Hi Res Titles

Hi there. I've tried posting this question in another thread of the same name, but to no avail, ...so now posting here.

Can someone please tell me what would happen if I create a hi res title, say HD for example, then edit it into a DV timeline (ie. down-res), and then up-res back to HD again before broadcast? (My programme is being broadcast in HD.) Will the title return to HD clarity on up-res, or will it just look like a ropey DV title because of the down-res? ...Please could someone tell me what the general rule of thumb is here? I'm happy to up-res my sequence to DV50 or uncompressed SD and THEN do my titles if that means they'll look sharp once they're blown up to HD...

Can anyone help?!

Thanks in advance!!

Rob

Rob, please don't multiple-post a question on the same day. You just posted this query three hours ago and bombarding the forum with the same question is not good form.

If your titles are made in FCP using Title 3D or Text, they will adjust to whatever codec a timeline is at. If you make your titles in Photoshop, you'd have to make it at HD frame size and shrink them down for the DV version. If possible, wait until the online. If you're going to Uncompressed SD, wait until then to make the titles.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks Derek - I couldn't find my previous post anywhere in the forum so was getting worried that it had been buried out of sight somewhere. I needed to sort the posts by date but couldn't see a way??

Anyway, in response to your answer, I'm afraid I can't wait until the online to do the titles. I'm planning on doing them in FCP, so are you saying that I should first up-res my DV master timeline and render? If so, I can't up-res to HD unfortunately, so would DV50 or uncompressed SD be preferred?

Just to be clear, as a rule are you saying that hi res titles down-res'd to a DV timeline and then up-res'd again to hi res won't look like their originals?

Thanks for your help Derek,

Rob

hi, rob

the usual approach is to have 2 versons of your show:
textless, and texted.

how are you achieving your blowup?

the best thing for you would be to blow up to your MASTERING res without titles.
get a finished, colour corrected version without titles,
then from that create a new version with titles


nick

Many thanks Nick. To be honest I'm not sure how the HD up-res is being achieved. I need to find out. At the moment I think my DV timeline will simply be copied and pasted into an HD1080i timeline, but I wouldn't like to assume anything.

However, if this is the case then I still need my question answered if possible: do hi res titles (eg.HD) edited into a dv timeline return to their former glory once they've been up-res'd again? If they didn't then I guess there'd be no point in doing it, (have I answered my own question here?) And if this is indeed the case then surely this is better and easier than up-resing my timeline to DV50 or uncompressed SD before doing titles?

Once again, unfortunately I can't wait til the "online" before doing the titles: I have to do them now and give them everything.

Thanks in advance!

Rob

if they're FCP generated titles, then they scale with the sequence.
DV, HDV, HD, they sort themselves out.

graphics made externally should be made at your highest res.
when you cut them into an FCP DV timeline, they will scale down to fit.
this is a motion effect that FCP aplies to the clip

when you then move those titles into an HD sequence,
or even just change the settings of your existing seq to an HD one,
teh graphic will STAY AT THE SCALED DOWN SIZE.
but then you simple have to remove the original scaling effect.
if you've added any further motion fx. (like re-positioned the gfx) then you'll have to re-do that.

unless...

you use the media manager to create an offline version of your sequence.
set the new sequence to your HD format.
you'll get a new version of your sequence with all media offline, EXCEPT the graphics.
that WILL scale your graphics back up to their original size, along with any extra motion effects you;ve added.

JUST TO BE CLEAR:
with this workflow, we are not really talking about up or down RES-ing
we are talkng about up and down SCALING.

however, if you were to export your DV timeline as DV (to file or tape)
you;d be "burning in" the DV scale of the graphics, and if you then tried to up-res the DV version, your titles will go to porridge.
this WOULD be up-resing
it might be an ok sort of porridge, but it wont ever be as clean as HD titles

and up-resing graphics just looks a whole lot more noticeable than up-resing moving images.


nick

THIS IS A FABULOUS ANSWER NICK - ...YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF YOURSELF!!

I hope this helps others who have been similarly confused about all this stuff.
Thanks a lot for making my head stop spinning, and making me a happy customer,

Best Wishes,

Rob

May jump in and ask if that's also the case for LiveType created supers? Frankly Livetype doesn't look stellar on finished work out of fiinal cut (admittedly - most of it DV - but some uncompressed SD)

Even outputting with Animation Codec for DVDSP o0r Uncompressed -- it looks a bit artifact-y. Livetype is a useful tool - any ideas on how to give it better resolution?

Thanks Andy

i think the scaling would be manual, not automatic as it;s not an internal FCP generator.

but cant comment on the quality issues, other than to suggest the de-interlacce set to "Flicker MAX"



good luck,
nick

Nick, I agree you have clarified an important issue, namely how to do titles for HD and SD.

So it looks like if someone is doing titles in HD, or HDV for that matter, it's best to use Boris 3D, for example, because regardless of when one needs to output a finished movie the titles will up-rez or down-rez appropriately without loss of quality.

In other words, FCP will handle the conversions without loss of quality.

Am I right in understanding this?

sorry for jumping in filmman. according to nick's answer, "as long as they're fcp generated titles" (including Boris 3D, which is vector-based) then yes - they "sort themselves out" accordingly. But it's a case of up- and down-scaling, not up- and down-res'ing, so loss of quality shouldn't be a problem.

hope i've got that right...!