flickering white on tv or plasma

[I_Can]

I just have a big problem that I can't solve. I'm putting together a slideshow to be played on a DVD player and displayed on 126cm plasma screens.

I'm using Macromedia Flash to put the whole thing together, convert the SWF to MPG AdShareIt Pro, then finally DVD Lab Pro to create the DVD. Everything seems nice and great until it is played on the computer screen... CRT or LCD doen't matter...

when played from the DVD player and displayed on plasma screen or a televison there is flickering or vibrating in the whites when there are more contrast around them... my client takes it as a fault and wants me to correct it but I'm totally stucked...

any help would be greatly appreciated

[guns1inger]

At a guess, your mpeg encoder has encoded your flash work into an onterlaced mpeg. Because of the nature of interlaced footage, thin horizontal lines or edges will often appear to shimmer.

How do you fix it ?

Use thibker horizontal lines where possible, avoid serif fonts, and fonts will thin horizontal features, and apply a slight vertical motion blur or slight gaussian blur to soften the edges.

Two of thise should be easy in flash - not sure about the blurring though.

You could also try encoding as progressive, which your encoder may or may not do, however on an interlaced display the problems will probably return.

[I_Can]

all the characters and lines are thick (1 line 100pix, characters large and bold)

not inly the text and the line are flickering, but the white or whiter areas of the pictures themselves...

should I try reencoding with tmpgenc as source is progressive?

[guns1inger]

Can you post a g-spot 2.60 screenshot of the mpeg ?

[I_Can]

it one of the mpg files...

[/img]

[drewzor]

I'd suggest the colours havent been "normalised" for display. For example if you use a purewhite the TV will "quiver" for lack of a better way to discribe it, this sometimes looks like lines.

Also you should use soft edges in your design when using text or line tools.

Flash is a web based development development tool, in a nut shell you are using the wrong tool ergo not getting the results.

Try vegas, if you can understand macromedia tools it will be a simple tool to learn. cheap too

In RGB term the whitest white should be 240/240/240 or 95% of purewhite
And the darkest black should be 5% or 16/16/16

Hope this helps

[I_Can]

should I try deinterlace in tmpgenc?
which mode is the least quality killer ?

[I_Can]

drewzor: I'll try, but my biggest problems are the pictures... I'm afraid that I don not have time to make this all in vegas...
but i'll see, if no other solution exists...

[guns1inger]

Change the white to 5% grey instead. NTSC has some pretty strict rules on colour values, as Drewzor has pointed out.

[VERVE]

hi,

1- try setting ur white back to (RGB) =235 to all instead of 255 for all (photshop or whatever).

2- deinterlace the vid. and gaussian blur by .2 to .5

good luck,
VERVE

[drewzor]

Gaussian blur suggestion by verve is a very good idea I_Can, Highly recommended... it will soffen the edges like I suggested

PS- Great avatar VERVE

[I_Can]

I'm back

I've almost tried everything... put the whole thing into Vegas... and it is the same...

changed all white's to grey... even to RGB 220 grey...

I just do not know what to do... I gaussian blured all the pictures...

tomorrow I'll get a plasma screen to check the movies, the same type that the movies will be played on...
As I see, there should be a minimum of flickering when full white and darker colors meet on the pictures... that ok, but they say, the picture is awfully flickering, but I see only a minimal flickering on my CRT television...

????? any ideas... beyond that I should just bury myself

thanks for looking at

[I_Can]

Ii forgot to mention that the video is PAL
an the base pictures are made with digital cameras

[VERVE]

is the source still from Flash or did u do it properly from an editing software? The solutions we gave u should solve the flickering but since it is still there, I might be urged to blame the flash export itself.

can u give more info about what's flickering exactly? the whole image, or just the (supers or titles).


VERVE

[guns1inger]

Could you possibly post a sample of the video, or a mock up with similar problems if copyright prohibits using the original ? It would help enormously.

[VERVE]

Dont know if this helps but honestly, the only software I've used that gave me the results I want, especially when it comes to flickering was After Effects.

Sorry if it doesnt help, but its good for u to know for the next project. After effects and not flash.


VERVE

[I_Can]

I've put it together in Vegas also (so no flash was used in that case) ... but it was flickering at the edges where for example a 100pix wide line (white RGB 235) met the background pic

there are some cases when the areas where white and darker parts meet flicker in the pictures... I've gaussian blured the source pictures, so this was mostly solved...

I use pretty large fonts, color is RGB 235 white, so basically greyish... but the edges where they meet the background pictures are flickering...

I can put up a sample file to our server... and thanks for the help

[I_Can]

I was thinking in after effects... probably will make a test...

[I_Can]

www.extreme.hu/fp2006/kassza.mpg

the bitrate is low for testing...

[I_Can]

this example made in flash, source size is 720x576, framerate 25fps..., converted to mpg with adshareit and merged with tmpgenc... and not deinterlaced, and I'll try that one

vegas gave me exactly the same effect, there were no... absoluterly no difference in the vegas only version, and the flash version, that's why I got back to flash

[guns1inger]

I can't see how after effects would produce different results to Vegas for simple text work.

Having played your test clip on a CRT monitor, I get none of the problems you have described. I will test it on a CRT TV later tonight, but don't have LCD or Plasma handy.

One thing to keep in mind (your heavy compression on the test clip made me consider it) - mpeg compression suffers from the same issues as jpeg compression in many areas. One of this is high contrast straight edges. Text and graphics compressed with jpeg will show up artifacts along the edges at even relatively small compression levels. Mpeg suffers the same problem. If you are using too low a bitrate, you may get haloing around the edges from compression artifacts. Blurring may ease this somewhat, but you may have to blur it too much to remove it completely.

What bitrate are you encoding at ?

[I_Can]

you see, no flickering on crt monitor... and i've been told that it is flickering on theirs... ???? on my CRT TV the flickering is minimal, but they told me it is very flickering on their plasma display... and they also told me that it's not 16:9... so probably they have not set the DVD player to be displayed on 16:9 screen

I'll just meet the client in an hour, so I'll see...

the final mpeg is encoded at 8mbit...

artifacts are known of... they are kept on a acceptable level

[I_Can]

just to thank all help and close this topic

I made the films, and all were perfect...

my client checked the samples on her laptop then on a projector... and they flickered

when I met her, and put it out to a LCD and Plasma TV it was perfect.

These two (LCD TV and Plasma TV) plays all colors perfectly (255 white and 0 black too) without any flickering

just to let you know in case...

thanks