AVI v. MPG quality

nihil wrote on 12/13/2002, 8:27 AM
Hello all,

I'm wrapping up my first project in VV and am noticing a significant difference in quality between rendering to an AVI v. a MPG.

When I render to the AVI, my inserted graphics look awful (lots of digital pixelating around edges & such) while my MPG looks great (crisp with little pixelating.

Why is this? Am I rendering to the AVI wrong?

I had it set to best quality w/ resampling checked rendering with the NTSC DV template.

Jesse

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 12/13/2002, 10:01 AM
What codec are your rendering with?

Some like Cinepak enable the quality slider and by default are set to the lowest quality to reduce file size. If you use the default settings and default template the quality slider should be grayed out. Select AVI as file type, click on the custom button then the video tab to check if you use some other codec.
nihil wrote on 12/14/2002, 10:39 AM
I used the NTSC DV codec when rendering to AVI.

What's the best codec to use?

Jesse
Chienworks wrote on 12/14/2002, 6:51 PM
How are you viewing your rendered files? Are you using Windows Media Player by any chance? Media Player defaults to showing DV AVI files at half resolution. Go to Options / Perfomance. Under Digital Video (DV) settings, move the slider all the way to Large. It will now play DV files at full resolution.
nihil wrote on 12/15/2002, 7:57 PM
In fact I was using Windows Media Player. I'll re-render to the NTSC DV codec and see if the changes to how Media Player plays DV files will change how it looks.

As an aside, I've been rendering the same project in all the different codecs to see what they look like and was surprised that the Cinepak codec on its highest quality setting played back with significantly increased black levels.

I'm curious what purpose there would be to having so many codecs. How is one to choose between them?

Jesse
nihil wrote on 12/15/2002, 10:53 PM
FYI I re-rendered to an AVI with the NTSC DV codec and set Windows Media Player to its highest resolution and the AVi looks great. Thanks for the tip re: Media Player