Video in menu drop zone - poor quality

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Video in menu drop zone - poor quality

I have three menu drop zones each running the same trailer to a car racing event. When there is a lot of motion in the video it looks horrible. Little blue & white flags no longer wave in the breeze but have a shimmering effect. Race track barriers shimmer and some of the car video looks terrible. All this only the menu drop zones. Normal SD video looks OK.

I read that the drop zone will recompress a .m2v to MPEG-2 and cause issues. If this is my problem how can I get around it?

Mark

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Final Cut Studio 3

Posted on Oct 13, 2009 4:47 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 13, 2009 7:40 AM in response to GT40_Mark

If you are going to use DVD SP to create motion menus, then you need to drop QuickTime .mov files into the drop zones, not MPEG-2 videos. MPEG-2 is a highly compressed, uneditable format. If you drop it into a menu, then DVD SP converts it to a QuickTime video then makes the entire screen into one video, then it compresses it to an MPEG-2. This means that the videos you dropped in have now been double compressed, which always results in a loss in quality.

Use MPEG-2 for your tracks.

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Answer 2

GT40_Mark Author

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Oct 13, 2009 12:51 PM in response to Shawn Birmingham

Thanks Shawn.

I tried putting a .mov file into the drop zones but I get incompatible format. Do you mean a .mov as exported from FCP or a compressed .mov that you'd run from a website?

Mark

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Answer 3

GT40_Mark Author

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Oct 14, 2009 6:11 AM in response to GT40_Mark

Tried a .mov compressed from Squeeze and the quality looked great but the video did NOT run smooth.

Then I tried an FCP ProRes -> Compressor -> QT 422 ProRes. This worked great but the two minute trailer I was using for the menu was now 2.09GB. ProRes LT was 1.4GB.

I plan to hack the two minute trailer down to 30 sec and eliminate the sound track to reduce its size so I can use it in the menu.

The QT ProRes LT .mov did the trick though. Tiny blue flags flapping in the wind look like tiny blue flags and not video noise.

If I've gone astray I'll still take some advice. Limiting the menu video input to a .mov seems a little short sighted. Recompressing an MPEG-2 into an MPEG-2 seems like a programming oversight. IMHO

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Answer 4

Oct 14, 2009 7:15 AM in response to GT40_Mark

GT40_Mark wrote:
Tried a .mov compressed from Squeeze and the quality looked great but the video did NOT run smooth.

Then I tried an FCP ProRes -> Compressor -> QT 422 ProRes. This worked great but the two minute trailer I was using for the menu was now 2.09GB. ProRes LT was 1.4GB.

Export out of FCP using the exact same codec that you edited in. FCP makes it easy, just choose Export > QuickTime Movie.

I plan to hack the two minute trailer down to 30 sec and eliminate the sound track to reduce its size so I can use it in the menu.

Good idea.

The QT ProRes LT .mov did the trick though. Tiny blue flags flapping in the wind look like tiny blue flags and not video noise.

If I've gone astray I'll still take some advice. Limiting the menu video input to a .mov seems a little short sighted. Recompressing an MPEG-2 into an MPEG-2 seems like a programming oversight. IMHO

You are not understanding how video works in DVDs. On a DVD there is no "video in a window". The entire screen is one video. So whatever you do, the end result is one video that is the entire screen. This is also why you cannot have parts of the screen run independently of other parts of the screen.

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Answer 5

GT40_Mark Author

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Oct 14, 2009 9:24 AM in response to GT40_Mark

While some of the advice I got was contrary to what I've read, I was able to figure out how to improve the quality of the DVD menu video.

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Answer 6

Oct 14, 2009 12:34 PM in response to GT40_Mark

What parts are contrary to what you have read?

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Answer 7

GT40_Mark Author

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Oct 15, 2009 7:12 AM in response to Shawn Birmingham

Let me see if I can summarize what I've learned.

1. Menu drop zones need a .mov to have a quality appearance. DVDSP takes an MPEG-2 and compresses it into an MPEG-2 (what I read) causing poor video quality.
2. The .mov from Export -> Quicktime errored out with an unknown format error from DVDSP. ???
3. Sorenson compressed .mov worked like a slideshow and not a video. Garbage.
4. Export -> Quicktime got me a 451MB file
5. Send To -> Compressor with ProRes QT (LT) was 1.5GB
6. Obvious loss of something here.
7. 1.5GB "menu video" actually compressed to about 100MB as it went onto the DVD so my fears of a 1.5GB menu with 3.2 left for video and sound were unfounded. Hooray.
8. All is good (for now) and we have a quality product in hand.

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Answer 8

Oct 23, 2009 10:36 AM in response to GT40_Mark

GT40_Mark wrote:
Let me see if I can summarize what I've learned.

4. Export -> Quicktime got me a 451MB file
5. Send To -> Compressor with ProRes QT (LT) was 1.5GB
6. Obvious loss of something here.

No. With video, quality can only be maintained or lost, you can never gain quality. When you export out a QuickTime Movie in FCP, it uses the exact same codec that you were editing in (maintaining quality). If you switch on export to ProRes QT, you indeed get a larger file, but since you cannot gain quality, you are getting nothing but a larger file. The quality is not better. In fact the quality is exactly the same.

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