poor slide show

davidpjr · Post by **davidpjr** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 2:33 am

I made a DVD slide show from jpgs. It looks out of focus on the computer monitor but fine on a TV screen. Anyone know why? This is driving me crazy.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 2:59 am

Well, we usually have it the other way around

I can only guess but I guess your images are in a small frame size and low resulotion. On the PC, this shows but on the TV, which has a much lower resolution, these show ok.

What are the image properties, and at what zoom factor do you look at them on the PC?

davidpjr · Post by **davidpjr** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 3:33 am

jpgs are 1 meg in size. As far as how big do I look at them on the monitor, I can go full screen on a 17inch flat screen with the jpg and it looks fine (if that is what you mean.) Even a slide show done on a CD look just as great. Only when I cut it to DVD does it become bad...

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:37 am

I think what Heinz is asking is the properties, such as 1024 x 748...? If you have a small resolution image and then zoom in, then you will start seeing pixelization of the image.

When you burn a CD, the resolution is only going to be around 352 x 240. So you can get away with some fairly low resolution images. However for a DVD the resolution is considerable higher, around 720 x 480. Also if you are using the same video file that you used to make your VCD, to make your DVD then the resulting quality will not be any better then your VCD, and probably worse, due to the video having to be up-rezed to the DVD standards.

Are you doing any resizing/resampling of the images before you create your slide show for the DVD? What steps are you taking to create the slideshow?

For example I'm working on a project that will have still images. I tried resizing them to a 720 x 480, however they are portrait shots. The images are 2516 x 1920 (TIFF). When I resized using an image editing program, the quality was bad. I was surprised when I just inserted them (the original high resolution images) into VS10+ that the quality was great. I thought VS would be terrible on the resizing.

Just a couple of possiblities that came to mind...

Ron P.

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 9:05 am

Hi

Right click an image in the timeline or library and select properties.
From the ‘attributes box’ What are the ‘Width: and Height’ in pixels.

After completing the project did you Share Create Video File.
If so what settings/template did you use

Trevor

davidpjr · Post by **davidpjr** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:34 am

My size is 1944 x 2592 and 1 project had 300 dpi jpgs and the other was 180 dpi jpgs but the same size 1944x 2592.

I just started the project and told it to create a disk. I saw no quality options.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 12:41 am

VideoStudio is a Video Editor and not an Image Editor.
Resize your pictures beforehand to the dimensions of your video
PAL 720 x 576
NTSC 720 x 480

If you are going to use the Ken Burns (Pan and Zoom Effect) you need to make your images a bit larger to accomodate the effect of zooming in.

LINKS

Creating a slideshow with VideoStudio

Video Filters - contains a 'how to' for the Ken Burns effect.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:35 am

One more thing, the dpi settings mean silch in this context, they only give the image a physical size when printed. The higher the dpi the smaller the print from the same image. Screen resolution is around 72 dpi and for a display you dont need more.

Your pictures look crap because of the re-sizing going on in a program that is not meant to work with high resolution images because the intended output (DVD) does not support high resolutions. VS is simply dropping pixel information in order to size the image to the TV frame size. Image editors like PhotoImpact or competing products are much better suited for that kind of task.

No daubt there will be some user advocating to use VS for the resizing, but I would say: your results are not an argument for that approach.

Resize your images to the correct frame size and save these as bmp, not jpg. My images come out cristall clear using that approach. A lot better than what I used to get when using jpg and letting MSP do the resizing.

Terry Stetler · Post by **Terry Stetler** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 7:18 am

I would say yes to what Heinz-Oz said with one exception;

if you're going to zoom in closely to a given image then you should use a proportionately larger size for that image only. Otherwise the zoom looks degraded.

His recommendation to use *.BMP is spot on. *.JPG is not a good choice for slide show images as its DCT compression gets resampled on export to MPEG, which always degradates *.JPG's more vs. lossless formats like *.BMP.

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:26 am

Hi David

Your images sizes are 4:3 which is good as this is the ratio of the video frame.
If you are using 16:9 widescreen use 1024 x 576 to fit the screen ratio.

I resize my images to 768 x 576 for Pal keeping the 4:3 ratio.
Many use larger sizes without problems.
If you use pan and zoom then a larger image may be appropriate as you will see a slight reduction in quality as you zoom in on 768x576.

You say that the final disc when viewed on tv is ok. That being the case I would assume that the images and the process you are using are ok.

So are you saying that the quality of playback in the VS preview screen is bad, or is the playback bad when using Real Player or Windows Media Player.

You said (I just started the project and told it to create a disk. I saw no quality options.)
After making the slide show in the timeline did you Share Create Video File.

Trevor

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:08 am

I didn't want to complicate matters too much, that's why I didn't mention zooming etc. If I want to zoom on an image, I leave the image as big as possible and create a sequence in Canopus Imaginate.

Important is that the aspect ratio is spot on and a non lossy compression is used. As I said, I have had excellent results with bmp format.

thad · Post by **thad** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:23 am

Resize your pictures beforehand to the dimensions of your video

Would cropping the pictures to size be a better description? If the pictures aren't 4:3 to start with, resizing them and keeping the aspect ratio the same won't make them 4:3. Now there are likely borders around the picture to deal with.

I've always wondered about this and thought I was doing something wrong. I've always resized the pictures but then they don't fit the screen. It seemed liked cropping them was a better way, but I've never done it that way.

Thad

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:30 am

Of course you have to crop the images beforehand to make them the right aspect ratio. After that, you reduce the size in an image editor. Don't forget, if you are saving in between, don't save to jpeg again.

thad · Post by **thad** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:41 am

Thanks Heinz Oz. I just wanted to clarify since the common answer is simply "resize to 720 X 480." Some of us newbies need a little more guidance than that.

Don't forget, if you are saving in between, don't save to jpeg again.

I understand that bitmap is the preferred file type since jpegs are compressed, but if you start with jpeg, does it make any difference if you save it to bitmap? Do you gain quality or just not lose any? In other words, if you save a jpeg 3 times, have you just compressed it 3 times? Does that make sense?

Thad

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:45 am

You will not gain nothing but will not lose any more either. If you use PhotoImpact like I do, keep everything in the native ULEAD format .ufo. Every time you save to jpeg, the image gets compressed again and loses more and more quality.