Messages posted by Rolfe

Quote: The effects you are seeing has been described in various forms on this forum and is due to the poor handling of interlaced files in PD. PD just line doubles causing awful combing, loses half of the available information and causes all that panning judder people complain about (as well as the softening you are seeing).

Thank you so much. Great explanation. As I mentioned in the original post, I'm shooting at 1080i. As a result, PD9 is not acceptable to me.

Bankroot:

I'll stick with my 'nonsense' about incompatibility -- i.e. my camera shoots 1080 interlaced, which is not (very) compatible with PD9. Re your suggestions -- I don't think (1) is going to help based on the explanation quoted above. However, I think your (2) is right on.

Thanks to all.

--rolfe.

'gator,

I'm not sure what post-processing Youtube performs or my browser, for that matter, so uploading to there is not what I need.

'bulldog,

That's helpful. It looks to me like you get the same degradation that I do. Thus I think the issue is either PD9 or some kind of incompatibility of my particular camera and PD9.

Thanks to both for responding.

--rolfe.

'gator,

Thanks for passing on your experience. I watched your video 1080p, full screen. It looks OK, but to know if there is degradation, I'd have to see the original.

One thing I noticed, which is a separate issue, is that the background (trees, etc.) is jerky while you follow the little cars. I'll bet you don't see that on the original :

You could do me a favor -- download my short clip and process it like you did yours, then upload it here as an attachment. Then I can compare your result with my original directly.

Thanks,
--rolfe.

Attached is a short clip shot at 1080i. The Word doc contains screen shots taken of the original clip in WMP, the Produce MPEG-4 result with Default profile, and the Produce MPEG-4 result with a Custom profile modified to 17M bit rate (like the original).

My conclusion - the two outputs are significantly degraded from the input (see the Word Doc).

My goal is to be able to edit video without noticeable loss in quality. Can anyone suggest how to do better than I did?

Thanks,
--rolfe.

Tony,

I need to clarify something else -- about the sail. The sail is in the process of being rotated, so its apparent width will depend on which exact frame I stopped WMP on. I did not attempt to stop all 3 videos on precisely the same frame; I just eye-balled it.

You have a pretty sharp eye to notice the sail width differences. I can't see any proportion distortions in the other elements, however.

I'll be back later with results of your other suggestions.

Thanks,
--rolfe.

I should have clarified something. The "screen shots" captured with the snipping tool are only a portion of the full screen frame in WMP, not the whole frame. That's why you saw a difference in the jpg sizes. As I said above, only the cropping is different -- there is no stretching or other manipulation of the jpegs.

--rolfe.

Tony,

What I did was to play the input and output files in WMP full screen. Then I tried to move to approximately the same frame in all three cases. I used Windows 7's Snipping Tool to capture approximately the same sized screen shot, but this is a free-hand tool, resulting in slightly different cropping of my jpegs (but no stretching of the images, etc.).

The camera was panning slightly, to follow the sailor, so the pilings could understandably be a bit blurred in all three cases. But notice the detail of the sailor and sail -- they are degraded.

These screenshots are representative of the issue. I have experimented with increasing the bitrate with a Custom Profile but did not notice any difference.

I hope you are correct that something is wrong in the rendering and is correctable.

I've attached the Properties of the input file (corresponding to Capture1.jpg) as well as of the two output files so you can see the proportions and other details.

Hope this gives you additional ideas.

Thanks,
--rolfe.

DxDiag attached.

I'm disappointed in the output quality of PD9. The original .MP4 file from my Samsung HMX-H100 shot at 1080i looks great. If I Produce an MPEG-4 or .M2TS with PD9 (not editing the clip at all), the output is blurry/fuzzy compared to the original.

Am I expecting too much to think the output might be similar? Examples attached. Details follow.

Capture1.jpg is a portion of a frame (WMP12) from the original MP4 from the camera (file size 148MB).
Capture2.jpg is a portion of a similar frame from the MPEG-4 output of PD9 (98MB).
Capture3.jpg is a portion of a similar frame from the H.264 AVC output of PD9 (121MB).

The MPEG-4 was Produced with Profile type: Default, Profile name/Quality: Best Quality MPEG-4.

The H.264 AVC was Produced with Profile type: Default, Profile name/Quality: AVCHD 1920 x 1080.

Are there other settings I should use to obtain better output quality?

Thanks in advance for any comments or ideas.

--rolfe.

PowerDirector 9.0.0.2930

Dave,

Now I've got it -- both questions answered. I've used a lot of applications over the years, including another video editor, but this one is far from intuitive. It's a shame the learning curve is so long.

Thanks.

--rolfe.

Well, it's certainly not intuitive. Thanks for the link to the video, Dave -- that got me to the answer to my second question.

To edit the Titles/Chapters menu, you go to Create Disc, Content tab and click Show Chapters. Select (click) any chapter that appears. The Titles/Chapters menu appears in the preview pane on the right and you can move objects around and edit the title of the menu.

I still don't know the answer to my first question -- how to assign separate templates to the Root and Titles/Chapters menus.

--rolfe.

Thanks to both of you. I'll do some experimenting.

Whew. Menus are just not intuitive to me.

I've figured out how to mark chapters in the timeline and set chapter frames. Now I go to the Create Disc, Menu Prefs page and I click on a Template. It looks like I should be able to select Titles/Chapters (the right pane) and Apply the Template to the Titles/Chapters page of my project. However, I cannot select Titles/Chapters -- the Root Menu pane is selected and I cannot change it. What am I not understanding here?

So I click Apply to All Pages. Now I can see the Root menu in my project and can move objects around, etc. But how do I see the Titles/Chapters menu to make similar changes?

When I Preview the project and click the Chapters button on the Root menu, I get to the Titles/Chapters menu but the heading says the default "My Video" text. I'd like to change that text obviously, and align the objects, but I don't understand how to do that.

Can someone save me a lot of time? Thanks.

Thank you. I hadn't been able to find that answer using Search.

Disappointing. And odd, since the little preview dialog shows in the Root Menu little boxes with "0001", "0002", etc. in them.

All I really wanted to do was get rid of the Root Menu clip altogether (the little elephant fish clip). Anyone know if that is possible?

Thanks.

I'd like to use menu Template 6, but modify it. I see from the forum that others can do this, but I cannot.

When I click Template 6 a dialog box pops up that has these buttons:

Apply to All Pages
Modify
Apply
Cancel

I assume I need the Modify button, but it is grayed out. The only templates with a Modify available are 2, 5, 7 and 9.

What am I missing? Thanks.