livetype problem after burning dvd

[msf]

I have searched every post, and have learned a little; I hope this is not redundant, but I need to start with basics...

Problem: Livetype looks OK until I burn DVD

Please confirm or correct me on the following statements/questions.

I make a Livetype project with various effects, usually scroll (at the begining - and fade at the end) with some basic font and fool around with the timing so that I think it looks good....

I use white font for text - and with no background....which comes out black...

Am I limited to one minute, or did I imagine that? Anyway, I limit myself to <1 min per movie.

I render/preview it it looks good.

I export to quicktime movie.

(I have never made any changes in preferences and can't remember if I had any choices to make when exporting the project to a .mov file). If there are any parameters I need to know about please help.)

Anyway, I drag the quicktime movie files into final cut pro timeline, and render it on timeline along with some music below and time it so that audio and credits end at the same time. Then the rest of my sequences follow.

Then I export entire project with compressor, mpeg2 double swipe (sic), 5.7/6.5 bitrate, best motion, to make a m2v file and aif (converted to ac3) for audio which goes to DVDSP for burning. In my case the entire project ends up at 2 gig.

text looks good in quicktime movie...
looks good in FCP after rendering...plays great in viewer (or is that canvas)
looks bad on DVD (washed out and/or bleeding/faint)
DVD content looks fine after except for credits

motion is fine....

Questions:

Is this the wrong or hard way of doing it?
I only have a couple effects for each section of time line in LT, maybe 10 lines for each .mov, max time one minute.....could I be overloading it?
Should I make my own effect as suggested in a previous post?
Am I compressing or encoding or decoding the movie too much or bad settings?
Is it OK not to have no backgriound in LT (making it white text on black) or should I include a black background in movie?


Keep in mind, unless you correct me, I am usining the FCP timeline so that I can match the audio with the
scrolling text....and end them at the same time.

Excuse me if I this doesn't make complete sense...my first time using a Mac, FCP, DVDSP, LT....

I made a white outline in LT (same color)for font and it improved slightly..is that because it was now "fatter" or because I defined the edge (probably dumb question).

Any help would be greatly appreciated on the proper way to do it...including not using LT if it is an achilles heel.

Feel free to recommend a "better way" or third party software.....


Thanks,


msf

[miksu]

MPEG-2 compressor messes it? Remember, "thin fonts" and interleaving may cause problems. Your TV is likely to be interleaved, your computer display isn't. Looks good on computer screen, but not on TV. "Bright colors" can cause sometimes weird problems, for certain compressors. How about changing color slightly, from pure white to slightly gray? Or antialiasing/not AL fonts?

Result depends very much on MPEG2 compressor abilities (or more, disabilities). It's really about trying different settings. But, remember allways different nature of computer display and TV. And avoid very thin fonts. Try antialiasing and not doing it, how your compressor reacts.

And remember, there's is bunch of external, not included (with dvdsp) compressors. My personal preference is Bitvice, but I know there are few other good ones, and suitable one depends on source too. Some of those are pure junk, some are slow (eg. Bitvice) but yield excellent results, and some are relatively speed and yield good-enough results. Depending on how long you can wait (or buy faster HW) and how much willing to spend €€€/$$$ on external compressor application (good free ones exist too).

Note: "compressor" doesn't refer to Apple Compressor, which is part of Apple video suite. However, Apple Compressor does MPEG2 encoding.

[msf]

thank you...the tv doesn't like thin fonts, you are right...but may i think the problem occurs before the dvd is burnt....

I have around 1000 tiffs, set to music aifs (ultimately ac3) in FCP, they are in 12 different sequences.


I made a 'global' sequence and dragged all the indivkidual sequences in there. Everything works nice....

I then added my qt movie, made by livetext (export).....then all is to be exported via compressor, Mpeg2 into one 2 gig m2v and aif file (ac3).

I think the movie gets messed up by LT export or projectt settings, quicktime settings, or FCP rendering, cuz it looks bad before hitting dvd pro...

I am messing it up somewhere after LText...

First of all. I should set LT for NTSC DV right (720 x 480) it wasnt before it was on NTSC CIRR 601 something like that. That helped a lot! It looks much better in LT viewre, and in some, but not all of the movies I make byu exporting them.

When I make this quick time movie out of LT, is it ok to put it in the FCP timeline to be compressed again with the other sequences...is that like double compressing it? Should I make another movie out of the qt movie and the audio? Can you compress too much?

Should it go right into DVDSP with the movie file and the audio, bypassing the FCP time line as a separate asset?

I am experimenting with different ways...but i cant trust my eyes..some part of the
LT movie text looks good some loooks bad, even though they are the same in LText viewer.....

I will experiment.

Does white text on black (by nature of having no background) make things shaky?

How to you pick or set antialiasing fonts? Forget that, I can ask my graphics friend...

I learned from photoshop the dangers of too much white, so my backgrounds are always at least grayish....

I think the key here is how to get a LT file out of LT,
in the right format, and then how to add the asset to the final project without killing it...

Thanks for a sugestions.

MSF

[terryj]

MSF, follow this thread:

LiveType is Jagged when outputted to DVD