how to get best quality dvd from images?

macytyson · Post by **macytyson** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:08 pm

i'm a new user to the trial version of videostudio 10.
i've successfully created a project and video file from high resolution digital pictures. which settings on the 'create disc' wizard should i use to ensure the best quality/highest resolution dvd?
write speed? does closing or not closing disc affect quality? framebased? etc? there's lots of options, i just know which ones to adjust...
i've burned a few discs, but i find the images to be 'fuzzy'

thanks

Post by **jparnold** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:14 pm

Try this tutorial.
Also this tutorial and also this tutorial.

Lastly to find these things quickly try the SEARCH function and enter a search text ( such as settings ) and then select VIDEO PRODUCT TUTORIALS in the FORUM drop down menu.

macytyson · Post by **macytyson** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:28 am

thanks - i've browsed thru these tutorials, but they are a bit much....

for my project, i'm only working with digital picture images to put together a 'slideshow' - set to audio along with some title pages.

what is the best way to put this together in videostudio 10 to make sure i am keeping the high quality/resolution intact?
i opened up a new project (mpeg format), edited the order of images, added some panning and text on some, added in background music. i saved this as a .vsp while i worked on it for a couple weeks. i then saved the 'final' version as a video file then created a disc from that. i find the final output to be a little fuzzy, considering the pics were high resolution to start.

is this the recommended order of things? i'm reading that rendering just once is best to keep the integrity of things. so each time i update and save the project as a video file, this causes rendering to occur?

would it make a difference if i start the project over and use 'edit file format' under project properties as avi instead of mpeg? does editing /reordering/etc images in the timeline affect the quality of the photos before being saved as a video file?

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:41 am

You can only get the resolution of your TV, sorry. The higher the resolution of your images is when you put them on the time line the worse they will look.

You might find the tutorials pointed out to you a bit much but they work.

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:45 pm

heinz-oz wrote: The higher the resolution of your images is when you put them on the time line the worse they will look.

You win by lassitude of the opponent. This time I will not explain again why I beg to differ.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:52 pm

Daniel, while that might be aimed at Heinz, it does not really help the poster.

Mind you, I happen to agree with you. I use quite high resolution photos in large (or relatively large) format, and always have with my slideshows. And I have never had any problems, despite the fact that I do nothing special to them either beforehand or during the compilation of the slideshow.

Mind you, I still tend to use Move Factory for slideshows as that seems custom designed for them. I always used to have trouble with VS 7 and 8 with slideshows, so gave up on them and used MF 2SE, 3 and then 4 instead.

I have to acknowledge that VS9 and particularly 10 have greatly improved on slideshows. But I still tend to use MF5+ for these -- and still do nothing special with the photos beforehand.

BTW, my digital stills comes from a Canon 300D digital single lens reflex camera, which I think is one model down from what Heinz at least used to use. And I use a standard format in that. So no major difference there... Before that, I had a Fujifilm 5600 and a Sony. Again, I used photos straight from the camera in both cases, with no special preparation.

Then again, because I use photos straight off with no problem, I don't have any particular advice I can offer the original poster which might help... Sorry.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:07 pm

I don't want to start an argument here and only quote from my own experiences. My very first slide show was made with PictureShow from 4 MP images. They didn't look anywhere what I would have liked or did expect.

Then I used images with MSP 7.3 in a video project. They didn't look anywhere near as good as the originals straight from the camera.

I followed someones advice and resized them to 4:3 aspect 1200 x 900 px and saved as bitmap. These looked great in my videos and I follow this procedure ever since.

Maybe I should try MF for a slide show one of these days. However, since the aspect ratio is wrong from my Canon EOS 350D, I need to crop anyway and saving as bmp after doesn't bother me none.

What ever works for you. If somebody asks for advice, I will always state the facts I know from my own experience. I'm not claiming that I'm the only one who knows but I do know what worked for me.

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:15 pm

Ken Berry wrote:Daniel, while that might be aimed at Heinz, it does not really help the poster.
Then again, because I use photos straight off with no problem, I don't have any particular advice I can offer the original poster which might help... Sorry.

Never mind, just wait a little and Steve will give us pointers to previous threads about this.

To quote a well-known forum signature: It's not about what's best, it's about what works best for you...

blplhp · Post by **blplhp** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:16 pm

I've imported 10 MP size still images straight from the camera in recent slideshows I've done and they have come out looking pretty sharp. I tried Heinz's technique one time and they came out a little bit sharper, but for me, it was a bit time consuming for 100+ images, but his technique does produce very good results. In Preferences, I select "Best" in the edit tab, then when I create the mpeg-2 video file, I run the quality slider to 100%, and use variable bit rate at 9800 kbps. Since I make slideshows quite often, I've created a custom movie file template for slideshows. When you burn your DVD, use 4x burn speed, not max or 16x.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:47 pm

I do the same as Ken and Bryan - take the pictures straight from the camera to VS with nothing else done to them (such as using a photo editor). They look fine to me.

railroadguy · Post by **railroadguy** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:11 am

I also tried to use 5 Mb images from my digital camera. It's not the size of the file but the resolution in pixels. My camera outputs 2856 x 2142. Now you want VS to reduce that down to 720 something. There will be some loss of quality. It's the same as some Web designers using a 1024 x 760 image and by useing code making fit into a 640 x 480 area.

One, you force the viewer to download a file what is much larger then it needs to be and two, then the browser has to reduce the image on the fly and it looks like crap.

It's better to reduce the resolution in pixels closer to the final size you need.

What I do not know, as I have not tested, if you do use a 5Mb file vs a 250Kb version, how much of that large file size spills over into the final video file size. I suspect a lot of it does.

Post by **Ron P.** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 1:58 am

What I do not know, as I have not tested, if you do use a 5Mb file vs a 250Kb version, how much of that large file size spills over into the final video file size. I suspect a lot of it does.

I just ran a simple test to see if that was the case. I used the same image, transitions and pan/zoom, as well as duration. The only difference was the image sizes.

Large image was just inserted into timeline, size: 2560 x 1920, file size: 3.05Meg. Rendered a DV file, duration: 9secs. Video clip file size: 31,683Kb.

Small image (resized in PE 8.6) to 720 x 540, file size: 85.7Kb. Rendered to DV file, duration 9 secs. Video Clip size: 31,683Kb.

Both DV clips 720 x 480, 29.97fps 4:3 Frame Based. Here's the kicker... I viewed both in WMP, and I could not tell which used the higher quality image...

railroadguy · Post by **railroadguy** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:06 am

Thanks for doing that

OK, file size is a wash. My problem may have been only viewing in preview, in which the large file looked poor, and never finishing to a final rendered file. Also we are all talking images in 16 or 24 bit color. 8 bit GIF's like clip art will really break down reducing them to much.