Dvd Workshop 2 Menu/Text Focus

[sjmaye]

I have been working with DVDWS 2. I successfuly burned the DVD, but all the text and even the menu appears out of focus. Everything works OK, but kinda hard on the eyes.

The settings are:

Media type- NTSC DVD

Quality setting- 100 (top quality)
Video data rate- Constant 8264 (max)

Audio- MPEG audio
Audio bit rate- 224


Any clues?

[MachineMan]

Does it look that way in the preview before Burning? Is it out of focus or just has soft edges?

[sjmaye]

It is definitley happening after burning. In the preview window everything looks good. When I play the DVD I burned side by side with the preview window the text is noticeably more blurry. Video, images and text. Don't know how to explain how bad it is other than it is very noticeable to the eye.

I thought I would try a variable data rate setting and see what that would do. There is very little documentation on this adjustment in the manual, but we will see.

I am going to tweak around this thing until I get it right!

[racer-x]

I don't use DVDWS, but it sounds like it's using an anti-flicker filter when it renders the menu. See if there is a setting to disable "anti-flicker" on the menu.

Basically anti-flicker filters blur the image to prevent flickering on TV.

[sjmaye]

sounds like it's using an anti-flicker filter when it renders the menu. See if there is a setting to disable "anti-flicker" on the menu.

Wiw, I thought you had it. I did not think of that! Unfortunatley I turned off anitflickr adn still get the blur. I did notice that the blur only affects the menu, menu buttons, and menu text. The videos play perfectly clear.

Are we closing in on it?

[racer-x]

The problem seems to be with the menu rendering.

Make sure your using background images that are 4:3 aspect ratio, like 720 x 540 or 1024 x 768. If your using images that are smaller than 720 x 540, the are being resized up and that will cause some bluring.

You should also save your images as BMP and not JPG, as JPG is a lossy compression.

It could be that the program renders the menu poorly. You could test this out by rendering your own menu in your Video Editor, then import the Mpeg as a motion menu.

[mazinz]

LOl , i have been noticing this too when i use this app. The writing appears blurred despite the font used. In fact when you are first typing it, it appears sharp and crisp, yet once you are done and no longer have the text box highlighted it becomes dull and blurry--

[sjmaye]

Wow, someone else has noticed it! I thought I was going nuts here.

I will try racer-x's idea of making the menu in my editor. I would get then I would use invisible buttons as links to the various parts of the video?

[racer-x]

Yes you can do it that way.

I haven't used DVDWS in years. I use DVD-Lab for all my projects, it's much more powerful than DVDWS. Anyway, there are many ways you can render your menu. A simple way would be to make an image @ 720 x 540, add your own text in your image editor. Then import them into your video editor and render it out to Mpeg. For best quality, use progressive (No Fields) encoding. Import you menu video into DVDWS. I don't know if it supports motion menu, but it should. You can then use simple highlight buttons in DVDWS to link to movies, chapters ect.

About 80% of all my menus are motion menus. The produce the best quality and give the most flexability. I just finnished making a very cool animated motion menu for my son's Baseball Team video. I created my own baseball bat shaped buttons to link to the videos. The results are very impressive.

[mazinz]

i ususally use dvd maestro, but i have those times when i just want to get
the damn thing done as quick as possible and thats where dvdws comes in

[sjmaye]

LOl , i have been noticing this too when i use this app. The writing appears blurred despite the font used. In fact when you are first typing it, it appears sharp and crisp, yet once you are done and no longer have the text box highlighted it becomes dull and blurry--

My experience exactly.

During the preview the menus look great. Once rendering is complete they look blurred.

Has anyone else seen this or just me and mazinz?

[mazinz]

funny thing is though i do not recall it always being like that. It just kind of happended. Perhaps it might have been a bug in their last upgrade???

[sjmaye]

Never really thought of that. I guess I did not really remember doing any work with the program before checking for upgrades and installing them.

I guess I could do a fresh install to check it out, but I kinda hate to do it.

[sjmaye]

I am at it again,

I guess DVD WS 2 works really well for me if I could just tackle this thing.

I went back to DVDWS 1 and tried to recreate the same menus and I hate to say it, but it too lost clarity. I had one DVD I made with DVD WS1 that was in my opinion really clear. I played it just to make sure I was not crazy. It was clear. I noticed it did have a still background and still buttons.

Since then I have done many tests with DVDWS 2 and it appears to not be any single item; text, thumbail buttons, motion buttons, background video. They all lose clarity after rendering. It seems it is less noticeable when the background is a still image.


You mention rendering the background to mpeg outside of DVDWS 2. What program would you recommend? Could I render the whole motion background including motion buttons and text? I could then come back with invisible buttons for navigation.

I have tried and kinda like DVD-Lab Pro (Beta). I hate to learn another program all over again for a simple? problem like this.