Quality of Resolution in VS Pro x3 is Awful!

[PopeyeTom]

Hi all,

Newbie to this forum and also to video editing. I've searched and spend time trying to find the answer in both the forum threads arhcive, but also in the product documentation. All to no avail, I'm at a loss.

Both in the viewer window in VS but also in the batch converted files > Resolution is so incredibly bad that the files are unusable. Please suggest recommended settings or changes to my process that will improve the screen resolution. (Audio seems fine, or at least more than adequate for my purposes.)

I'm using VS Pro X3, latest updates/patches have been applied. My system is described in my forum profile, but in short it is an i7 on an Asus mobo, Win 7 Pro x64, Quadro FX1800 graphics - it is primarily a CAD workstation.

I have used CamStudio Recorder V2.6 r294 to capture a region for creating a training video for a PDM program (product data management = database file vault). The files created by CamStudio have some digital noise, but are really quite good - even a screen test that I did of a Firefox browser session, you can read the text of the URL that I enter - the capture is nearly as nice as the browser in a live window. The file size is very nice, an approximately 3 minute capture is only 392MB at 1480x836 frame size.

I spent all day yesterday putting together a project, adjusting the script and creating the voice over. This all worked fine, editing video and audio clips, even adjusting the voice over speed to tweak in the timing for the finish so the voice over and video clips finished simultaneously. But, after writing the file to disk as either AVI or MPG it is of no use what so ever due to garbage video quality.

I have brought clips into VS using both the Import from Digital Media as well as when in Capture as well as simply using "Add" when in the Edit mode. This does not seem to matter, when I add the clip to a new project - the resolution goes to #$@%. When I play the clip or play the project in the quality of the image is so bad that the items on the display are blobs of color with black hieroglyphs that might be assumed to be text!

Test:
> I created a new project for test this morning. The Project properties are MPEG; NTSC (29.97); 24 bits, 720x480; Lower Field First; DVD-NTSC, 16:9.
> The imported clip was an AVI, 1776x1084, 28 sec, 48.9MB
> I performed no editing on the project, saved the VSD to disk.
> Resolution in the VS preview window stinks, small size or expanded.
> File>Batch Convert, selected new project and wrote it back to disk as an AVI, 720x480, 28 sec, 848MB!

The AVI file of this new test project as written by VS is of such poor quality that it is, again, completely unusable.

Are there general Properties, Import settings and Project Properties settings that I can adjust to improve this situation? Please make some recommendations. I have just upgraded my Corel Draw to Premium Suite X5, with one of the primary draws being Video Studio.

Thank you in advance to all who take the time to wade through all that! Thank you doubly if you make some suggestions or recommendations!

Cheers,
PT

[DVDDoug]

What output format are you looking for? You've selected project settings for DVD... Are you making a DVD?

A regular DVD cannot have 1776x1084 resolution, so you are going to loose some resolution if you make a DVD.

FYI - "AVI" is not a single format. It's a "wrapper" or "container" that can contain audio/video in any format, and there is a code in the file header telling the player/decoder software how the A/V was encoded. (This is why you are seeing big differences in the AVI files size.)

There are basically 3 factors that affect video quality -
- Resolution (1776x1084, 720x480 etc.)
- Compression/format (DV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV, etc.)
- Bitrate (kbps or Mbps. This is the amount of compression and it's directly related to file size.)

A higher bitrate gives you better quality and bigger files. And of course, some formats are more efficient than others. i.e. A 2000 kbps MPEG-4 will generally have better quality than a 2000 kbps MPEG-2 file. AVI/DV (from a MiniDV camera) has a bitrate of about 28,000kbps. DVDs are MPEG-2, they typically ave bitrates around 6000kbps.

[skier-hughes]

With screen capture it is best at the beginning to start at the end

Decide what the file output is going to be, so for a dvd it will be 720x480.
Change your screen resolution and capture settings to mimic this size.

Capture, edit, produce dvd.

Same for final output to a pc, though this is very hard as there are so many different screen resolutions, so maybe opt for 1024x768, or slightly higher if most of your clients have new computers.

[PopeyeTom]

Hi Skier-Hughes and DVDDoug,

Thank you for your feedback. I'm not questioning your suggestions, I still just trying to understand and am thinking out loud. As Skier suggested, start at the end. I've found that I can define a 1024x768 capture region and get the desired content inside the region. I'll give this a test and see what VS does and report back. What follows is my thinking out loud and asking more about why...

The desired final product is something like what might be seen on Youtube or similar. (That's all new to me as well!) There is a video on youtube by CAPUniversity called "SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2011" The resolution is not great, but there is one instance, at 0:16 seconds, that he right clicks a file in Windows Explorer and it is very possible to read the "Open" at the top of the right click list. In my video, as written by VS, regardless of player, text that is even all caps is just hieroglyphs, even at the 720x480 resolution. I'm only mentioning this as a comparison to what I've got and what I'm shooting for.

I will attempt to coordinate my capture region with my target resolution. But, I am still surprised (maybe I shouldn't be) that then I wrote the project to disk the resolution was so bad. My only other experience is reducing the resolution and hence file size of JPG photos to email them. I have not experienced the quality of the emailed photo being such a large order of magnitude lousier to look at, only really just smaller when viewed. That is what I expected with VS, is this not possible in VS?

When I did the capture using CamStudio, I selected a region. The options that are available in this tool are Region (you box select the region just as you start to screen record); Fixed Region (where you specify the Top Left anchor in pixels then the Width and Height), Window, All Screens and Select Screen. This tool can capture to AVI or SWF. About the only other video related settings are Compressor: MS Video1; Intel IYUV codec and Cinepak Codec by Radius. I can adjust the Capture and Playback frame rates.

The native resolution on both my monitors is 1920x1200, 60 HZ. The lowest resolution that is available in the control panel is 800x600. The problem becomes that even when I reduce the screen resolution to 1024x768 I cannot even view the workflow in its entirety on the display. This will not work for demonstration, even just product introduction, not training. At 1280x1024, I can get the full workflow on the display. Would you recommend I try screen capture at 1280x1024?

Or, I did find that at native monitor resolution that I can place a fixed 1024x768 region and capture the full workflow. I'll certainly give this a test and see what happens in VS.

I will experiment with bit rate...I will have to play more with compression formats and bit rates for the export processing from VS and see what works.

One other thought, should I simply capture at a high resolution, write the file out of VS at a matching resolution. Then load the clip back into VS and share it using the High Pass Sharpen Filter and export it to disk at YouTube resolution (320x240)?

I will play with all these ideas and see if I can find a combination that yields the final product that I'm looking for. But, if anyone has further suggestions, specific settings or their own best practice process they are willing to share - my ears are open!

Thanks again for taking the time to read this and reply!

Cheers,
PT

[PopeyeTom]

I'm still confused. The VS help documentation says:
"The project settings in the Project Properties dialog box determine the appearance and quality of a project when it is previewed on-screen. To customize project settings, select Settings: Project Properties.

When customizing project settings, it is recommended that you make the settings the same as the attributes of the video footage that will be captured to avoid distorting the video images and have smooth playback without jumping frames.

When you customize project properties to be the same as the desired output settings for your project (for instance, setting project properties to DVD settings if you will output the project to a DVD disc), you can have more accurate previews of your final movie. "

In the end, pretty much what Skier said, "best at the beginning to start at the end"

Here's the rub, when I start a new project, the Project template properties defaults are MPEG, 24 bits, 720x480, 29.97 fps - the Project Options window, General tab only has very few variables that can be controlled and the 720x40 is the largest available frame size...is that really it? The User-defined option is grayed out.

If I am to start at the end, but the beginning screen capture necessary is 1024x768...but, I cannot match that in the Project properties.

I can change the Edit file format for the Project Properties to "Microsoft AVI files" and the Standard resolution drop list has more options, topping out at 800x600. Here the User-defined is an available radio button pick. Would you suggest I pick User-defined and then enter 1024x768 resolution? Then, I could set the target resolution, for AVI, when I batch process it to 1024x768 and eventually use the Share to dump it to MPEG4-HD, 16:9, 1280x720... Is that how you would do this?