There's no preview quality settings in PD7 that I know of. I'd have to guess it's something specific to the media.

Does the same thing happen if you drop the included aquarium video in the timeline?

Have you produced your project to see if the final product looks the same as the preview?

Hi Matthew,

Do you mean that the quality is poor in the preview window or in media viewer, you can change the quality in the preview window.
Click on the Select Preview Quality Button, located below the Preview window (third button from the right) and you can select from High, Normal or Low preview quality.
You will obtain the correct quality of your video clip by viewing with Media Viewer.

Robert Intel i7 930, 16GB ram, Radeon HD 5770 1Gb,Ver. 14.12 Win7 64 bit
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PDtoots

Oh heck, I always thought that was just a snapshot button.

What brain surgeon thought those two un-related things would make a good combo button?

Thanks

Thanks Walker and Robert, for the quick replies!

The preview quality setting is set to high.

Good idea, checking the aquarium footage.
It actually exhibits the opposite effect.
When I click on the thumbnail in the library area, it looks worse than if I click on the instance of it in the timeline....
This is the opposite of what I am experiencing with my high resolution screen captures.
When I watch them from the library they look just like the real thing.
When I watch them from the time line, it's actually harder to read the text and all lines are fuzzy.

I did notice that my aspect ratio is not 4:3 but 4.5:3 so I will try it with an actual 4:3 ratio and see if that helps.....

K, I'm back.

I tried it with a screen capture of 1280x960 (4:3) and it is at least a little better. It's still a fair quality loss from library to time line but less I believe.

Oh, and yes, the quality loss is also there in produced files as well as DVDs burned at HQ.

I burned a DVD stright from an AVI that was uncompressed and looked great in QT and Windows Player but the DVD played on teh same screen was very bad looking.

I'll play around a bit today and see if there's anything I can do.

Thanks again!

Well, I figured it out I think. (somewhat)

When I use video that is 640x480 it's fine.
When I use video that is higher resolution it's not.

I though DVDs were capable of 720x480 resolution?
Is PD7 not capable of doing that?

I'm a little confused. You have HD source files and source images (ie. "I've used 1280x1024 uncompressed AVI screen captures" ) and you are burning them down to standard DVD size ~720x480. In that case the DVD will not look as good, nor as good as the source AVI does.

The same applies if you pop in a standard definition DVD movie on your computer, it doesn't look that hot on your very hi-res screen.

You need a HD DVD burner / BlueRay Burner to get the HD quality of your source material. Then when you render your project, burn it to an HD format instead of SD and your're good to go. Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
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I'm a little confused. You have HD source files and source images (ie. "I've used 1280x1024 uncompressed AVI screen captures" ) and you are burning them down to standard DVD size ~720x480. In that case the DVD will not look as good, nor as good as the source AVI does.

No. I'm not burning them down to standard DVD (size ~720x480).
I simply put them into the time line of PD7 and that alone drops the quality a great deal.
The only time it's not doing this is when i use a 640x480 file.
Otherwise, the simple act of dragging the library file into the time line file causes incredible visual degradation.

I certainly wouldn't expect a DVD to hold the full 1280x1024 resolution.

As a side note, even when I do burn a DVD from a 640x480 AVI it looks worse than any DVD I have including ones made by low budget independent documentary film makers I've worked with.

Thank you "on the web", for your input.

It looks like I should just capture video at the ratio I plan to use it in.
PD7's rendering/re-sampling from 720x480 to 640x480 is not only very destructive but it's also necessary as there is no uncompressed AVI 720x480 render option.

Hi Mathew,
Can you post the screen capture software you use and any mediainfo on the files you are using?

I'm testing the issue and having the same slightly illogical 'problem' but it would be useful to have more info.

Cheers
Adrian


Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Here are 2 captures from PD7. The Library is a screen capture when previewing the video file from the library and the Time line is the same video file when previewed from the time line (movie)

The original video file is 720x480.

I'm using Hypercam 2 in uncompressed AVI to capture the screen and it's doing a fantastic job. The AVI is completely indistinguishable from the actual screen it records.

the only problems arise when I bring those files into PD7.
Inserting into the time line degrades them and then burning a DVD degrades them further.

By the time I'm done the DVD looks terrible compared to any other DVD and especially compared to the original AVI video file.

EDIT: Even when (especially when) the video I start with is 720x480, which is suposedly the resolutiuon the DVD is at so it really should be much more similar than it is.

Disregard the pictures in the last post.
They are degraded as well since the snap shot function in PD7 is very compressed.

I will post uncompressed pics of the same video in the library, time line and as a DVD.

Hi Mathew,
Can you try this :-

Take a small avi capture clip, import to library, drag to time line (no doubt it will look low res) and produce to streaming file wmv9 HD standard and see what the quality is?

Thanks
Adrian

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Sure thing. I started with a 1280x960 and the wmv9 HD standard does not look too bad.
It's certainly fuzzier and duller and the color is more greyish but for 2.19MB file that is a 1:571 ratio of the original,.. WOW.

Hi Mathew,

It seems there is an issue with both the 'preview and media viewer' side of things as well as an issue with the rendering side, maybe specifically related to screen capture avi files but I'm not 100% sure. I've tried a series of combinations with my setup and also discussed the findings with Dafydd (Moderator) and his system. He has raised the issue with Cyberlink (I think?)

Maybe you can use the wmv pathway until something is fixed?

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Ya, I'll continue to mess around to figure out what's possible.

Thanks,
Matt

Just a quick question for you Matthew. What burning software are you using at the moment? I'm guessing that this may be part of the problem.

As far as clips not looking as good while you are previewing them in PD7, that's just a function of the playback, it would seem. Even when you adjust the quality to "high," they still won't look as good even for high quality clips. The only sure fire way to actually tell how good your project will look like on DVD is to just burn it to a RW DVD disc. This saves tons of money and will keep you from making unnecessary "drink coasters"...something that I learned the hard way. lol.

Thanks Frank,

I'm using PD7 to burn the DVDs.
I've already tried a couple and they don't look too good on my PC screen but they aren't bad on my HDTV.
Not great but not too bad.
It's hard to make out the text but text on a 1280x1024 PC might be asking a lot of a DVD.

I'm gonna make another DVD with video of all resolutions and ratios and compare them on my HDTV.
Do you think 720P up convert might work on these?
I'll give it a shot...

Thanks for your input.

Well, I made another DVD with several 3:4 and 4:6 ratio examples at resolutions from 720 x 480 to 1280 x 1024.

It seems I was just expecting too much out of DVD.
Like I said, I'm not a big video guy. I'm a sound guy and I want to make DVD tutorials of how to use audio software for my student.

Although it's a bit of a pain, It looks like capturing at 800 X 600 or 720 X 480 will be the best way to go.

Since I'm used to using these softwares at 1280 X 1024, it'll take some getting used to but at least I found a happy medium.

Hopefully soon, Blue-Ray players will be $80 a piece and then I will not have to worry about it.

Thanks all for your help!

I'd just like to chip in and say that i didnt notice it with the SD files from my previous camera, but i've found it quite noticable with the HD files from my HF11 (See attached files).

Its quite off putting - and although probably unrelated, if i make a normal (SD) DVD from my AVCHD files, the quality is noticable degraded (much like the difference between previewing files from the library and timeline).

Russ