wmv has blurry leaves

[zoobie]

Never really encountered this before but I guess there's always a first time.

My 360x240 wmv for the web is having fits with the out of focucs leaves of the trees in the background being blurry at 500kbps and even 1000kbps
(DV source is fine of course)
All shots are on a stationary tripod with only the subject matter moving within the frame
Any recomended filters for this type of problem?
Tried everything in my editor's filters..and then more in Vdub
Nothing's working

Thx

[edDV]

You mean in that high detail, low contrast area in the box?

About all you can do is mask blur that area (remove detail) or increase bitrate.

Low contrast detail + noise is the worst case for compression. Pros would have lit that background with a couple of 10KWatt floods even in sunlight.

[Cornucopia]

Dude! Fluttery leaves and waterfall/rainsplash/waves are some of the most difficult things to EVER compress. I bet if you looked at your DV source again in close up, you'd see that even DV has some trouble compressing that.

Think about it...Small, fast moving (edit: But Nearly Random) fine detail with lots some similar but distinctive shades.

IIWY, I wouldn't worry about it too much now.

Scott

[zoobie]

Yep...in the red box.

I guess I musta filmed most performers with just buildings and sky in the background. Yes...even the DV has a bit of trubble now that I stare at it. I increased bitrate but no luck @ 1000kbps...I just can't be putting 2000kbps vid clips on the net because nobody in their right mind would take the time to dl them.

I shoot for 400kbps...500 at the most @ 360x240...have never had a prob...until now.

Thx

[edDV]

Yep...in the red box.

I guess I musta filmed most performers with just buildings and sky in the background. Yes...even the DV has a bit of trubble now that I stare at it. I increased bitrate but no luck @ 1000kbps...I just can't be putting 2000kbps vid clips on the net because nobody in their right mind would take the time to dl them.

I shoot for 400kbps...500 at the most @ 360x240...have never had a prob...until now.

Thx

There is alot of trial and error when shooting for compression. Sometimes you want high res detail, other times you want flat color.

The movie guys cheat by modifying the environment to optimize exposure and noise. They use lots of lights and paint*. I like to observe these guys shooting movies or commercials in my mountain town. First wave is the painting crew. The colors used look strange in real life but good on film.

* they put it back to normal paint before they leave.

[zoobie]

^They do this to optimize for the eventual video compression from film?
Interesting
thx

[edDV]

Here is the latest example of a movie shot here. Other than wild paint, they have strange methods to fake snow. Fortunately they got some real snow during the end of their month here.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0783494/combined
http://filmmakers.tribe.net/thread/7d61949c-4e94-459b-91c4-63c6b8ab45e9

[zoobie]

Good stuff...I now see where lighting is critical even outdoors. I had a light meter years ago for an old 35mm slr.

Anyway, my solution was to simply put an effect on the shots that gave me trouble. These will be for internet only. I can't stand any blurring especially at 360x240.
I think using a tripod has helped tremendously in all respects seeing as this is the very first time I've encountered any real problem in 200 clips...and then, just an internet problem.

Thx

PS - I've yet to get to my nature shots of which 2/3's are water and leaves...should be interesting to see how compression goes for the internet...this winter.

[edDV]

Better to fix these issues before encoding while you still have the resolution to play with.

[edDV]

Just to follow up on the local production, it is now on cable for the USA market to see.

My review: " A Christmas Card "
It could have been the new "It's A Wonderful Life"
Cinematography was high grade. Needed more editing and retakes.
http://www.zap2it.com/zap-story-christmascard-johnnewton,0,1359435.story

[vhelp]

Hi zoobie, everybody else..

Could you post a short DV source, maybe 20mb or less ??

( HINT: in case you or anyone else didn't know.. you can gain more fps
real estate if you compress it with winrar, as it will compress it close
to half the size if your OS is W2K or XP -- on my WIN98, my winRAR will
decompress them fine, to full size. )

Regarding your 360 x 240 encoding problems..

I think that you still may be able to do something about this, but it
might help if you post an example DV clip on this problem. Someone
could try their hand at the editing/filter part, and then you could
finally encode it, and see what results you get.

PS - I've yet to get to my nature shots of which 2/3's are water and leaves...should be interesting to see how compression goes for the internet...this winter.

These will be pretty pixelated much like MPEG pixelation.

Also, (in DV) anything with lots of detail and is moving (like grass) or
has noise like in static tv with no video source, will have pixelation in
them as well.

I think (theory) that with DV, they don't concentrate on the optimization
of the DV Encoding (compression) part. MPEG is the same, but at least
with todays equipment (ie, my Poloroid dvd recorder [LSI chipset]) they
have, and pixelation is not a problem under the same cercustances. It's
a shame, because DV is a good video medium container, and so far, I have
not seen todays' dv cam equpment (I have THREE dv cam's) processing such
difficult scenary, yet. Course, I haven't seen them all, so I could be
ERR on this -- speaking on consumer equipment, not Commercial.

-vhelp 4149

[zoobie]

Hey vhelp, all

I can't really post a clip because I'm on dial-up. Anyway, I ended up putting an effect to disguise the blurring. Again, this is running 360x240 @ only 400kbps. I gave it more info @ 1000kbps and it mostly went away. But I can see how lighting plays an important part especially if the video is later to be compressed.

I've tried compressing 10-20mb wmv files with rar or zip but it didn't touch them. However, with a 800mb file DV-AVI, it compressed it to 350mb so I guess it does work. I can see why Xvid and DivX are so popular for shooting around movies on highspeed access.

Thx