Video Quality reduced when creating DVD from AVI files
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Zoinks
Video Quality reduced when creating DVD from AVI files
I have been working on trying to create a good quality Training DVD. I had started out by capturing the screen on my computer and editing using Camtasia and then saved the videos as AVI with high quality. I can play the AVI's and they are great quality but for some reason when I try to convert them to dvd the quality is reduced and I all the text that was on my screen during the video is blurry and hard to read. Anyone have any clue what might be causing this. Thanks for the help.
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Zoinks
You didn't understand me. I said the captured area must match, not just the AVI. Both.
You need to select a fixed area of your screen to capture, using the same size for the AVI... and the final output, not the whole desktop. Camtasia does a terrible job scaling (besides, fonts and other items are often only 1 pixel wide, which does not easily scale!).
If you need to capture the entire desktop, switch to 800x600 and select a 720x480 region to capture (left, bottom) to get most of it. And avoid the top and right edges of the desktop that will be outside the capture. This is easier in PAL land, with 720x576.
Don't expect MF to scale professionally (bicubic interpolation, etc.) like high-end software.
And if you really need to capture an entire large resolution desktop (instead of just a 720x480 region for NTSC DVD), then create the AVI with the same resolution and use other software that can do high-quality scaling. But it won't be as sharp and clear as a 1:1 copy.
Hope it helps.
You need to select a fixed area of your screen to capture, using the same size for the AVI... and the final output, not the whole desktop. Camtasia does a terrible job scaling (besides, fonts and other items are often only 1 pixel wide, which does not easily scale!).
If you need to capture the entire desktop, switch to 800x600 and select a 720x480 region to capture (left, bottom) to get most of it. And avoid the top and right edges of the desktop that will be outside the capture. This is easier in PAL land, with 720x576.
Don't expect MF to scale professionally (bicubic interpolation, etc.) like high-end software.
And if you really need to capture an entire large resolution desktop (instead of just a 720x480 region for NTSC DVD), then create the AVI with the same resolution and use other software that can do high-quality scaling. But it won't be as sharp and clear as a 1:1 copy.
Hope it helps.
Last edited by snoops on Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Henry
Does Camtasia allow you to choose the type of AVI file? An AVI file can contain DV, MPEG, DivX, etc.
AVI/DV is generally the best. It is higher quality, less compressed, and less lossy than most other formats. (It eats-up 13 GB per hour.)
A high-bitrate MPEG-2 format is OK too, since your DVD will be MPEG-2. But, I don't recommend MPEG-2 if you are going to edit the file, or do anything else that will require it to be re-coded. (Since MPEG is lossy, you loose quality with every encode.)
AVI/DV is generally the best. It is higher quality, less compressed, and less lossy than most other formats. (It eats-up 13 GB per hour.)
A high-bitrate MPEG-2 format is OK too, since your DVD will be MPEG-2. But, I don't recommend MPEG-2 if you are going to edit the file, or do anything else that will require it to be re-coded. (Since MPEG is lossy, you loose quality with every encode.)
[size=92][i]Head over heels,
No time to think.
It's like the whole world's
Out of... sync.[/i]
- Head Over Heels, The Go-Gos.[/size]
No time to think.
It's like the whole world's
Out of... sync.[/i]
- Head Over Heels, The Go-Gos.[/size]
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Zoinks
Thanks for your help guys! I needed to capture my whole screen and I didn't realize the size would decrease the quality until after I recorded everything. I have used both moviemaker and Nero and moviemaker actually gave me the better quality of the two in this case. I appreciate the input so I don't run into this next time I try. 