[MMike]

Ok...

So I'm making a promotional video for work. I've got my footage and it's coming together nicely in Cyberlink Power Director.

I'm wondering though...it will have very definitive chapters or sections. Each is a little complex with transitions and stuff. So I'm wondering if I should make each section as a separate project and then produce them as individual WMV files. Then compile the final product into an overall project using the the individual WMV's.

Will I lose any "fidelity" by doing it that way?

I just think I can manage the chunks better that way.

 

[Quo Fan]

[sarcasm]You should make cuts to a different scene every 5 seconds. that way nobody will be bored with the video.[/sarcasm]

 

[Quo Fan]

Straight answer:

I have never used Cyberlink Power Director, so I have no clue about fidelity loss. All I've ever used is Adobe Premier and have not had issues with fidelity loss.

But then again, I have never made a video that had chapters.

 

[IH8Rice]

i use Power Director and it would be easier to do individual files to cut your work load down. you should not lose any quality either. what version are you using btw?

 

[MMike]

Version 8.

It's pretty cool. It was actually you that made me aware of it. I researched it and seemed to get good reviews. So I went for it.

But yeah. I've been working on individual projects today.

 

[MMike]

And actually maybe you know. I've made a PiP template. I used a gif with a transparent background. (the company logo) But in the movie, it's showing a white background around the logo...ie: the footprint of the entire image. Any idea how I can get the transparent background?

 

[IH8Rice]

And actually maybe you know. I've made a PiP template. I used a gif with a transparent background. (the company logo) But in the movie, it's showing a white background around the logo...ie: the footprint of the entire image. Any idea how I can get the transparent background?

hmm never came across that. lemme try it on my other computer to see if that happens to me too.

 

[kidwoo]

Just pay me money and I'll put something together. I'm pretty awesome.

 

[MMike]

Too late. I had to rely on my own awesomeness.

Actually I am wrestling with one last thing. Aspect ratios. FOr some reason, even though my project is in 16:9 and I create a DVD, specifying 16:9, it's coming out distorted for some reason. I'm not sure if maybe I'm 16:9-ing something that is already 16:9 or something.

 

[kidwoo]

Use the same pixel aspect ratio as your source. Should be in your camera specs.

 

[MMike]

I've double and triple checked all of that. It makes no sense that it would be different. It looks right when I preview it. But when I burn the DVD, it squishes it to 4:3 (seemingly). When I play it on my TV/DVD player, it's all stretched.

The video was all shot in 16:9 on the camera. Each clip says it's 16:9. And the DVD is burned in 16:9.

I am confused.

 

[IH8Rice]

sorry mike, i forgot about this thread....i didnt find a answer to your first question so im useless.

when you say its seemingly squished, are you getting bars on top and bottom?

 

[kidwoo]

Read me your output settings from your editing program.


What's your intermediate file format? Editor->?????->DVD->profit!!

I told you that you should have paid me.

 

[MMike]

It would seem that it's my DVD player and/or TV.

It works fine in Windows media player. (unless I maximize the window, in which case it stretches the image to fit)

 

[kidwoo]

I might be your dvd/tv setup but the fact that WMP stretches it too means it might not be.

You know your tv can do all kinds of stretchy, resizing things right? Like mom always said "play with it".


You should still tell me what your ouptut settings are though. There is such a thing as optimum.

 

[MMike]

These are all the options i have for the DVD

 

[kidwoo]

Attach that image if you can. It's blocked at work.

 

[MMike]

like so?

 

[kidwoo]

That'll do'er.

That's pretty limited. What you've got going on is a bunch of crap being set without your control in your output. Welcome to the concept of broadcast standards. In this day and age with computers being such a baseline for everything, old school broadcast standards are the big dinosaur messing everything up. What you've got is a DVD preset, but you have a 16:9 setting within that preset. What that's going to include is a 29.976 frame rate, an NTSC pixel aspect ratio of 1:0.9, and either a letterboxed SD file or an 853 x 480 file.

Now depending on what your output from your editor is, there are all kinds of things that dvd authoring step can do to get those files to fit that format.

So again........what's your output from your editor? MPEG something? FOP dvd files? Avi? Try setting your output resolution to 853.33 x 480 and a 0.9 pixel aspect ratio. That will at least downsize your project to a true 16:9 standard def/NTSC file that should transcode cleanly.

 

[MMike]

I have 4 individual WMV files all at this resolution. I chose WMV based on a request from the marketing group.

Each WMW file was a project unto itself.

The raw video from the camera was 720 x 480, (which does not look like 16:9 to me)
data rate 8900kbps
29 frames/ sec

Not sure what else I've got.....

 

[MMike]

Oh fark........it's the WMV file isn't it?

1440 / 1080 = 1.33333 = 4/3

 

[Toshi]

Find a buddy with a Mac and iDVD.

 

[MMike]

Find a buddy with a Mac and iDVD.

I will never befriend a mac user

 

[MMike]

And WMP plays it ok. I was mistaken. I'm still getting used to Windows 7. It was playing with PowerDVD not WMP earlier. Stuff look different now in Win 7 and I didn't realize. I tried in in WMP and it does 16:9 correctly. It's PowerDVD that was stretching it

 

[kidwoo]

Haha....your camera is standard def.


Don't mess with it. Deliver it as 4:3 if you want it to look its best. Also just for future reference, windows media isn't the best intermediate for DVD output. Use mpeg3 or even avi if that's what your camera puts out. You'll maintain more of the file integrity.

But regardless of what your client/boss/whatever wants to see, your footage is 720x480, NTSC standard def. Looking at it in that format will look better than doubling pixels just to get a bigger image.

 

[kidwoo]

Find a buddy with a Mac and iDVD.

Sshh

The people that actually want to have control over things they buy are talking.

 

[Toshi]

Sshh

The people that actually want to have control over things they buy are talking.

Software that MMike is allowed to use should have one button and no options, if that

 

[kidwoo]

Software that MMike is allowed to use should have one button and no options, if that

Touche'

 

[Toshi]

Touche'

If you had a Mac then you'd have been able to type the accent easily and properly.

éñöúî, etc.

 

[kidwoo]

If you had a Mac then you'd have been able to type the accent easily and properly.

éñöúî, etc.

Trust me, if I ever forget how to wipe my own ass, I'll definitely buy a mac.

By then I'm sure they'll have an iwipe out that does that for me too.

 

[MMike]

Haha....your camera is standard def.


Don't mess with it. Deliver it as 4:3 if you want it to look its best. Also just for future reference, windows media isn't the best intermediate for DVD output. Use mpeg3 or even avi if that's what your camera puts out. You'll maintain more of the file integrity.

But regardless of what your client/boss/whatever wants to see, your footage is 720x480, NTSC standard def. Looking at it in that format will look better than doubling pixels just to get a bigger image.

It was a cheapie camera that the company just bought. It really is 4:3 but fakes widescreen by chopping the top and bottom off right?

 

[MMike]

Software that MMike is allowed to use should have one button and no options, if that

I just poked myself in the eye with my spacebar

 

[kidwoo]

It was a cheapie camera that the company just bought. It really is 4:3 but fakes widescreen by chopping the top and bottom off right?

Yeah if you're getting a letterboxed or 16x9 looking clip, then that's probably what it's doing. And that's how you still get 720x480 files.....the black bars are part of the image.

The area of interest in those clips is going to be 720x405 now.

What you probably had going on is that you've got that letterboxed 720x480 clip with the black bars getting stretched because you were trying to force it into a 16x9 format. Even with black bars, it's just not. It was still stretching what it thought was a standard def aspect, even though it already was "kind of" 16x9.

Try exporting at a resolution of 720x405 if you can. It SHOULD just stay centered and chop off the letterboxing. THEN you have a 16x9(ish) file that you can author into your DVD program. I can do it easily with the stuff I use, but it's worth a shot with your setup.

 

[MMike]

Well I figured out the main problem.....like I said it was working fine on my computer but my DVD player at home wasn't working.

Well...ahem...I recently went from a 4:3 CRT TV to a 16:9 LCD.

Turns out I have to change the setting on my DVD player to 16:9. It doesn't automatically detect. Which would explain why nothing has ever really looked right.

EPic TV fail for me.

So now everything seems ok.

But yeah.....the quality is rather poor for a brand new camera. I'm going to change the setting back to 4:3 to see what that does to the quality. It was only a $260 (in Canada!) JVC camera. We should have sprung for the HD version. Oh well

 

[kidwoo]

Glad you got it all figured out.


I wouldn't get too stuck on the HD thing. Most of those little cameras just upsize a standardish def chip to get big images. If you guys do decide to drop some coin, just get a 'good' camera, not necessarily any old 'HD' camera.

IH8rice can tell you all about JVC's latest offerings I'm sure

 

[MMike]

I doubt it will be any time soon. But I'm going to experiment with tquality of the 4:3 setting
NOw I'm fighting with creating a custom DVD menu.

 

[IH8Rice]

what model camera is it?

i dont work for JVC anymore btw, but i can still recommend a camera if you are looking

 

[dump]

holy fcuk - all this reminds me why when it comes to video.

1. This stuff is unnecessarily complex - even "pros" f it up.

2. Save yourself time/energy/money by hiring someone like kidwoo - to shoot & edit. Buying a camera and doing it yourself isn't necessarily going to produce good results.

3. iMovie would have done the trick.