Adobe Encore CS6 Slideshow Burry

[Bassquake]

Im having trouble with Encore. It seems to scale the images regardless. See attached of an image which Ive zoomed in 200% on the preview image. I created of a series of 1 pixel vertical lines. As you can see in the Encore screenshot its scaled the image horizontally causing banding and blurring. Ive attached the original 1 pixel lines image too as reference. Rendering the projext makes no difference, its same as the preview screen.

I have the scaling set to do nothing. The project is a simple 4:3 PAL. Ive tried possible aspect ratio settings in photoshop to no avail. Sometimes almost there but not quite.

As 720 horizontal res becomes 788 because of the 1.094 pixel ratio (4:3), Ive played around with many different pixel ratios in photoshop in the hope it would slightly shrink it horizontally then expand properly in Encore. Nope.

Its really frustrating. Is it not possible to have sharp graphics as the aspect ration messes up with scaling?

[poisondeathray]

It's mathematically impossible unless you use a square pixel format, like blu-ray 1280x720, 1920x1080 . When the stored image 720x576 is "stretched" back to 788x576 for square pixel equivalents, you have to interpolate those missing lines from somewhere . You cannot mirror edges, so you end up averaging lines . If you have RGB 0,0,0 = black, RGB 255,255,255 = white, the average will be 128,128,128 grey when scaled by factor of 2. If you have other ratios for scaling, you will have the same equivalent ratios for intermediate RGB values (intermediate shades of grey)

Even when you scale down, e.g. NTSC 4:3 720x480 is scaled it 640x480 for display, you don't crop lines, you need to interpolate lines. Same thing happens.

The best scaling is no scaling. Not possible with DVD.

[Bassquake]

Yeh I thought as much. Wish Id known that before spending many a fruitless hours on it! Cheers.

[Cornucopia]

If it's a graphic, you should compose in an app that already understands working with non-square pixels, such as Photoshop.
That way, you compose for exactly 720x480NTSC (or 720x576PAL) and a pixel is a pixel is a pixel. What you CANNOT do when working this way is to then assume the shape is what you intended.

But if you've already done the composition correctly, you need to remember that what you see in Encore's preview window is only just that: a PREVIEW.

Contrary to what others have been telling you, what gets output from your DVD's stored stream is a direct 1:1 pixel-for-pixel rendition of the original dimensions. At least to the point it gets to the DVD player's output buffer/compositor.
What happens next depends on what it's getting output to:
1. Analog (composite, s-video, component) - it stays 1:1 and just runs through the DAC. # of lines stay the same as always. # of pixels are approximated, because analog doesn't actually have PIXELS, but rather a single continuous line. The LPF in the DAC will greatly determine how smoothed/blended/interpolated this appears. You shouldn't worry about it though, because HECK, its analog anyway!
2. Digital - the player negotiates with the display what to do with the image. Leave it alone (and let the display do the resize)? or resize in preparation for the display? (hopefully not both). If it leaves it alone, this also includes the non-square pixels. Then it is up to what the display does. If the player does the resizing, it would likely resize to either a common input resolution or the EXACT dimensions native to the display (hopefully those are one and the same).
Let's say the display's native rez is 1920x1080. The player would then calculate the output based on the intended DAR. Assuming it is 16:9, the anamorphic image would get resized directly to 1920x1080, using blending/interpolating in both the vertical & horizontal dimensions.
The quality of the resulting pixels are thus primarily determined by the algorithm used for the resize (whether in the player or in the display). And they are out of your hands.

But I can confidently say that in no case does any player resize to intermediate equivalent square pixels. IOW, a 720x480 4:3 image does NOT first get resized to 640x480 and then resized to 1440x1080 (with pillarboxing added to give 1920x1080). That is just something that uninitiated PEOPLE do to be able to wrap their brain around all the computations

Scott