bad edges with title tool

I've used the "Handwriting - Dakota" font to create a title in Boris, but getting a terrible form of aliasing that looks almost crosshatched when I view the result in FCP. Ironically, the effect is even more pronounced after I render. The letters within the title tool itself look solid and clean, so it's nothing I've created. What causes this, and how do I get rid of it?

Post a screen shot of your FCP canvas at 100% zoom. What is your sequence codec? Is it interlaced or progressive?



www.strypesinpost.com

It's set at DV NTSC 48 khz ( DV/DVC-PRO NTSC compressor). The titles look sharp when viewed on black as a single track; it's against a background that things go south...How can I post a screen shot?

[www.lafcpug.org]



www.strypesinpost.com

As you can see, the clean edges and solid letters that were present in Boris' toolmaker have been chewed away in a semi-crosshatched pattern once they were layed over a background. Other fonts experienced the same problem, and rendering did not help.

Firstly, don't use DV NTSC for text. Switch your sequence to ProRes. Some of the blockiness on the edge is caused by the chroma subsampling, as well as the codec compression, and more so because you are using red.

Secondly, you are working in interlaced, so text will look different, not that you will be able to see this part on a broadcast monitor.



www.strypesinpost.com

Already, de-interlacing alone has helped A LOT. I'll switch to ProRes and get back. Abundant thanks for the valuable pearls of wisdom.

Frankly, don't deinterlace unless you are going out to web, because you lose resolution. The jagginess is part of a video format...

[www.dvcreators.net]



www.strypesinpost.com

Right. Actually, I spoke to soon. Upon rendering, more of the same. This after what seemed a marked improvement upon applying the effect.

What i mean is that if you had switched your sequence from having a field dominance of "lower" to "none", it gets rid of the jaggy edges, but it's not advisable, because your video clips will also be de-interlaced, so you lose resolution.



www.strypesinpost.com

I see. Anything else I can do to treat the individual clips? I just switched to Apple ProRes 422 NTSC and there's no appreciable difference.

Yes. Don't use red or wildly saturated colors. Try turning your text to white, and see if the jagginess is still there.

Colors are subsampled. That is how video works. DV is even worse.



www.strypesinpost.com

Don't create areas of sharp chroma contrast period.

Just out of curiosity, what are people using when colored titles are absolutely integral to a project? Seems I see them all the time.

Also, would any sort of b.g. -- translucent or otherwise -- take the curse off these letters?

Quote

Just out of curiosity, what are people using when colored titles are absolutely integral to a project?

I disagree with the premise of the question.

>Just out of curiosity, what are people using when colored titles are absolutely integral to a project?

There's that saying that if you can't change the world, you change yourself. I suppose the opposite holds true as well.



www.strypesinpost.com

I can certainly live without red, it just seems pointless that there are all these plug-ins and after-market software out there constantly extolling new and different ways of doing things... when in reality, just changing a simple color in your text can be hazardous.

Bright colours have never been the friend of television. In DV, it's even worse. Just use less saturated or bright colours. You can even turn on the chroma warning and get a little hazard symbol when your colours are too saturated for broadcast. This is nothing to do with new and different ways of doing things. It's always been so.

Firstly, you're using a 20 year old format. Secondly, your color is way out of broadcast safe. I believe you are using pure red at 255. That does not translate very well in rec 601. Worse so with compressed video codecs.



www.strypesinpost.com

Less saturated it is, from now on. Already, the difference is appreciable. Never realized how hard and fast these basic guidelines are (and always have been), despite other dazzling advances in graphic design that go unaffected by them.

As the saying goes, "You have to understand why things work on a starship." I'd suggest you spend a little time reading up on chroma subsampling, so you can better understand exactly why color resolution is lower than luma resolution.

The one thing I never understood was why highly saturated colors, especially the ones outside of broadcast safe, fares worse under video compression.



www.strypesinpost.com

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The one thing I never understood was why highly saturated colors, especially the ones outside of broadcast safe, fares worse under video compression.

I was fighting this battle yesterday with some stuff I was compressing for web delivery. In my case it was over saturated blues on a set. When the blue (actually a bright cyan) was out of gamut, at camera cuts in the program there would be orange, blocky artifacts that would last a couple of GOP's. This in both Flash (VP6) and H.264.

We were trying to guess why, and came up with this theory. The object of compression is to throw out data with as little visual disruption as possible. So why waste bits compressing video information that, by specification, should not be there anyway. It seems to be left up to the user to keep chroma and luminance in spec.

-V