CS output from digital stills blurry

Choptop · Post by **Choptop** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:45 am

I just upgraded to VS11+ from VS9 and made a quick show from digital stills 2816 X 2112 and the movie came out quite blurry.
I just add pictures to time line, add music, create disk option to folder, then copy files to DVD with NERO.
The VS11+ was just installed this was the first thing I have done with it.
Somehow the sound didn't make the trip either but I fixed that problem (no idea how, every thing looked right) but the sound is saving now.

My queston is simply, what settings work best for using stills to come out sharp? I never had bad results using VS9 with the stills.

Post by **Ron P.** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:11 am

Do you have apply anti-flicker to images selected? What field order are you using? Since you are just using photos, have you chosen Frame based?

Choptop · Post by **Choptop** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:20 am

Vidoman, thanks for the quick reply.
The settings were as downloaded. Since then I have switched some of the settings and tried a save to see results.
I didn't see a lot of diference with the anti flicker, and going to 100% quality helped but still so so.
I was just hoping for a general rule of what works best with stills.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:29 am

The problem is that there does not seem to be a 'general rule'. Some people just do as you have done, used the native resolution of the photos, dumped them in the timeline, and used fairly default project settings. I tend to be one of those people, and get excellent results. The only setting I usually change from the default (which for me is normally lower field first) is to use Frame Based (as Ron has already suggested) with slideshows.

Others reformat their photos in Photoshop, PhotoImpact or equivalent software to reduce both the resolution and the frame format to ensure the latter meets either PAL or NTSC proportions. The main downside of reducing the native resolution of photos, though, is that you can't really zoom in too much on them in any subsequent pan and zoom or you get blockiness or distortion...

While VS has greatly improved its performance with slideshows in the last few releases (and especially from VS9 onwards), I have to say that I still prefer to do my slideshows in Movie Factory. It just seems to do them so smoothly and with no real thinking involved. If you don't have even an earlier version, download the trial version of MF6 and (hopefully) see what I mean...

Post by **Ron P.** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:36 am

Ken Berry wrote:While VS has greatly improved its performance with slideshows in the last few releases (and especially from VS9 onwards), I have to say that I still prefer to do my slideshows in Movie Factory. It just seems to do them so smoothly and with no real thinking involved. If you don't have even an earlier version, download the trial version of MF6 and (hopefully) see what I mean...

I agree with Ken, that DVDMF does a much better job, much easier than VS, for slideshows. The last few that I've done, I've only had about 3 photos out of 40, where the pan/zoom was off and had to be manually adjusted.

The only other program I really like using to produce slideshows, is VS's big bro. MSP8. The feature to use Cue Marks to insert your slides is real handy.

Choptop · Post by **Choptop** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:45 am

Thank you, I will give "frame based" a try and check out Movie Factory.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:13 am

Assume you have also ticked things like "Keep Aspect Ratio"...