Identifying the shakiness problem

[cirving]

All my menus on every DVD-R I've seen & made have been jittery (not sure if I'm using the right word)...but the image and writing and stuff always shakes a little. They're just static menus (no motion stuff or transitions) but they sorta shake. I use the reduce jitter option when I'm compiling in DVD-Lab but it doesn't seem to fix the problem.

Is it the DVD-R media? I use Ritek-G04, so I'd doubt it.
Is it all DVD-Rs? Does it depend on your authoring program?

I wonder what it could be.
I've tried it in 2 DVD players.

Anyone else experiencing what I am by any chance?

[guns1inger]

I would suggest that it is interlacing that makes appear to be jittery. What can you do to stop it - maybe nothing to stop it completely, but a couple of rules that should be observed

1. Whereever possible, avoid serif fonts (e.g. times new roman) - go for sans serif fonts.

2. Use larger type faces (point size), and bold is better

3. Avoid fine patterns, including stripes, checkerboard and herringbone. Also avoid fine dots, such as starfields

4. find a book or web site that discusses television - titling, costuming etc. Most of the tips discussed will apply here.

[Cunhambebe]

It seem you're making menus through DVD lab (that I don't know well). Take a look if you find an option like antialiasing and uncheck it. People making menus in Photoshop should do the same.

[cirving]

Thanks for the tips guys.
I will turn off anti-aliasing in DVD-Lab thanks!

And that advice about the fonts is great too. Cause I tried another font and it didn't seem to shake as much. However in DVD-Lab it's not easy to tell which are "serif" and which are "sans-serif" (as I don't even know what that word means. Is there a list somewhere that show which fonts belong to which category?

Thanks!
C.I.

[cirving]

an old thread, but I need to bump it regardless.

I still have the shakiness problem. If I switch to Ulead DVD Workshop will that get rid of it do you think? Haven't you guys run into the problem of text appearing shaky?

I'm willing to switch to a new authoring app if others using Ulead or Encore have not had this problem.

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

I use Photoshop with DVD Lab Pro for still menus, and After Effects for motion menus. The only time I have had issues with shakiness is when I have used text or graphics with fine horizontal lines (eg. serif fonts). Sometimes a slight gaussion blur will fix it, sometimes moving the problem up or down a pixel will do the trick.

All authoring apps suffer from this problem. Changing application won't fix it - observing good practices (and sometimes fudging bad ones) is the only way.

[stitch_uk]

I recently saved 1 frame of my AVI movie as a JPEG. After importing this as a background menu I also found that it jittered or shaked. However after I applied the following in Photoshop the problem fixed itself.

Open Image > Filter > Video > Deinterlace

I'm new to all this but hope it helps.

[cirving]

Is there a list where I can tell the serif fonts from the non-serif fonts?

Cause I have no idea which are which.

[guns1inger]

Serif fonts are any fonts that have bits that taper off, like feet. Times New Roman is a serif font. Blow it up to 80 point ans look at the bottoms of the letters. san-serif fonts don't flare at the bottoms or the ends. Arial is a sans-serif font.

You also need to be careful of fonts that have very thin horizontal parts, such as the branches on an E or F, as these will also shimmer. The really understand why you get the shimmering, read up about interlaced video. If you have horizontal lines thin enough to fall on either a single even or odd line, you will get problems.