VMS10: Overlay Resolution/DPI?

stovk wrote on 11/12/2010, 2:48 PM
Hello All,

I would like to create some graphic overlays for my videos and I have a question about Resolution, DPI, and file type. I make onscreen logos and graphics for videos (kind of like the network logos you see on various programs -FoodTV, HBO, Fox, etc)

For this discussion, we'll assume that my final Movie Studio project will be 720p (1280x720-30p)

1. I use a desktop publishing program, CorelDRAW X5 (similar to Adobe Illustrator), to create my overlays with vector graphics. So I set my work area to 1280x720.

2. When I am finished creating my overlay, I export my Vector graphic to a .PNG file.

3. When I insert the overlay into VMS10, and render the project, my overlay looks (for a lack of a better word) cruddy. It has "jaggies" and almost a slight "blur" to it.

So, my question(s): When I export my graphic from CorelDRAW I have the ability to export it in almost any format I want - .PNG, .BMP, .JPG, .SVG, .EPS, .TIF, etc. - and resolution - 72 dpi, 600 dpi, etc.

a. What file type should I be exporting as, and
b. What resolution should I be using (or does that even matter)?

I want to preserve the "crispness" of the graphic when I insert it into my project.

Lastly, do I have to use Bitmap graphics for an overlay or can VMS10 use Vector graphics for overlay graphics?

Oh, and if you happen to have any other guidelines for graphics in a 1080p project, that would be helpful as well.

As always, thank you for any help you can provide.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 11/12/2010, 2:57 PM
PNG is probably the most generally useful format, though the format chosen shouldn't make much noticeable difference for the quality of the image. Avoid GIF or TIF: GIF is only 256 colors and TIF is decoded in Vegas with QuickTime which is slow and clunky.

The DPI makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. Ignore it completely. All that matters is that the image is of a comparable size to your project. You could try making them twice the size, 2560x1440 so that Vegas ends up reducing them a bit. Render with the "Best" setting so that the resizing operation blends and antialiases the image into the background video.

Note that most graphics are much crisper and have much higher contrast details than most video. Since video compression algorithms are designed to handle the lower contrast and lower detail of video they don't necessarily handle graphics as well. You may have to use higher bitrates or even a different codec to get the expected quality. I produce a lot of 1920x1080 PNG images for moving backgrounds and render them to MPEG2 at 25Mbps or AVCHD at 18Mbps and they look quite good, though any with sharper details do tend to suffer a bit.

Vegas doesn't handle vector graphics at all.
OhMyGosh wrote on 11/13/2010, 7:53 AM
Kelly, in photoshop if you save as a tif. file, I believe it automatically rasterizes the text. Would that help? And what about selecting deinterlace or force resample in Vegas? Would that in any way apply here? Thanks. Cin
Chienworks wrote on 11/13/2010, 12:07 PM
Any program that saves any image in a raster format ends up with rasterized text. It's because image files like .tif, .gif, .png, .jpg, .bmp ... etc. are raster formats. It doesn't make any difference which program or which non-vector file type, it will be a raster file. It's not a question of automatic, it's simply what the image file structure is.

Generally still images are non-interlaced unless you use a program designed specifically for editing interlaced video images. But, since it's a still, it won't make any difference. Both fields come from the same temporal moment and don't change since there's no motion.

Force/disable resampling only applies to frame rates.
OhMyGosh wrote on 11/13/2010, 12:55 PM
Thanks as always for the info and education. :) Cin
stovk wrote on 11/21/2010, 2:31 PM
@ Chienworks,

Thanks for the help. I used your suggestion and doubled the size. Everything looks a lot cleaner and "crisper"

Thanks for the help. Cheers!