Grey Background when Published to WMV

AngelaK wrote on 10/8/2009, 8:48 PM

Hi - I am a novice with Vegas Pro, and am seeking an answer as to why the background of my wmv file is grey and how I can whiten it up.

I am taking JPEGs into the timeline, adding audio and publishing them to WMVs. The JPEGs are screen-dumps created in PPT.

Thanks, Angela

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/9/2009, 9:29 AM

JPEG is a high-compression, lossy codec for stills.
WMV is a high-compression, lossy codec for video.
In other words, you are losing a lot of color and detail to compression.

WMV also changes the colorspace in some weird ways known mostly only to Microsoft. I have often encountered the light blacks you experienced.

Try this workflow:
Save your powerpoint stills as .png, if possible.
Render your project as AVC .mp4 (it will play back in VLC or Quicktime).
The quality will be much better.

Another alternative, although I haven't used it much, is the Moyea Powerpoint to Video Converter. It occasionally shows up free on http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Laurence wrote on 10/9/2009, 10:01 AM

I find that an extra sRGB to cRGB corrector (which looks oversaturated on preview) will somewhat undo most of the apparent damage that happens when you render to .wmv. I dislike .wmv format though and only use it if I can't talk whoever wants it out of it.