Smudged Text On Menu

BobWard wrote on 9/29/2010, 9:36 PM

I also posted this on the VMS forum, but thought it might be more appropriate on the DVD Architect forum.

I just burned my first DVD using DVD AS 5.0. When playing the DVD on my TV, the Menu that was created in DVD AS 5.0 was very strange looking - some lines of text were crisp, while other lines were blurred so much that they were completely unreadable. Almost looked like someone had smudged freshly painted letters with their finger.

The DVD menu was created on a color-gradient background, i.e., lighter color background at the top and darker color as you move towards the bottom. Could the background color-gradient be causing some type of interaction (blurring) with the crispness of the text? The text smudging occurred in the darker areas of the menu background.

Bob

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 9/30/2010, 7:58 AM

Is this all text you added in DVD Architect?

If so, have you tried another font? Different fonts have different characteristics -- and True Type are created a little differently than Open Type or Type 1.

BobWard wrote on 9/30/2010, 9:04 AM

Yes Steve. All the smudged text was added in DVD AS 5.0 using Times New Roman font, 14 pt, bold, no shadowing.

The strange thing is that the text at the top of the menu was crisp, while the smudged text was in the lower part of the menu where the back-ground color-gradient was darker.

I will experiment with some different fonts.

Thanks,

Bob

BobWard wrote on 9/30/2010, 6:56 PM

I switched the menu background to the Movie Theater Curtains theme, instead of the color-gradient background that I had originally. Also, changed my font color from red to yellow and now all the Menu text is crisp - no more blurry smudges.

Very strange that such a simple revision would cure the problem.

Bob

Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/1/2010, 5:51 AM

Whatever the cause, I'm glad you got it fixed, Bob!

Steve Mann wrote on 10/1/2010, 9:54 AM

You're seeing a compression artifact. The encoder will decide what to do with pixels by looking at adjacent pixels. Text with serifs, such as Times roman, are particularly difficult because of the pointy things. (Serifs). Note that on TV and on most Hollywood DVDs, the credits are almost always sans-serif. If they develop their own font, it's almost always a smooth font without any pointy things. Simple or blurred backgrounds help an awful lot. In your case, if you could have nudges the blurred line up or down a pixel or two, and the encoder would have made completely different decisions.

When I finally buy Camtasia, my first tutorial will be on using Photoshop to make DVDA menus. I have yet to find a Hollywood DVD that I can't replicate with Photoshop and DVDA.