Fuzzy Titles

Lou Sander wrote on 1/4/2006, 2:28 PM
No matter what I do, the titles I produce from generated media are fuzzy around the edges. I uncheck the boxes in the generated media properties dialog, but still what I get is fuzzy. The titles look like they were shot through one of those aging-movie-star-wrinkle-removing lenses.

I appreciate that abrupt black-to-white transitions cause problems on the TV screen, but if VMS is minimizing them, it's going too far, IMHO.

Comments

Tim L wrote on 1/4/2006, 2:59 PM
This is just a guess on my part, but you could try unchecking the "Reduce Interlace Flicker" for these events. You might have to go to the timeline, right-click, then select "Switches", and make sure "Reduce Interlace Flicker" is unchecked.

I'm not at a computer with VMS installed right now, but I was thinking that Reduce Interlace Flicker is enabled by default for text items. I'm guessing (really -- just guessing here) that reducing interlace flicker is accomplished by some line-to-line averaging or smoothing, which I think would soften fine detail (as it's intended to do).

I'm not really sure if this effect (r.i.f.) shows up in live preview mode, or only in rendering.

Tim L
rustier wrote on 1/4/2006, 6:22 PM
two questions pop into mind:
1)Are they fuzzy in preview or are they fuzzy on your tv and if so have you checked it on another tv? sometimes older tvs dont handle crisp text.
2)Are you using standard text styles or are you using some imported aftermarket text? Some of the aftermarket text is low quality. Try some of the old standard texts and see if they are crisper.

one other thing - in the media generated properties make sure your keyframe slide is at the beginning before you check or uncheck any properties (effects tab)- if it isnt the sofware will transition it
Lou Sander wrote on 1/5/2006, 8:33 AM
I've researched it more, and the mystery continues.

The fuzziness comes in the rendering step. I made a test video using generated text with various FX: none, sharpen in various amounts, unsharp mask in various amounts, reduce interlace flicker or not, etc.

I could see all the changes in preview mode in VMS, but when I rendered the movie, the text was blurry, and there was no perceptible difference between the various FX settings. There was a very slight improvement with reduce interlace flicker turned off, but basically the generated text is unacceptably blurry.

I made a DVD of the movie, and the blurriness is roughly the same when played on my 5-year-old TV and on my computer.

Can other people make non-blurry generated text?
Lou Sander wrote on 1/5/2006, 8:44 AM
By the way, my titles are four lines of text, white on black, in 26 point Arial bold.
jimmyz wrote on 1/5/2006, 12:37 PM
In the top corner of the text window is the size of the font. Try doubling
to see if that helps. 720x480>1440x960
Hope this helps.
Lou Sander wrote on 1/5/2006, 8:48 PM
That fixed it. Thanks.

Originally my text was at 352x480, which produced very fuzzy text when rendered.

I changed it to 720x480, which gave much sharper text. Very satisfactory.

Further change to 1440x960 gave a slightly sharper text than 720x480, but only if you look closely at it.

Lou Sander wrote on 1/5/2006, 8:49 PM
BTW, the FX that I previously tried make little or no difference now that the frame size has been increased.