text looks poor?

I'm running a Mac book pro, leopard, FCP 6.05 simple DV CAM project. I am using the Impact font and it look really bad - it breaks up around the edges of the lettering. Thank you Phil UK

Are you using the default FCP text tool or the Boris text tool? Is the text coloured? Are you able to upload a sample?

What you could do is to switch the timeline to DV50 (or Uncompressed, but you'll may encounter issues related to inverted fields) and see if that helps.



www.strypesinpost.com

<FCP text tool or the Boris text tool?>

So which one is better to use?

Thanks,

You know, I recall reading an article on Ken Stone's webpage a while ago, and it said something along the lines of- "FCP has a great text tool. It's called Photoshop."

Which is better? Boris. The default text tool is good for subtitles, which you can create in FCP, then you import that into DVDSP with one of the xml tools. Andreas Kiel has some great tools for that. Downside of Boris, is that I find it a little buggy.



www.strypesinpost.com

> <FCP text tool or the Boris text tool?>
> So which one is better to use?

Depends. It's universally agreed that the Boris tools look a lot better than FCP's default Text, and have many more visual options like outline, shadow and the ability to have more than one font and font size on each card.

However, as strypes pointed out, if you have a task that involves many, many repetitive titles that will change frequently, such as subtitles, use the default FCP Text tools. Boris takes three times as long to access and work, and about six times as many steps just to change the font on each card.


www.derekmok.com

Another point, is the purpose of the titles. I always use the default text tool, when I know I have graphics guy who will be doing the final text, as the default text tool renders a lot faster than Boris text.



www.strypesinpost.com

Also, are you judging from an external monitor or from the canvas? You can't go by the canvas. Try exporting a quicktime of the text and see if it looks as bad as it does on the canvas.

I have a love/hate relationship with Boris Title3D. The feature set is great. The implementation is unpolished. You can't even hit Return or Enter when you're done, you always have to click to get into the stage or out of it. Clunky.

But it's got great choices and decent results.

- Loren

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