange gauntlet? Has anybody else done so?
So... has anyone else noticed this, and is it bothering you as much as me? I can't enjoy this expensive new phone knowing I can constantly see what I consider a major downgrade from my old phone.

Personally, I find the screen resolution on both our iPhone 6, to be a step above our iPhone 5. So, I'm not seeing what you're seeing, that's for sure.

Compressor 2 quality worse than Compressor 1 ?!?!

I find Compressor's 2's quality to be markedly poor when compared to Compressor 1. Digital artifacts during dissolves, some very poor motion quality (even with motion estimation set to best)... what's up with this? Has anyone else noticed this?

William.
Yes, there are a great deal of us on this forum that have expereinced the same issue with digital artifacts in our dissolves. With all the testing going on it looks like it has been determined that the VBR scanner is somehow not working correctly. A work around that seems to be helping lots (Well, it solved my problem for now) is to compress using CBR and not VBR. That will eliminate the digital artifacts until Apple comes up with a fix.
A search of this forum will show you more results on this.
Your not alone! Good luck.
Graham

ITunes 7.0.2 sound quality worse than 7.0.1

Hello, I just downloaded iTunes 7.0.2 and noticed a distinct loss in sound quality with this version of the software. All of my sound files are already in the Apple Losless format. What happened with this version of the software, and what can I do?
Thanks.
Dell Inspiron 8600 Windows XP

perhaps try working through the possibilities from the following document:
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows: Songs and other audio don't play correctly

Ipod sound quality worse than iTunes

I'm not too knowledgable in this area so this may be an obvious answer to some. Though my ipod doesn't seem defective, I've noticed that sound quality seems to decrease (compared to listening to songs on iTunes with the same headphones). Is this decrease in quality, which is not huge but still noticeable, an expected occurence?

perhaps try working through the possibilities from the following document:
iTunes and QuickTime for Windows: Songs and other audio don't play correctly

Editing in time line alters video output quality.

This is weird. If I import a basic AVI (raw 1280x768 ) in to a project with the same settings and drop that into the time line, then just export (no editing) some frames or whole sequence (to any file type/codec at the same size and settings) the resulting file is clear as a bell, looks great. But, if I do ~any~ cutting at all the resulting file looks like crap (again with the same export settings as before). I also noticed that in the program window the same thing happens, if the file hasnt been chopped up the view is crystal clear, along with any renders, as soon as I cut it (lets say I remove the first 5 seconds of the clip in the timeline with the "cut" tool) the Program window gets messed up (image gets blurry) and all the resulting renders are also poor. What Am I doing wrong???? Please help.

Yes, Xvid and DivX, are both very heavily compressed CODEC's, and are most often seen in the AVI wrapper.
With either, conversion is the best route, if you have to edit the "delivery-only" material. Please note: file conversion will not regain all the data, lost in compression - only get the file into an editable form.
Good luck,
Hunt

Video output quality worse than AppleTv 1

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