Magic fix quality question

Edward K.

Newbie Joined: Jan 28, 2009 11:47 Messages: 6 Offline

Solved by

Jan 28, 2009 12:18

Hi. Just started to try the PD6 that was on my HP and like what I see. I have been using a competitors software for years but have been a little disenchanted as of late. This is a pretty good product and really like the magix fix stabilization feature. I am editing DV-AVI files encoded in 25 mbps. Needless to say the files are large in comparison to other formats but I wish to preserve as much of the quality as possible.

Magic fix does a great job on the hand held-shake movements and the side by side preview is like night & day. When it is done I save it again in DV-AVI and then burn it to a disc for a DVD player viewed on a SDTV or plasma tv.

The appearance on a large screen is not as dramatic as on the computer. Understanding that the viewing screen is larger an that you would notice more movement but it seems like it "reverts" in quality a bit. It looks better to be sure but not the same.

My questions are: 1. Is compresing the DV-AVI to MPEG a factor

2. If so, would it help to save the raw DV-AVI file to MPEG before editing and applying magic fix.

3. Is it an illusion of decreased stabilization due to the size of the viewing screen. (19" computer monitor vs. 32" CRT TV vs. 50" plasma HDTV).

I'm sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere but a search didn't find the answer but it could be my newbieness to this forum.

OnTheWeb1

Contributor Location: Michigan USA Joined: Jan 02, 2009 12:58 Messages: 511 Offline

Jan 28, 2009 12:52

My questions are: 1. Is compresing the DV-AVI to MPEG a factor

2. If so, would it help to save the raw DV-AVI file to MPEG before editing and applying magic fix.

3. Is it an illusion of decreased stabilization due to the size of the viewing screen. (19" computer monitor vs. 32" CRT TV vs. 50" plasma HDTV).

1) Yes, every compression or re-rendering of video tends to degrade it a bit. Use the highest possible bitrate when encoding.

2) It won't hurt to try, but now you are re-encoding twice and I suspect the end product won't be any better.

3)Yes. If you look down the forum to find a thread I posted regarding video stuttering, people including myself didn't see it happening in the small preview window and it seemed to appear only after burning and viewing full screen. However, upon going back and closely examining the preview we discover the stutter really was there all along, just not as noticeable on a small screen. Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

Edward K.

Newbie Joined: Jan 28, 2009 11:47 Messages: 6 Offline

Jan 28, 2009 12:59

Thanks for the quick reply!

Barry

Senior Member Location: N Attleboro, MA Joined: Jul 13, 2006 19:57 Messages: 295 Offline

Jan 28, 2009 13:19

The shake and the stutter are 2 different animals.
The shake is a result of the videography, and the Magic Fix reduces that quite a bit.
The stutter may possibly, that's possibly, be due to the overuse of various filters such as Magic Motion, Magic Fix/anti-shake, and the burdening of your system. If you can, only use these filters where you must, don't simply hit "apply to all" if not every clip needs it.
If you have one long clip, split up the parts that are shakey, and apply the filters only to those portions. That is my 2 cents. Join/SignUp to SeeMyWorldOnVideo. We're PowerDirector Video Editors. Are you a member? - JOIN TODAY!

OnTheWeb1

Contributor Location: Michigan USA Joined: Jan 02, 2009 12:58 Messages: 511 Offline

Jan 28, 2009 13:25

Right. I just used the stutter as an example of something not noticeable on a small screen but very noticeable on the big screen.

The stutter is a bug in 2429a. It was not there in 2227c, and if it were it a resource issue it would have appeared in both since hardware is unchanged. Win8 64-bit Pro Retail
Intel i7-4770
16GB DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
MSI Z87-G45 Motherboard
ASUS GTX 660 Direct CU II OC 2GB GPU
1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) Drive Array
Several scratch drives for video, TMP, pagefile.

Barry

Senior Member Location: N Attleboro, MA Joined: Jul 13, 2006 19:57 Messages: 295 Offline

Jan 28, 2009 13:42

I'm using 2227c with a low-end C2D. Very few crashes, nice responsiveness, but I still resist overdoing the filters. Join/SignUp to SeeMyWorldOnVideo. We're PowerDirector Video Editors. Are you a member? - JOIN TODAY!

Edward K.

Newbie Joined: Jan 28, 2009 11:47 Messages: 6 Offline

Jan 28, 2009 13:55

Say you have a 40 minute production broken into 1 minute clips for sake of argument.

If I would like to correct 30 of the 40 clips would it be best to apply it individually to each clip?

If I do and set varying degrees of correction for each clip will they be applied that way or will one setting apply for all of the clips?

Is this too much correction for "normal" hardware configurations (ie dual core processors and 3+ gigs ram?

Barry

Senior Member Location: N Attleboro, MA Joined: Jul 13, 2006 19:57 Messages: 295 Offline

Jan 29, 2009 07:35

Each clip can be "fixed" individually with different settings.
However, if you use "apply to all", I am unsure if it "reads" each clip and treats them differently according to need. Join/SignUp to SeeMyWorldOnVideo. We're PowerDirector Video Editors. Are you a member? - JOIN TODAY!

Edward K.

Newbie Joined: Jan 28, 2009 11:47 Messages: 6 Offline

Jan 29, 2009 12:53

Thank you for all your replies! It helped me greatly.