Quality of Still Images in VS X2 is Dreadful!

Bytheseaside · Post by **Bytheseaside** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:38 am

The quality of still images once they have been added to a Video Studio X2 project is dreadful - low resolution & fuzzy. Insert the same images (3648 x 2736 jpegs) into Video Studio 8 and they are clear and sharp. Does VSX2 deliberately degrade these images? Why has the quality of images displayed in Video Studio dropped so badly between VS8 & VSX2?

Rendering a one hour project in VS8 takes hours. In VSX2 it takes about 45 mins. Is this why VSX2 degrades high resolution jpegs to low resolution: to speed up the rendering?

I'm currently running the 30-day trial version of X2. I'm not going to pay for it if the quality of images can't be improved at least to the level of VS8. Is there some later upgrade of VSX2 which restores the still image quality back to full resolution?

Has anyone compared image quality between other Video Studio versions?

Is the image quality in VS11 to the high standard of VS8 or the low standard of VSX2? Is VS11 still available anywhere? I need a version that will run fast on my computer - quad-core processor running XP - & deliver the quality of Video Studio 8. I only use standard definition movies along with still images in my projects, not HD.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 2:11 pm

Have you done a Search on this issue, because it's been brought up over and over again. Heck, there are even two threads on the first page of this forum...

http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=36641
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=36696

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 5:26 pm

Hi All

Relatively new to VS 12 (X2) but very surprised at the low quality of images especially when using Pan & Zoom.

I have run a few tests and can confirm that VS 8 and 9 produce much better images than VS 10 or 12. I dont have a solution at the moment, and have tried many options?????????

John .. I do not have VS 11 but if your thinking of buying expecting to improve quality then think again.

I will send you the images so you can compare VS versions.

Happy New Year

Bytheseaside · Post by **Bytheseaside** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 5:34 pm

Jeff,
Thank you for pointing out those threads. Do I assume that so much discussion means there is a problem of image quality in X2? Did anyone come up with a solution?
I had done a search, but I came up with hundreds of pages & most seem to be about image resizing in NTSC. I am in a PAL part of the world & I don't want to resize my images, they work fine just as they are - in VS8.

My problem is that I have a project, built in VS8 that is exactly as I want it. There is one image, a map, where I pan across the map & zoom into a place name. In VS8 the place name is sharp & clear.

I want to upgrade to the latest VS version, so I downloaded X2. When I loaded my project into X2 I found I could no longer read the place name on the map. I tried reloading the image - same illegible blur. I tried resizing the image: that just changed the way the blur looked.

Why is an image that is sharp in VS8 fuzzy in X2?

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 6:01 pm

Bytheseaside wrote:J When I loaded my project into X2 I found I could no longer read the place name on the map.

Was that after you rendered and burnt or in the Preview Window?

Post by **Ron P.** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 6:53 pm

In addition to John's question, I'll add.. What size of monitor are you using? In the Preferences for VS did you set the Resampling to Best before rendering, or leave it at the default Better?

I'm also running a test between VS8 and X2. I'll see if there's a remarkable degradation with the images in VS X2. I'm using the same images in each editor. The resolution of the images: 3264 x 2448.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:06 pm

I have just run a few tests between v10 and v12 (X2). Sorry, but I don't have older versions loaded on my pc at the time. I will comment, however, that I have not experienced a drop off of quality from previous versions, that I am sure.

----------

In both versions Preferences were set exactly the same, and those affecting stills were set at the following:
Resampling Quality: Best
Image Resampling Option: Keep Aspect Ratio
Apply Anti-Flickering in Image Clips is checked

The images I used were straight from my camera, as I always do. I never resize them or manipulate them in any way. They are downloaded to my pc and imported in VS. Their properties are as follows:
JPEG
Data Type: RGB True Color (24-bit)
Width: 2816 pixels
Height: 2112 pixels
Res: 72 pixels/inch
Size: 17,424 kb

I put 4 images on the main track. Applied Pan & Zoom - P&Z1 on the first image, P&Z2 on the second, and so on. Also added a small title. Typed "Test" in Arial 10 pt, in white, no shadow. Rendered to an MPEG-2 file with the following properties:
MPEG-2
LFF
720 x 480, 4:3
8000 kbps
Quality/speed slider was kept at default - 70%

I followed the same procedure in both v10 and v12. I also saved the v10 project and inserted that into v12 to see if that caused a difference. In all tests quality was identical, as far as I could tell. "Test" was easily read, no blurring. And this was viewed on my old Dell CRT computer monitor, not on a TV.

----------

I have read over the years of people having quality issues with stills. One of the suggested fixes is to resize the images with an imaging app first so VS doesn't have to do it. I must confess I have never had too. Maybe I'm just lucky, but it seems there is something more to it - probably a hardware issue.

I would make sure your graphics drivers are up to date.

I am sorry that I cannot offer more advice than that, as I cannot re-create the problem.

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:30 pm

Hi

I only saw a real improvement in quality when I used VS 8 and 9.
Later versions, VS 10 onwards showed a marked depreciation in quality.
VS 12 being the worst.

I¡¦ll be interested in Ron¡¦s comparison VS 8 versus VS12

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:31 pm

I've just carried out a test of sorts. I only have VS x2Pro installed. I imported images at 3648 x 2736 px Res 94 px/cm size 29Mb (Which is from my SLR camera just saved to jpeg as I shoot in RAW) and some at 1600 x 1200px from an old compact camera.
I could see no loss of quality in any of the shots whether they had pan and zoom or not. I produced both SD and HD DVD's and they were both excellent although there was a marked difference between the larger jpegs and the smaller one's but I would have been surprised if that had not have been the case.

MatthewJ · Post by **MatthewJ** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:37 pm

Bytheseaside wrote:The quality of still images once they have been added to a Video Studio X2 project is dreadful - low resolution & fuzzy. Insert the same images (3648 x 2736 jpegs) into Video Studio 8 and they are clear and sharp. Does VSX2 deliberately degrade these images? Why has the quality of images displayed in Video Studio dropped so badly between VS8 & VSX2?

I'm the OP of one of those other threads, and I am still struggling to resolve this issue. I'm also perplexed and frustrated by the horrid quality of the the rendered JPG images that I have inserted into a project I'm working on. The whole time I was working on this project, I saw the low quality images in the preview, but chalked it up to the fact that it was just the preview -- the rendered video looks even worse than the preview!

I'm not doing anything funky with the images -- in most cases just inserting them (to the overlay track, because for some reason I cannot use the main track and do a simple sequence of "image--->black screen with text--->image" in the main video track). At most, I repositioned a few of the images off-center, and zoomed in on a few, and the quality is terrible.

I'm in the process of going back and removing any recenter/zoom I did on any of the images in the hopes of salvaging at least something remotely decent looking after the hours I spent working on this project. I'm really shocked and amazed at the dismal performace of VS on such a simple task.

Post by **Ron P.** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:38 pm

I've done about the same as Jeff, except I used 6 images, with a twist...

The first 3 images were not resized, resolution of 3264 x 2448, what came out of my camera. I had a title screen preceeding it, backed by a dark-blue color clip. The text being white, with a shadow, larger point size. This was followed by another title screen, then 3 of the same images that I resized in PI to 1024 x 768. All images had P/Z applied.

This was done first in VS8 then duplicated in VS Pro X2. The project settings for were as follows for both:
MPEG-2
Frame-Based
720 x 480 (NTSC)
Constant Bit Rate: 9000kps
Anit-Flicker Filter applied
Resample set to Best.

I could not see any degradation between versions. I also loaded the VS 8 lproject into VS X2 and still no degradation observed.

I then rendered each project to MPEG-2 video files and viewed them in WMP and Windows Media Player Classic. Still I could not see a difference...

When dealing with MPEG video, both use the same MPEG.now encoder. So that should not have any different affect from one version to the other. If you're rendering to some other format, then there are several more variables thrown into the mix.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:48 pm

Ok, so we've resolved nothing!

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 9:30 am

Black Lab wrote:Ok, so we've resolved nothing!

Other than it looks more like a hardware issue than software.
If John (Byetheseaside) was willing to put a few of his still images online for download I would be happy to test on my system and upload the resultant file.
BTW Anyone know where 2009 went?

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 12:26 pm

Hi John M

I have some images and VSP from my tests. I will make them available to you and Ron.
If anyone else wishes to view please e-mail me.

and a Happy New Year to you all

Post by **Ron P.** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 4:10 pm

First.. Thank you Trevor for providing these, as it pushed me to pursue this problem in considerable depth to find a possible solution.

With the examples provided by Trevor, I was able to observe the horrible quality with VS X2 in comparison to VS8. I was not willing to settle for it is just a result of the program. Since I have numerous versions installed on my desktop, versions 8 through X2 Pro, and MSP8, I started a lengthy troubleshooting process. Instead of bore everyone with all the details, I'll just post a short summary.

In VS10 + I noticed that the quality had slipped, when in VS8 and VS9 the quality was good. So digging deeper in VS10+ I finally found the culprit to this, it is the anti-flickering filter. When I unchecked this option in VS10+ the quality was identical to that of VS8. So the next step is to check this in VS X2. When I unchecked the apply anti-flickering filter, the quality was the same compared to VS8...

So for some reason this nice little filter has an adverse affect on images like maps. It tends to blur the text. I'll also add that since this was checked on PCs, I used Frame-based and unchecked render non-square pixels. PCs do not use interlaced video (LFF or UFF), and uses square pixels.

Alludo USER to USER Web Board