First, I am not an expert with PD, like you a relative newbie, so interested in other replies to your question. However, I would like to endorse your surprise.

I too, take photos at high resolution and I thought I would be able to create slide-shows from them in HD or even HQ at good TV quality (I find 576i broadcast quality to be pretty good, of course HD is even better). However, apart from the poor PREVIEW quality, which I dont mind that much, it is the final rendered result which is really horribly poor.

So, if adlawford is doing something wrong, so am I and I look forward to the answer !!! i7 980x; W7 Pro; 12GB; Nvidia GTX 285; 2x300G Velociraptors in Raid 0; 2x1.5TB Barracuda in Raid 1; 2TB WD Studio Ed.II (eSATA); NEC SpectraView Reference 2690 + MultiSync EA232

Thanks, Denbigh, your comments make me feel better already! (I do wonder whether my inexperience has something to do with it, but maybe not.) I'm glad it seems to be an issue for you too, and I hope that someone else can shed some light on the problem.
LadyA

adlawford@bigpond.com,

First of all, I assume that you understand difference between preview look and final video.
About degraded quality: you said that your photo is about 4MB JPG, so I guess it's about 12-16 Mpx, and that means your photo has resolution about 4000x3000. DVD resolution is 720x576 (the best case). As you can see, it's about 6 time worse than your original photo. Many details are lost already at first stage of coding, as soon as you import photo in project!
Finally, program applies MPEG-2 algorithm, which additionally degrade quality (how much - it depends of applied dynamics to photo; if you have static photo, without zooming or panning, and if you set high quality parameters - you can keep quality from previous stage).

I have experimented a bit with formats of INPUT photos, because I also concern about "keeping source quality". Conclusion: PD8 has a very bad "downscaling" engine. If you want to keep quality of photo as much as possible, you should:
1. All static photo downscale in specialized photo software to the desire resolution. For example, for Blu-ray quality you have to downscale your photo to 1934x1088 pixels (I don't know why PD makes 1934x1088 instead 1920x1080, but it is a fact).
2. Save your photo in JPG (?!?!?!) format, not BMP. Again, it is strange and I don't know why is it so, but PD likes JPG more than BMP.
3. Set all quality parameters to get max quality (i.e. CBR instead CVBR, 30Mbps instead 20Mbps, Speed/Quality indicator 7 etc.)

NOTE: I experimented with BD format, and I can not say that these rules are valid for DVD format, because of "quadratic pixels" in BD, and "rectangle pixels" in DVD. But very soon I will analyze DVD format and give a report here.

Branislav,

That all makes good sense, and it must be better to use a pro program like PS or whatever, which have good algorithms for down-sizing.

I think I mentioned in my previous that I would be happy to get as good quality as broadcast, let alone HD, so before grumbling any more, I will have a go as you suggest.

Incidentally, to make an exellent PC-based slide show, I have found that FastStone has a slide-show builder which is really excellent. Of course, we all want to show off on granny's telly...

hasta la vista, or windows 7 if you prefer.... i7 980x; W7 Pro; 12GB; Nvidia GTX 285; 2x300G Velociraptors in Raid 0; 2x1.5TB Barracuda in Raid 1; 2TB WD Studio Ed.II (eSATA); NEC SpectraView Reference 2690 + MultiSync EA232

Interesting analysis. I look forward to what you find out. You are correct about JPEG. JPEG is great for email due to its small file size, but terrible for maintaing maximum quality. I'm surprised that PD prefers JPEG files over BMP. Have you ever tried TIFF? Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Hi Branislav,

Just to add to the mix here.
I find that in my PD8, "likes" .bmp images better than .jpeg. So to each his own I guess.
I do agree however that downscaling/cropping in an outside dedicated photo editor, can often yeild better results. And then there's the question of whether one is uputting the image(s) in the Master track, or a PIP track.



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What about PNG? This is a "lossless" Format and PD8 accepts it.

OK, guys - I am presuming you are all of the blokey persuasion! (I’m not.) I really appreciate the time you’re all taking to discuss and suggest ways around the problem, and it’s been interesting to read your proposed possible solutions, but wait a minute: aren’t you overlooking something rather basic?

I have been happily using PD7 for nearly a year now and produced some good stuff, I think (!) without having to do anything more than import the pictures (which are already in the JPG format) and drag them down to the timeline etc. to make each slide show. PD7 certainly had no problems with picture degradation but PD8 DEFINITELY has – WHAT'S GONE WRONG? Instead of offering us an all singing and dancing improved new version, it has turned out to be useless for the purpose for which we want to use it!!!!

If this really IS a glitch with PD8, as I think we have already accepted that it is, shouldn’t we be chucking it back at the PD gurus so that they can concoct a patch or something to fix it? I am a humble user who can barely understand all the methods you are suggesting we try. Why should I go to all the trouble of saving my photos in another file format or trying other esoteric (to me) tricks to try to make PD8 work the way it should in the first place? I am certainly a newbie and might be a bit naive, but I don’t see that this is our problem at all.

The main purpose of my posting this question was to ascertain whether anyone else had struck the same problem and it appears that some of you have. Now that we know that, do we get in touch with the program creators and ask them to fix it? If so, how do we do that?
LadyA

Hi adlawford,

I never had PD7 so I cannot comment on that, however using PD8 I have exactly the same results as you.
I tried to correct the problem by all the known means available and never succeeded.
Why rendering hi res photos in DVDHQ degrades them so much is still a mystery to me.

To get quality results, I gave up trying to produce DVDs and instead now produce 1920 x 1080 mpg or M2TS files.
These are then playable on the PC or on a HiDef Media Player connected to HDTV.
The results can then be quite stunning, however not sharable with family and friends like a std def DVD would be.

Good luck .... regards Patrick

LadyA;

I am in the USA. I have used PD since version 3, and it is impossible to describe the number of "issues" I have had to work through until they were fixed. When I started, there WERE no alternative image formats. Time marches on, and we all must adapt to the changes (sometimes (in my case) kicking and screaming).

Whether you use PD or another image editor, JPG is a "lossy" format and as such, does not rescale well. PNG saves much more of your original image detail, and I now use it for archiving important family images that I may want to blow-up or edit/crop in the future.

Here is one discussion of the differences in the formats:
http://www.scantips.com/basics09.html

Well, Fred, it's interesting that you've had problems with PD from the early days; I keep forgetting that most new software has to be debugged when users do the using! Silly me, expecting it to work problem-free the first time. If that happened with cars or other things we buy, imagine the outcry... but that seems to be how it is in the computer industry and we have to put up with it.

(On the JPG issue, I've never before had problems using this file format and have always been quite happy to use it. It's good enough for the stuff I do, anyway.)

OK, I'll contact the Help Desk and see what they have to say about it. My thanks to everyone who took part in this interesting discussion. LadyA

LadyA,

1. Could you please provide a screen shot of your timeline in one of your projects that you are having this picture quality issue with?

2. Are you using any "Color Boards" in your Project?

3. What is the resolution of the Pictures that you are using?

4. Are you using any video clips in your project? If yes, what are there resolutions? If no...disregard the question.

Thank you for your time in providing this information.

Regards,

Kevin
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LadyA;
I was focused on your earlier comment:

When importing high quality JPG images, as soon as I import them into PowerDirector 8, the apparent resolution deteriorates to the point where it is completely unacceptable. The images become very pixillated (which they are not in the original photos) and I don't know how else to describe it.

...and my experience with scaling JPG files. They often "look" good on the screen, but the actual image (pixel) information is very limited in the JPG format. Printing the image will ofttimes reveal the issue. PNG is larger in size, but will upscale and downscale with less "pixelation". JPG specification does not readily support changes in scale without pixelation.

Yes, it is funny that software never seems quite ready for release, no matter what. We learn to accept it I guess. Here is one of the most glaring examples I remember from my past:

I worked for a tech company back when WORPERFECT for Windows was first released. The drivers for the printers were not ready, but the diskette sets for each licensed copy included a "printer driver" disk (that was blank). When we called about the issue they said "SOOO SORRY for the problem we will ship a new set of software to you immediately"!! This little ploy allowed them to release the software on time, gave them an additional week to finish the drivers, and no one really knew that the software was non-functional on release!!!

After more investigation, I have results for both Blu-ray and DVD.
First of all I want to apologize for omitting very important detail: when I say "JPG", I mean "JPG with minimum compression, i.e. maximum quality". Fred, of course JPG is lossy format, but high quality JPG is very difficult to distinguish from some non-compressed format.

So, this is the experiment: I made a five Blu-ray movies (default quality) with imported five different format of photo: original photo (5616x3159pix), BMP, JPG, PNG and TIF (all of them 1934x1088pix). For each movie, one of these photo has been placed on the same place in track. After that, I made the five more movies, but with parameters providing maximum quality for Blu-ray movie.
Then, repeat the same procedure, but with BMP, JPG, PNG and TIF photos in 1024x576 pix., and made five movies for DVD default quality, and five more for DVD maximum quality.
Next, I captured the SAME FRAME from each of 20 movies, using PowerDVD (of course "capturing original video source size").

Results for Blu-ray, in order of frame quality:
1. BD max Quality from JPG - losing about 5%
2. BD max Quality from TIF - losing about 5%
3. BD max Quality from PNG - losing about 5%
4. BD max Quality from BMP - losing about 8%
5. BD max Quality from Original photo - losing about 13%

1. BD Default from JPG - losing about 8%
2. BD Default from TIF - losing about 10%
3. BD Default from PNG - losing about 10%
4. BD Default from BMP - losing about 13%
5. BD Default from Original photo - losing about 20%

Results for DVD, in order of frame quality:
1. DVD max Quality from JPG - losing about 35%
2. DVD max Quality from TIF - losing about 35%
3. DVD max Quality from PNG - losing about 35%
4. DVD max Quality from BMP - losing about 36%
5. DVD max Quality from Original photo - losing about 40%

1. DVD Default from JPG - losing about 35%
2. DVD Default from TIF - losing about 35%
3. DVD Default from PNG - losing about 35%
4. DVD Default from BMP - losing about 36%
5. DVD Default from Original photo - losing about 40%

Of course, percentage is subjective. Captured photos are big (about 6MB for BD, and 2MB ofr DVD), so I can not place them here. If anyone has some suggestion how to publish photos, I will do that.
Note: Size for prepared photos for DVD (1024x576) is disputable! Size has to be 720x576 with rectangle pixels, but I have had no time for that.

Conclusion:
For BD movie, the situation is not so bad, but DVD quality is REALLY awful!

The purpose of this investigation is not to make algorithm for "good quality static picture" (we all used that very rare in PD), but to find (more or less) exactly level of quality, which we can count on.
Anita, I absolutely support you opinion, and agree with every word you say! I buy car for driving, not to pick in its engine.

Hi, Cap'n Kevin,
Thanks for your interest in all this. I should explain to everyone that I do not actually have a copy of PD8 myself, I am very happy with PD7. I have been making shows with PD7, a friend saw what I was doing and wanted to do it too, and she was sold PD8 at the store. She installed it on her machine and I am helping her to understand and use the program, based on my experience with PD7. It was when we burned our test DVD as part of her learning experience that we came across the disgusting picture rendition on our finished DVD.

The short answers to your questions are as follows:
1. Can't do it - PD8 is installed on my friend's computer and it's a 20 min. drive to her place. I'm not all that experienced and am unsure how to get a copy of her screen into this forum. You don't need to see a screen shot of the timeline anyway, since Cyberlink gurus have explained that it does not show final burn quality - see note at the end of this message.
2. Yes, we do have a few colour boards in the test DVD, but they seem to work OK.
3. They are 4meg JPG files (Is this what you want to know? I'm not sure what you mean.) We've tried reducing the file size to 150k, but it doesn't seem to make any difference to the burned DVD quality.
4. No, no video is included, just photos downloaded from my friend's camera.

I imported the same 4Meg files onto my machine here at home and made the same show on PD7: the picture quality was QUITE OK. It should be noted that I am not using HD at all, normal resolution is fine for our purposes, so all this info that other users have given, whilst interesting, I don't think really has any bearing on the problem we're encountering.

To everyone else, thanks for your thoughts.
I have had a response from the Cyberlink about the problem. They have advised me that PD8 has a deliberately downgraded picture quality in the editing window to facilitate faster editing and program making. However they insist that when the final DVD is burned it should come up to good quality on the finished disk. In actual fact, when we real-life users actually burn our DVDs, this IS NOT happening!!!! The discussion is continuing with them. LadyA

I still have not had the time to do some tests pre-downsizing images before making the video.

But I could not resist coming back and asking one question, relating to what we expect from our video editing vs what we expect when we buy the latest version of our new and beloved car....

What about brakes and accelerators ?? i7 980x; W7 Pro; 12GB; Nvidia GTX 285; 2x300G Velociraptors in Raid 0; 2x1.5TB Barracuda in Raid 1; 2TB WD Studio Ed.II (eSATA); NEC SpectraView Reference 2690 + MultiSync EA232

Hi Anita,
As you don't have the full data please can you ask your friend to post on the forum? We are a friendly lot.
Guide information to look up:
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/7979.page#34439
PART A,B,F,E,D apply.

1. The screenshot will show the FULL contents of the time-lines, and yes it is needed for us to assess the situation.
2. I'd like to see a diagnostic file of your friend's PC - that will reveal a lot more details which members will need to ascertain the set ups and possible short comings.
3. The DVD making engine in PD7 and PD8 are the same - from a rendering perspective.
4. What build of PD8 has your friend got - please apply the latest patch? http://www.cyberlink.com/downloads/support/powerdirector/patches_en_US.html
5. Downsizing to a 720x image is going to look rubbish compared with the original and when we had CRT TV's it was OK. Today we have massive monitors and cracking big TV's - we notice every imperfection.
6. What template are you selecting and have you customise your own?
7. What is the source material from as the GOP pattern it contains does affect the re-render of the footage?
8. Please supply the data Kevin asked for - or ask your friend to.

LadyA,
1. Could you please provide a screen shot of your timeline in one of your projects that you are having this picture quality issue with?
2. Are you using any "Color Boards" in your Project?
3. What is the resolution of the Pictures that you are using?
4. Are you using any video clips in your project? If yes, what are there resolutions? If no...disregard the question.
Thank you for your time in providing this information.
Regards,
Kevin

Dafydd

Thanks Denbigh for making me laugh


Dafydd

Hi guys,
We've gotta laugh - we'd cry otherwise... good joke, Denby.
Now. Daffyd:
You will hardly be able to believe this, but my friend is in the absolute stone age when it comes to computers. She barely knows how to send an email, so when she said she wanted to learn PD I was gobsmacked, but willing to help - a LOT! Unfortunately because of her computer illiteracy she is still on dial-up!!!! There is no way she would go onto a forum, although I'd help her if she did. However with the snail speed of dial-up it would take a year to post and answer stuff.
After your explanation I now understand why you think you need to see the timeline etc. This stuff such as diagnostic files - what are they? I have no idea what they are and don't know how to find them!
My friend hasn't downloaded any patches for the same reason that she hasn't been to an online forum, it would take eternity to download the huge file I saw when I checked for patches. If you think it will help, I'll get my Other Half to help me put it on a thumb drive and load that on her computer.
As for your point 5, well around here some of us have better screens than others, but not everyone has the latest and best. So far, everything I've done with PD7 on normal definition has come up amazingly well on another friend's HD home theatre screen the size of the wall.
We are just making a simple demo DVD so my friend can learn the process. We've only used about a dozen or so photos and she's not done any frills as yet. We are not using the Magic Wizard stuff, just doing it all manually.
I have no idea what you are talking about in point 7... sorry.
Over to you. Thanks for responding. LadyA