sharper videos

[anon125]

just got an HD TV 40 inch.
we make videos of our vacations, avi videos and pics ( around 5mg each pic)
tried windows MM and pinnacle 12.1.
got a thumb drive and put the pics on that and plugged it into the TV -the pictures were sharp enough.
the home made videos are terrible - sharpness wise.
so we went to two stores and they put the DVDs in upconverters.
no change.
The video is from a Canon tape camcorder. pics are jpg from digital cameras. pics look fine when plugged into TV.
ideas on how we can make our home videos with pics and videos so they are as sharp as the thumbdrive ones.

don't want to go blue-ray cos the upconverters were no different.
thanks
PS windows MM result is clearer than pinnacle studio 12.1

also just plugged the camcorder directly into the TV and the video is good enough quality.

[redwudz]

What are you using to create your videos? A DV camcorder or a electronic still camera in video mode? What resolution are the videos? If you are using a still camera some are much lower resolution than the still pictures. If it's a DV camera, then maybe you need to change your processing method.

If you can answer a bit of that, it would help considerably.

And welcome to our forums.

[edDV]

Typical digital cameras take very good stills but extremely poor moving videos. Better videos are 640x480 at half motion update and compressed 60x to 90x as MJPEG. Those would be "terrible - sharpness wise" on an HDTV.

[anon125]

please read the post again with the updates. basically i need to save them to DVD with the least compression.
thanks

[filmboss80]

When you say you use a Canon tape camcorder, I will assume you probably mean miniDV tape. If not, correct me. The original video is sharp when you plug the camcorder directly into the TV, so the problem lies with the encoding you are doing to the video in your PC. You mention "MM," which I assume is Windows Movie Maker. If you save the video as a WMV file, instead of DV-AVI, the video will be compressed and look like crap.

You say you "tried" Pinnacle, but who knows what settings you used.

I suspect your process went from DV to WMV to DVD, and the video encoding put in a lot of low-rez compression.

You must import miniDV footage as DV-AVI, edit in that format, and only encode for MPEG2-based DVD (not WMV) after you are finished editing. Your encoding bitrate should be 8000 kbps max.

No upconverter is going to fix poorly encoded footage.

[anon125]

WMV was only used as a test and the resulting DVD was clearly better than the best setting on the Pinnacle 12.1 software.
"I suspect your process went from DV to WMV to DVD" NO it did not.
direct into pinnacle from the miniDV camcorder then to DVD. whatever settings i used pinnacle compressed it too much. Yes i was surprised by MM too.

[anon125]

What are you using to create your videos? A DV camcorder or a electronic still camera in video mode? What resolution are the videos? If you are using a still camera some are much lower resolution than the still pictures. If it's a DV camera, then maybe you need to change your processing method.

If you can answer a bit of that, it would help considerably.

And welcome to our forums.

suprisingly the video from a handheld tiny Casio EX-V8 was pretty darned good!

[edDV]

...The video is from a Canon tape camcorder. pics are jpg from digital cameras. pics look fine when plugged into TV.
ideas on how we can make our home videos with pics and videos so they are as sharp as the thumbdrive ones.

What are you using to create your videos? A DV camcorder or a electronic still camera in video mode? What resolution are the videos? If you are using a still camera some are much lower resolution than the still pictures. If it's a DV camera, then maybe you need to change your processing method.

If you can answer a bit of that, it would help considerably.

And welcome to our forums.

suprisingly the video from a handheld tiny Casio EX-V8 was pretty darned good!

So your source is a Casio EX-V8 or a Canon DV? The Casio is high compression square pixel h.264. Nothing to do with DV format.

From Steve's Digicams:
H.264/AVC, MOV format
848x480 (UHQ Wide/HQ Wide), UHQ bitrate = 7.2 Mb/s
640 x 480 (UHQ/HQ/Normal), UHQ bitrate = 6 Mb/s
320 x 240 (LP), Bitrate = 545 Kb/s
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/casio_ex-v8.html

[anon125]

"So your source is a Casio EX-V8 or a Canon DV? The Casio is high compression square pixel h.264. Nothing to do with DV format. "
both canon and casio video (casio converted to avi to work in pinnacle)
the problem seems to be which software compresses it least. windows MM was clearly better than pinnacle!

[anon125]

"So your source is a Casio EX-V8 or a Canon DV? The Casio is high compression square pixel h.264. Nothing to do with DV format. "
both canon and casio video (casio converted to avi to work in pinnacle)
the problem seems to be which software compresses it least. windows MM was clearly better than pinnacle!

[PuzZLeR]

Thinking differently for the moment, anyone else like MSU Smart Sharpen?

I've had alot of success turning "foggy", "blurry" crap into something decent with it.

[jimike]

I'm a newbie, please limit your insults to two per poster, im just trying to help here... after reviewing the programs listed here, Pinnacle, etc... it appears they are high end video editing software, not just media players per se, but don't see why you couldn't just use Media Player Classic with K-lite Codec pack, then tweak the sharpness settings....

ive never been able to turn a crappy avi into a bluray quality , but have had some luck by tweaking ffdshow sharpness over to asharp or xsharpen options, or maybe big post processing at 200%.... if h264 bump the quality of that up in the codec tweak...

i realize these are superficial tweaks, but hey they work....

as to the real answer, im sure its up the road so to speak in the process, in conversions or whatever...

[lordsmurf]

Do NOT install a codec pack unless you are willing risk having to re-format the computer and reinstall everything from scratch.

[jimike]

You probably know your stuff, member since 03 etc, and im not trying to be argumentative, but i havent seen much evidence of codec tweaking leading to a blue screen of death type scenario, i never do cmd line stuff, only tweak whats in the options etc...

i fully admit that im tweaking the options without really knowing what im doing, personally ive blue screened two pc's, and recovered one... by doing system tweaks such as messing with registry etc... no more of that for me learned my lesson... but , (again, positive you probably know more than me re videos.. lets dont battle... )... would you say that the options on for example Media Player Classic would be dangerous to whole cpu system stability?

i dont really think it is, i think its more like worst case scenario you blow up your free k lite codec pack and have to redownload etc... i only say that cause i have completely messed with like every setting on MPC/ K lite, just to see what they would do etc.. and im not noticing any system issues with whole laptop, only issues confined to the player itself etc...

[filmboss80]

No one said codec packs cause BSOD, but they can junk up your PC with conflicting codecs, affecting video playback and encoding performance. There are dozens of people who have posted nightmare stories on this site about codec packs -- especially K-Lite. That's fine if it works for you now, but once you start getting knee-deep in editing, format conversions, DVD authoring, etc., you may end up changing your tune. Regardless of what happens in your particular case, codec packs cannot be recommended to anyone.

[tomlee59]

Allow me to second that. Randomly installing a bunch of codecs is not a good idea (search these forums and the web to see ample evidence of why not). Reversing the foobar that can occur is not always as simple as uninstalling the packs, so it's not necessarily a risk-free operation. Much better to install only those codecs that you need, from trusted sources. The "smorgasbord" approach may seem attractive, but it's a seduction you should resist.

[citanool]

I'll third that and add that friends don't let friends install codec packs. MPC-HC, MPC, VLC, and some others thankfully don't install codecs, they are self contained in the program. http://www.rita.lt/ lists the common codecs you *might* need to install.

[jimike]

I see your point, absolutely i've totally had the conflicting codec problem already i think, keep having to remove and reinstall the players etc... i use vlc, gom, and media player classic... i guess my reasoning is im still trying to figure out which ones deliver the best picture, mostly off of avi files which were crappy to begin with.... so i go in there and try to tweak the postprocessing or whatever... or goof around with the h264 quality adjuster thing... yeah i just started doing this kind of stuff, but youre right on with the conflicting codec call that has totally happened already...

thanks for the link, guess once i stop goofing around, sites like that i could actually learn what im doing etc...


the k lite has so many pretty colors i couldnt help myself ... and "haali's " renderer thing... i imagine like a genie or something, with a white hat...

tks for setting me straight all, truthfully i probably will screw around maybe just a tad more, then head towards the education approach...


peace all