DVD comes out pixelated

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DVD comes out pixelated

Hello. I am having trouble burning my Final Cut Express HD movie to DVD. The result I get is pixelated. You can really see the bad resolution around titles I created within FCE HD. The text doesn't look sharp. It's only a 10 minute movie, so I'm not looking to compress anything. I want my film to look as sharp as it does when I play the raw, unedited footage from my camcorder to my t.v. Here are the steps I have gone through. Hopefully someone can help me and see my problem. I've been struggling with this for weeks:

1. From Final Cut Express HD, I go to "Export QuickTime Movie", with "Make Movie Self-Contained" deselected.

2. Open exported file in Anamorphicizer to retain 16:9 aspect ratio.

3. This then opens QuickTime Pro. I save as a reference movie. "Save as a reference movie" option selected.

4. Now in iDVD 6, I want to make a DVD without menus so I click on the DVD map icon. Then I drag my reference movie to the main area.

5. I go to "Save as Disc Image" so can burn the DVD with Toast at a slow speed for better resolution. I get a dialog box that says "Warnings in project. There were warnings during the project validation. It is recommened to fix these problems before burning the project." I don't know what that means or how to fix the problems, so I click on "Continue Burning."

6. In Toast 6, I burn the DVD at 1xDVD.

The result is poor resolution.

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Apr 29, 2007 5:03 PM

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Answer 1

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 29, 2007 6:25 PM in response to heenalu5

It's not going to. The video is being compressed to a format that will play back off a DVD at a much lower delivery rate, theoretically no more than 10Mbps, including audio. The reality is the video data rate is usually compressed down to around 7.7Mbps. DV and HDV at 25Mbps natively.

When you get the error message, there is a disclosure triangle in it. Twirl it open. What does it say?

What quality setting are you using in iDVD?

5. Slow burn speed doesn't give you better resolution. It only gives you a a more positive write to disc, with less chance of an error. The resolution is fixed when you make the disc image. Unless you have an incredibly old DVD burner there is no need to go to 1x to get a good disc.

Before you burn the disc. Open the disc image with the DVD player and see how it looks.

You should ask all these questions on the iDVD forum as they are really unrelated to FCE.

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Answer 2

Apr 29, 2007 7:11 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Is it JUST the titles that are bad, or everything?

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Answer 3

Neil G

Level 3

770 points

Apr 29, 2007 7:40 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Tom is correct: the rate you write to the disk has nothing to do with the resolution you see on a TV later. The DVD/TV picture will be softer than what you see in FCE or iMovie.

The iDVD warnings are probably because you didn't set and titles or thumbnails in the 'menu' screen of the DVD template you chose. (You said you just dropped the QT file into the 'map'.)

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Answer 4

heenalu5 Author

Level 1

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Apr 29, 2007 8:21 PM in response to heenalu5

I actually meant to post this to the iDVD forum, but this is all good feedback.

I had the iDVD quality setting to "Best Quality." I also read the disclosure triangle in iDVD. Guess I had some empty drop zones. I tried again. I set the quality to "Best Performance." I saved a disc image. No more errors out of iDVD. That part solved. I then looked at it on the Apple DVD player, and the resolution is the same. Still pixelated. Still baffled.
_____________________

Everything looks bad. Not just the titles. But it's more pronounced around the titles.

Thanks.

PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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Answer 5

Neil G

Level 3

770 points

Apr 29, 2007 8:36 PM in response to heenalu5

Best Performance allows a variable bit rate on the DVD and can record for up to two hours. Best Quality is limited to one hour because it records at a constant (and higher) bit rate. I suppose BP can equal BQ for recordings of less than an hour, but that's probably been tested and either confirmed or denied on the iDVD forum.

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Answer 6

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 29, 2007 10:53 PM in response to Neil G

I thin k you mean the other way around, sort of. Both will do two hours, but best shouldn't be used over one hour.

It's academic. The result exceeds the user's expectations. There may not be a solution to that.

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Answer 7

Alchroma

Level 7

23,918 points

Apr 30, 2007 2:55 AM in response to Neil G

Best Performance is related to the time iDVD takes, it performs quiker provided the the DVD is under and hour.
Best Quality kicks in the 2 pass VBR and takes longer to encode.
For a ten minute movie either setting should work fine.

Al

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Answer 8

Neil G

Level 3

770 points

Apr 30, 2007 6:22 AM in response to Alchroma

Yikes. I stand corrected. The relationship between the settings and their names is poor. Personally my projects are shorter than an hour and BP (with background encoding turned on) was annoying on my G4 iMac, so I've always used BQ. I also 'save a disk image' before burning. Then I can look at the result in the DVD Player before committing to plastic. Thanks Tom & Al.

Back to the original thread: "I want my film to look as sharp as it does when I play the raw, unedited footage from my camcorder to my t.v."
That ain't gonna happen. And wide screen exaggerates the difference.

Another option is to export a self-contained movie and view it 'full screen' in Quicktime on your Mac screen. Record it back onto MiniDV tape for safe keeping. Some day you might be able to burn that to Blu-Ray or HD DVD.

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Answer 9

heenalu5 Author

Level 1

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Apr 30, 2007 7:04 AM in response to heenalu5

Hello,

The answers seem to be getting off topic. Some questions have been resolved, but my primary question now is, after going through what seems to be all the required steps in exporting a movie from FCE HD to iDVD, it's the titles that appear to be pixelated. It's as if there is an invisible rectangle around the titles, and there is a lot of pixelation around it. At this point I'm thinking there's a problem with the way I'm creating the titles in FCE HD. Here's a link to a screen capture of what I'm talking about. I don't see this pixelation until I make a Disc Image in iDVD.

http://onelastwave.com/capture.jpg

Thanks.

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Answer 10

Neil G

Level 3

770 points

Apr 30, 2007 7:40 AM in response to heenalu5

It's very hard to see it in your JPG, but an "auto smart fix" in Photoshop Elements exaggerates it enough to jump out at the viewer. Please tell us how you created the titles. (Nice website, BTW)

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Answer 11

heenalu5 Author

Level 1

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Apr 30, 2007 8:05 AM in response to Neil G

Here's how I created titles in FCE HD:

1) In the Browser I selected Video Generators - Text - Lower 3rd.

2) In the Viewer, I selected Controls - Typed in the text in the Text 2 field - chose Gill Sans Bold - Size 20 - Tracking 1 - Font Color white - Background None - Opacity 100.

3) Then I went back to the Browser, clicked and dragged the "Lower 3rd" icon over the Canvas and selected "Superimpose."

4) Then I rendered the text because I got a red bar in the Timeline.

That's it.

I lightened the sample screen capture so now you can really see that invisible rectangle around the title that is really pixelated:

http://onelastwave.com/capture-2.jpg

[Thanks on my website. 🙂 Hopefully I'll be adding to the video gallery if I can get over this hurdle.]

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Answer 12

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 30, 2007 9:02 AM in response to heenalu5

Don't use the Text tool. Use Title 3D. Don't use pure white. See Philip Hodgetts' article on text for video on kenstone.net. The mosquito noise you're seeing is typical of high contrast, highly compressed, interlaced media like MPEG-2.

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Answer 13

Neil G

Level 3

770 points

Apr 30, 2007 9:30 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

I agree that Title 3D is a better choice. For starters, it's default 'color' isn't 100% white (255), but 235R/235G/235B. Contrasty edges can show "crawl". Most TV titles have a 'drop shadow' that softens the edges. The "3D" part can be an outline that helps the text stand out when the video behind it shift colors or brightness.

OTOH, I created a short test with the "Lower 3rd" defaults and then created a DVD image. I don't get the dark rectangle of distortion your images show. You don't seem to have changed the Lower 3rd defaults, but I didn't even touch them.

I'm running 10.4.9, FCE 3.5.1, iDVD 6.0.3, and QuickTime 7.5.1

(profile updated)

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Answer 14

heenalu5 Author

Level 1

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Apr 30, 2007 9:42 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

I apologize for the dumb question, but what's "Title 3D." I went to the kenstone.net website, did a search on "Title 3D" and didn't see anything under that name. I saw "Title Exchange," but that seems to be for subtitles.

Thanks.

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Answer 15

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 30, 2007 9:50 AM in response to heenalu5

Title 3D is in the Generators.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/perfect_titlesphil.html

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