VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 17 of 17
Thread
  1. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Hi everyone, If you would be so kind to help with this problem I have.

    I am setting up a projector to show a slideshow of high quality images onto a wall at a size of about 6 ft tall in 16:9 ratio.

    The projector is a full 1080p Optoma and we are using a Samsung 1080p upconverting dvd player.

    The slideshow was made in iMovie with high quality images and looks perfect running straight off the computer.

    Problem is, when run thru the dvd player we get jagged lines and edges all over the images.

    What can be done to show these images proper? Should i make the slideshow with different software? or another format?

    Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as this is for an art museum exhibition opening in a few days!
    Quote Quote  
  2. I don't know iMovie but I suspect it made a slideshow in DVD format. That means the resolution was reduced to 720x480 so all the images will look jaggy when enlarged.

    Just burn you JPEG images onto ISO/UDF data discs. The Samsung will probably display them. If the player has a high def JPEG mode, be sure it's enabled. Of course, you won't get fancy transitions and such.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    thanks for the tip, i will give it a shot. The fancy transitions are not required but it does need to be able to scroll through the images on a loop.. i will update this post after i give this a try. thanks again
    Quote Quote  
  4. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    well that did not work out..

    My original files were in tif format so i converted them to jpg. The image quality definately dipped with the conversion although the edges were indeed smooth. The problem is the samsung could play the jpg files, one at a time, slooowly. 15 seconds or so just to load. Keep in mind these were huge tiff files..There were no options to loop the images or even scroll through them. Im thinking my only option at this point is to use an old pc to run the images, which is going to be a logistical nightmare.(ie. me coming in sunday mornings when we have a power blip to reset everything). If anyone has any ideas, i would love to hear them, thanks..
    Quote Quote  
  5. Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Palo Alto, California USA
    Search Comp PM
    Unfortunately, a DVD player is a mismatch for what you are trying to do, since quality matters to you. As you have already begun to suspect, a PC-based solution would be best in terms of quality.

    If you are really worried about power glitches, just get an UPS. As long as the power glitches are short-lived (minutes, not many hours), an inexpensive one will do fine (mine cost about $100, and it will run my laptop for over an hour). And if you are concerned about OS instability, you could always go with a linux box.
    Quote Quote  
  6. If your source images are larger than 1920x1080 look at resizing and/or cropping them down to the 1920x1080 range, or even smaller, and saving as JPEG. The smaller files will load faster.

    You might look for a better DVD player (with hi def JPEG and auto slideshow), a DVD player with a USB port and hd JPEG (you might get faster loading from the USB port), or something like the Western Digital TV HD Media Player. Or a laptop.
    Quote Quote  
  7. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    thanks for all the help guys.

    Would a new dvd player with HD JPEG and slideshow show images pretty close to the original files? I am really dreading using a computer for this and will probably have to buy a new computer or at least a new video card.
    Quote Quote  
  8. Originally Posted by tram
    Would a new dvd player with HD JPEG and slideshow show images pretty close to the original files?
    The DVD player output will be limited to 1920x1080 at best. If your source files are larger than that they will be downsampled to fit within a frame that size. It would be best to do this in software where you can control the scaling filters used. Even if the DVD player wasn't limited to 1920x1080 the display device is. So even if you could feed it a higher resolution signal it would be downsampled. Of course, this is true when using a computer too.

    The trouble with using a DVD player's JPEG slideshow option is the limited control you have. My player (Philips 5990) can display high res images but it shows them for about 4 seconds each and does a simple top to bottom wipe every time. Another player I used to have would blank the screen, load the next image (which could take several seconds) then display the new image. And even though my current player has a setup option that looks like it's supposed to control whether you come up in a browser first or go straight to a slideshow, it always comes up with the browser first. You have to initiate the slideshow by pressing the Enter/OK button. It does cycle through the images over and over.

    Check your projector too -- my HDTV has a USB slideshow option. I can plug in a USB thumb drive full of JPEG images and it will display them in a slideshow. It also has the ability to play MP3 files at the same time.

    Using some slideshow software on a computer would give you much more flexibility.
    Quote Quote  
  9. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    thanks jagabo. A little update here:

    I went out and bought a Phillips dvd player capable of HDJPG files. It also has a usb port so I loaded up all the images onto the drive and started it up. The images look really good, but not the perfection I was looking for. As you said my images are being downsized as they are mostly 6000 x 3000. The image on the wall is around 6ft tall. I am now converting the original imovie slideshow over to WMV as the dvd player can run those files. If that does not work ill go back to the dvd player running JPG straight off the usb stick. As you said, there are really no options for viewing the jpg's with only a slow top to bottom wipe.. Excuse my noobness here but if I just resize the images down to around 1080 the jagged edges will be minimized.?
    Quote Quote  
  10. Originally Posted by tram
    I went out and bought a Phillips dvd player capable of HDJPG files. It also has a usb port so I loaded up all the images onto the drive and started it up. The images look really good, but not the perfection I was looking for. As you said my images are being downsized as they are mostly 6000 x 3000. The image on the wall is around 6ft tall.
    Since no consumer electronic device outputs more than 1920x1080 and your projector only has 1920x1080 resolution you will not be able to get all the detail of your source images. As I mentioned earlier, you might get better scaling by reducing the images in software on the computer rather than relying on the DVD player to do it. A precise bilinear (a little soft), precise bicubic (a little sharper), or lanczos (even sharper) resizing filter is probably cleaner than what the DVD player does.

    Originally Posted by tram
    I am now converting the original imovie slideshow over to WMV as the dvd player can run those files.
    Yes, some of the Philips Divx/DVD players will play WMV but they are limited to 720x576 resolution just like with DVD. You'll end up with the same jaggies.

    Originally Posted by tram
    Excuse my noobness here but if I just resize the images down to around 1080 the jagged edges will be minimized.?
    Yes. A good resizing filter should give you excellent results. Obviously very small details will get fuzzy or disappear when reducing a 6000x3000 image down to 1920x960. You're removing two thirds of the information on each dimension, leaving you with about 1/10 the overall information in the source (18,000,000 pixels vs <2,000,000 pixels). Keep in mind that a ~1920x1080 digital image displayed on a ~11x6 foot screen is always going to look a little jagged unless viewed from far away (more than 15 feet or so).
    Quote Quote  
  11. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Sounds great. We are going to go ahead and shrink those images and see if we can improve them a bit. Unfortunately we have a new problem on our hands.. Getting the projector keystoned correctly. The projector will have to be mounted high, probably around 20 ft. I took the projector up there on a scissor lift to make sure it could make a square image..it got very close but not completely square. So as of now im just resizing the images and looking through the projector's manual to see if there is anything i have missed to adjust the image..And thank you for the confirmation that any image that big is going to look jagged when you are viewing it from less than 15ft.. Ive been dying to tell my boss that very thing.
    Quote Quote  
  12. Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Palo Alto, California USA
    Search Comp PM
    If you're expecting digital keystoning to work without artifacts, you're in for another disappointment. It will introduce more jaggies/fuzzies to the image. If quality is very important to you -- and it sounds like it is -- then you may have to bite the bullet and mount the projector in a way that doesn't require digital keystone correction.
    Quote Quote  
  13. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    All done with this project. I ended up trying the picture disc on a blu-ray player and it looked absolutely amazing. So i bought a brand new Samsung player which has some amazing features, not a cheap player by any standards. I load up the jpg disc and get this "This many pixels cannot be displayed" WOW. So I went back to the original sony player which works great. The image is almost 7ft tall and looks fantastic even from a foot a way. We were blown away by the difference. Lesson learned: just go buy a blu-ray player! Ps. it is pretty lame sony uses a proprietary usb port, but I guess that's Sony..
    Quote Quote  
  14. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    heh. well i thought this project was done. i came in yesterday morning and i have dashes running all the way down my screen. I tried every setting, switched blu-ray players, sources and cables with no change. This leads me to believe there's something wrong with my brand new $2500 projector. I have no idea where to go from here. So unbelievably frustrated right now.
    Quote Quote  
  15. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    ok figured this out. BAD WIRING.
    Quote Quote  
  16. Originally Posted by tram
    ok figured this out. BAD WIRING.
    Bad HDMI cable?
    Quote Quote  
  17. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by jagabo
    Originally Posted by tram
    ok figured this out. BAD WIRING.
    Bad HDMI cable?
    Electrical wiring. The only power source we had up there was the track lighting so we had rigged a power cable to run off the track. I tried another power cable and it worked perfect. I was about to send the projector back but had this epiphany at the last moment.

    Just a word of caution, we ordered this projector from projectorpeople.com well, someone did, and once you put over 9 hours on the bulb they will NOT allow you to return the projector for exchange or refund. Also, if you can return they will hit you with a 15% restocking fee. Which in our case would have cost $375 plus shipping each way. Not sure if this is standard practice but i would never order anything with policies like that.

    Jagabo and Tomlee- Thank you so much for your help and input. I really appreciate it!
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!