Graphics banding issue

DavidONeil

Newbie Joined: Mar 12, 2010 11:17 Messages: 25 Offline

Solved by

Mar 19, 2010 17:10

Does anyone know if it is possible to improve the graphics quality of a gradient background? My workflow is 1) Create .swf animation with the background. 2) Change it into an AVI file using a utility program. 3) Import the AVI into PD, and create an MPG file. The AVI is crystal clear, but the MPG file has banding in it.

I'm suspecting that this may be the best I can do, because the banding may be being introduced by the MPG encoding process. I've tried every other output setting in PD, and this is the best I can accomplish. I'm outputting MP2 file with custom settings - I upped the Average and Maximum bitrates to 25000. CVBR / CBR - no difference. Smoothing, Noise removal, Progressive/non-progressive, no real difference. Quality slider: 7. Just installed new update to take that out of the equation, and the MPG file was produced with it.


Filename	screengrabs.png	Download
Description	A comparison of the outputs.
Filesize	17 Kbytes
Downloaded:	165 time(s)

Filename	qualityTestSources.zip	Download
Description	Original .swf, .avi, and .pds files
Filesize	88 Kbytes
Downloaded:	336 time(s)

Filename	qualityTestOutput.zip	Download
Description	The output file. Had to change to MP4 for size constraints.
Filesize	26 Kbytes
Downloaded:	353 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 19. 2010 17:12

James Dotson

Senior Contributor Location: Tennessee Joined: Aug 24, 2009 20:40 Messages: 3066 Offline

Mar 19, 2010 18:22

Unfortunately, when you re-encode several times to different formats you will loose quality. I'll look at the images when I get home. Until then I can't say if it is normal or not. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

DavidONeil

Newbie Joined: Mar 12, 2010 11:17 Messages: 25 Offline

Mar 19, 2010 18:28

Thanks. If it turns out that this is normal, what program/s do you use to create animations, and what process gets around this issue?

David

DavidONeil

Newbie Joined: Mar 12, 2010 11:17 Messages: 25 Offline

Mar 19, 2010 19:44

More mind-numbing trial and error, and I think the problem is in the MP4 compression, and there is nothing I can do except try a different background. As a test, I got a frame from the good .avi as a PNG file, and it was beautiful. Imported it into PD as a still image, created an MP2 file, and the banding appeared. Then I imported the PNG file into a graphics program and exported it as a 100% quality JPG. The banding appeared in that step as well. So it is probably a JPG issue, not a PD issue. (I've heard that JPG's don't really like blues and reds, and this seems to confirm that. MPEG files use JPGs in their process, if I'm not mistaken.)

Any experience working with these issues? What have others done? Thanks!

David

James Dotson

Senior Contributor Location: Tennessee Joined: Aug 24, 2009 20:40 Messages: 3066 Offline

Mar 19, 2010 21:13

The mp4 goes by too fast to see when I play it. When I tried to open it with PD I got an error. I use a similar image and had to make a custom profile with a constant bitrate and progressive video type. That made it noticeably better. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

DavidONeil

Newbie Joined: Mar 12, 2010 11:17 Messages: 25 Offline

Mar 19, 2010 22:38

But it is still noticeable, I take it. Using the same settings, it still is for me. I'm sorry about the shortness of the clip - it is necessary to quickly pause it to see the problem. Here's a slightly longer version, if it helps.

Thank you for your feedback - I very much appreciate it.

David

Filename	Produce_3_x264.zip	Download
Description
Filesize	75 Kbytes
Downloaded:	381 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 19. 2010 22:39