Displaying computer monitor in video

[mpiper]

I am creating a video that displays some new features of a company website.

I have captured the screens and video clips and cropped the key areas to a 720X480 resolution. This is legible on the TV, but fills the entire screen.

I have tried to resize to 50% (360X240) and use as a Pic-in-pic, but the text on the video is completely unreadable. I believe this is due to the interlaced natureof standard TVs, since the video is perfectly legible on the computer monitor, but not the TV.

Does anyone have any ideas?

(Details: Camtasia 2.0 capture, AVI DV codec and uncompressed versions)

Thanks,
Mike

[thecoalman]

Computer text is hardly legible even when it's being directly inputted from a display card to a TV, downsizing the resolution will only make it worse. The only suggestion I would have is to increase the font size.

[mpiper]

I agree with you, but I have to use the intranet site as is, so no font resize.

I keep thinking I have seen a commercial somewhere that had a computer screen on it that looked good, but I may not have been looking as close as I am now.

Even if I can't get it perfect, I am looking for a way to make it look good so that when people see it, they will think it looks sharp, not blurry.

Any ideas are worth a try, as long as it involves using the original screen captures I have.

Anyone? ? ?


Mike

[thecoalman]

It's impossible, least as far as I know. Your dealing with a few things that make it so. First the TV displays images in round pixels as opposed to square pixels on a monitor. Second the resolution of even a good TV isn't that much, for arguments sake will say 720x480. Third your using mpg which by it's nature is going to blur or soften edges, even more so by reducing the resolution to 360x240 which by the way makes no sense if you want to maintain clarity. Even full size it's still going to appear blurry. Fourth the image has to be converted to video which will reduce clarity. Fifth.......

You can try manually inserting the text on a blank page with a video editor but I don't think that would work either. I use Ulead DVD Worksop which is a high end disc authoring app. I don't think I can get more than 15 lines of text for a menu that will look good on a TV.

Why not use larger screnn caps and have the video pan around or something like that.

[mpiper]

Here is a question:
I just re-watched "The Mummy Returns" or whatever the 2nd one of the new one was called. My daughter just watched "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen."

Both seemed to have much more detail than a mere 720X480 seems to account for. My guess is the series of 29.97 frames per second allows multiple frames to add detail that one single frame would not be able to hold. For example I was abler to read text that looked razor sharp on the credits, but was physically smaller than the text in my screen capture.

Does anyone have any ideas how to use the multiple frames to add details? I can resize the 360X240 on the computer and read each and every character, it is only on a TV screen that I cannot read it. I believe if I can read it on a computer, and small text can be crystal clear in a film's creadits, I should be able to find a way to fix this. I am just not sure how to do it.

Any suggestions, no matter how far out or off the wallm will be tried and the results will be posted, so we can all learn and have a solution (I hope!) for the next time.

Thanks!

Mike

[thecoalman]

Both seemed to have much more detail than a mere 720X480 seems to account for.

720x480 is actually less that what a nomal TV will reproduce

My guess is the series of 29.97 frames per second allows multiple frames to add detail that one single frame would not be able to hold.

You mpg is multiple frames, it's just multiple frames of the same frame.

For example I was abler to read text that looked razor sharp on the credits, but was physically smaller than the text in my screen capture.

You have to also consider the background, font, text color... Most likely white letters on black background which will produce more contrast. You also have to take into account that it was produced by professional's with tools far superior to what we are using.

I can resize the 360X240 on the computer and read each and every character, it is only on a TV screen that I cannot read it. I believe if I can read it on a computer, and small text can be crystal clear in a film's creadits, I should be able to find a way to fix this. I am just not sure how to do it.

Use BMP's for your screencaps, resize your images to 720x480, use 720x480 as your output size for your mpg. If you want to maintain as much clarity and sharpness you need to leave the resolutions as high as they will go. If that doesn't work as I suggested before take a screencap of a blank webpage, manually insert the text using an editor. This will produce a much cleaner and crisper edge for the text than a screencap will.

[mpiper]

One point I just realized.

I am not working in mpeg at this point. I am using Premiere Pro 1.5 and using AVIs (DV or MJPEG codecs). I don't plan to convert to mpeg until the last iteration when I create the final DVD.

Coalman,
You mention that 720X480 is less than what a TV will produce. In that instance, I was referring to comercial DVDs, which should only be 720X480. So what are your thoughts on how such a low resolution can look so detailed on comercial DVDs?

Thanks,
Mike

[NightWing]

This may not work but.

Resize the font that the web site is using to a bigger one. Also shring the Browser window to about the final size. This may help. With the word on may!

The problem is the limited number of pixels to show information.

[thecoalman]

My mistake, thats wrong 720x480 is more than what a tv will reproduce. What I wrote isn't what I meant.

Again they are professionally produced and are probably white letters on a black background correct? Try it yourself, use a font such as arial with white letters on a black background and you'll be able to see them better on a TV. And again they are being created by the editor which will produce a cleaner text as opposed to being converted from a image.

[Nelson37]

Take a good look at those movie credits on TV. Note the simple, blocky fonts they use. Now, examine the fonts on your web site. Probably a lot more fine lines and angles. These fonts are designed for a far higher resolution than a TV display.

As suggested, do the screencaps as static BMP files, at hi-resolution. A blur or smooth filter will actually help. Make an AVI from the BMP, experiment with more filters and possibly resizing from 1024x768. It may not be possible to reproduce readable text for the TV, depending on the fonts and colors used. Try playing with contrast or changing the text color.
You may need to blow up the screen in quarters and show magnified portions.