compression advice for a stills/text/fx-heavy video?

Hi Y'all-

I'll be wrapping up that job, after a brief hiatus, Wednesday (today). The content is a little bit of video (first section and then peppered throughout), but mostly stills (about half snapshots with moves on 'em, and half scanned pages from magazines), lots of text and multiple layers of both text and images. I did a down n' dirty, fast, one-pass compression last week - just so we'd have a DVD of the rough-cut for reference during our hiatus - but now I need to do the best possible compression for the final DVD.

It is not for broadcast, it will be projected at a live-event first, and then copies given out that will be shown on NTSC monitors. It's the projection that concerns me as the text from the magazine covers and also the FCP motion-text (in many different colors at various points) will look blurry when blown up large I'm sure.

The client also insisted on red text in multiple instances, which I did not recommend. Thinking about trying that "broadcast safety" color correct pre-set just to minimize "bleeding." Any comments on this welcome, never done it before.

I do plan to use 2-pass compression, ordinarily I'd just try out the 90 minute encode, 2-pass option in compressor, but if anyone has any customized settings or bit-rates to try with text heavy and stills-heavy material I would appreciate hearing the details,

Thanks lots,

Marla

Are they planning on projecting a DVD on-site? If so, try to talk them out of it.

I have seen so much of my work that looks pretty good on a television screen go completely to crap when projected because the client insists on saving money by using a DVD player as a playback on site.

MPEG-2, no matter how you slice it, shows artifacts. When you make it 8 feet tall, those artifacts cannot be hidden.

Try to talk them into tape. DVCam at least. A DDR would be better.

deb

Good suggestion!

I will do my best to negotiate a tape source projection. I can do an output to just about any format where I am today. My source elements were mostly VHS (VMS video service taped stuff that aired off of TV: Blech!), but everything went in uncompressed 8-bit through an AJA.

Can you please decode "DDR?" Direct Digital something? Do you mean if I export an uncompressed file and they just played the QT off of a mac-laptop? And if I do do a tape-projection, would it be better to record to a higher format than DVCam, like Beta or Digibeta? Of course I need to find out what sort of deck, if any, will be available to them for the projection.

Even if this is possible, they will still need a DVD version for their salespeople, but at least those will be used with NTSC monitors or computer-screens and not projected.

So I still do need advice about compression, if there is any out there today,

Thanks,

Marly-Marl

DDR=Digital Disk Recorder.

The ones that are usually used on site for live events can be cued like a tape deck. When my clients use them one site, I either provide them with a DVCam tape that they capture into the device, or if I'm really lucky, I get to provide them with an 8-Bit QT file that they import into it somehow (I've never actually seen anyone record/import into a DDR, so I don't know the procedure....heck, I don't even know if I'm using the correct terminology!)

I have used my G4 laptop as a DDR-like device in the past. I connect my laptop to a switcher or directly to a projector, depending on the setup. It really depends on what they're doing, and what gear they have planned to use on-site.

Almost anything, short of VHS, is better than using a DVD player.

I'm not the one to answer your compression questions for the remaining deliverables. Sorry!

deb

That's OK Deb, I really appreciate your good idea. I am going to do a BetaSP tape output, I just gor through to the AV dude in Vegas, and they can handle BetaSP.

When you say "8-bit QT" do you mean just uncompressed, as in self-contained? My timeline is set to AJA 8-bit uncomporessed settings, so I am guessing the answer to that is yes...

They are going to find out if they can handle the QT files directly.

Thanks again Deb,

Marla
PS-Howz about those compression settings, compadres?