DVD burning for TV & resolution issues

Daz

I'm trying to burn NTSC DVD's so that they'll run in a DVD player and this is my first time dabbling in this black Art. My problem seems to be that the DVD looks great and crisp on a TV, but fuzzy as all hell when played back on a PC. Example of the DVD playing on a PC here, and you can compare it to the desktop for sharpness: http://www.daz-art.com/DVD_screengrab.jpg

Is this something I just have to accept or does it seem like I've broken something? I'm wondering If the problem is that my renders were done at 640x480, so in able to burn them to DVD, I had to re-render my After Effects file at NTSC rez ( 720x480 ) Anyone clued up on this stuff? Would appreciate the help.

arshlevon

yep thats your problem, to get max quality you have to render out at dvd rez, but also adjust your aspect ratio, so the renders will look streached when the stills are viewed in photoshop, but the burned dvd will look fine. i dont think the quality is that bad, but you do have another option if you know anything about dvd authoring. you can make a regualr dvd that will play in a dvd player, but since you have tons of space on a dvd you can also encode an auto play interface if it is stuck in a computer, the autoplay popup can have a menu that will only play files optimized for a computer, like the raw quicktime files. then you will have the best of both worlds. i am not sure how this works but i have seen it done with some demo reels as well as certain special features on dvds and cds.

pyromania

You are running your desktop at 1920x1200 so powerDVD is upscaling the image to 1280x960 to fit your screen. Going from 720x480 to 1280x960 is going to make it fuzzy. If you set powerDVD to display it in the native 720x480 it should look cripser, it will just be small.

Eric Chadwick

In addition, I found I got really nice improvement by rendering out to fields (NTSC 60fps). That was for VHS, where I knew it would only be seen on a TV. But the smoothness of it took the look up a notch.

Daz

OK thanks guys. Arsh, re-rendering isn't an option for me time wise, so no.2 sounds interesting, I'll have to dig into that.
You'd think so pyro but it looks just as fuzzy at its native too.

Eric Chadwick

Try rescaling the frames outside of AE, using a high-quality rescaling filter (Photoshop CS2 has a couple good ones). AE might be shafting you.

If you want the right aspect ratio on the TV, 720x480 uses a .9 pixel aspect ratio. When you scale from 640x480 to 720x480, that should squish it just fine, IIRC.

Daz

Good idea Eric. Also, I just realised something. When I rescaled in AE, not only did I do that, but I also added a TV safeframe border. Doh, so no wonder I have as much of a loss in resolution as I have. what a noob.

MoP

Don't worry Daz, one of these days you'll be a pro!

Illusions

What are the presets in AE you are using to make your movie? Depending on the preset it might be because of how its rendering out. If you're using a preset for viewing on a TV, its because TV's use rectangular pixels while computer monitors and LCDs use square pixels for display.

Daz

It's not an AE issue per se, after lots of testing I'm positive that it's simply that I had a big resolution loss from rescaling *and* adding a TV safe frame. Thanks for the help guys but I'm totally digging Arsh's solution of adding a Quicktime data file to the DVD for PC viewing. That's always gonna be better quality on a monitor than a DVD. But thanks guys!

Well look MoP I got fancy printed DVD's now so I must be!

http://www.daz-art.com/1.jpg

MoP

Great stuff man, truly pro

Eric Chadwick

How did you print those? Doesn't look like a sticker.

jec1183

Daz there has been no loss of info actually. NTSC is tv standard. So your video is set to work cleanly on a television. As Illusions said tv and monitors send out information in different ways. A tv sends its info in bands across a screen. Monitors do it in pixels. So NTSC converts your video to a format that is renderable on a TV screen. So when you play it on a computer you end up getting blocky distortion.

Daz

Eric: I just bought an Epson R340 which has a special DVD printing mechanism and bay. It prints directly onto the DVD surface. You just need to buy white printable DVD-R's.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AY5...5Fencoding=UTF8

OK thanks jec, that's why Im going with the solution of adding a data Quicktime file to the DVD along with the NTSC encoding.

Eric Chadwick

Thank you. Nice touch.

Daz

My thinking was that they are more likely to throw it in a DVD player with some hint of quality allready visible than otherwise. But we shall see!