Improving Quality

[ophelius]

When I render my final DVD, the video quality doesn't look as great as if I were to export the same video with the same settings to a file. When there's camera motion, there's jaged edges around people. Here's a sample:
Click here
Is there a way to improve quality so it looks smooth around edges? I'm capturing from analog sources through a Canopus ADV110. Like I said, with the same settings, it looks better when exporting to a file instead of rendering to DVD. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Ken Berry]

That sort of effect is called 'jaggies' for obvious reasons! It is usually caused by getting the Field Order wrong. As far as I am aware, the Canopus produces DV/AVI video files, which is good.

DV/AVI uses Lower Field First (LFF) as its Field Order. And when you convert it to a DVD-compliant mpeg-2 (as you say you are doing in your other thread), then you have to make sure that the new mpeg-2 is also LFF. Otherwise, it could, in error, be set to produce your DVD using Upper Field First, and jaggies will result.

Your other thread says you 'pre-render' the DV/AVI to mpeg-2, but you don't say which program you use for that. If by chance it is video studio, and you go Share > Create Video File > DVD, you need to look at the properties in the dialogue box which appears to check which Field Order it is using. If it is using UFF, then you will have to cancel out and start the 'pre-render' process again, but this time choose Share > Create Video File > Custom. And this time, in the dialogue box, click the Options button and change UFF to LFF. Then as I said in that other thread, when you have produced your new mpeg-2 file and insert it in MF, then make sure the 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files' box is ticked in the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the MF screen. And this time you should not get jaggies.

[ophelius]

Thank you, that was very helpful. I will try rendering using LFF and see if that fixes it.