Titles and the Animation Codec

Is anyone making titles with the Animation Codec? I have been making titles within FCP, Photoshop, and LiveType. It works, but they always seem "blurry" on the monitor. I see better titles on T.V. and commercial DVDs. A client sent me their logo movie compressed with the Animation Codec. I "Forest Gumped" my way into rendering this movie out and the lettering in the clip is much crisper, even the very small print. What's up with designing graphics in other codecs?

Animation codec is 4:4:4 RGB uncompressed at the 100% setting. This makes for perfect looking graphics, but the issue is, no TV can display such high levels of detail.

The DV codec, which a lot of people complain about is not as bad as they think.

1) you've got to watch it on TV, not your computer

2) if it looks bad, then it is bad, in that what you've designed are graphics that will not survive being broadcast. If you can't make it look good in DV, in won't look good broadcast.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

How do you make them look good? I have never been able to make small lettering "crisp" on a television monitor. I was given a clip compressed with the animation codec, I created a sequence with the animation codec settings, I rendered out a QT as a DV 48K movie, imported that into my project, and the very small lettering in the tag line is very crisp on a TV. I feel I'm missing something simple in designing titles.



Post Edited (06-20-05 09:20)

Small lettering can never look crisp on TV. Ever tried to read the disclaimers on car adverts? I can't read them - they look horrible.

The best way to design titles is big and bold, using the darkness or lightness of the title to stand off the background, not it's colour, and while viewing the results on TV all the time.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

The animation codec movie rendered out to DV has very small lettering which looks great on a television screen, a huge improvement over what I can create with DV in FCP alone. Just wondering about people designing stuff in different codecs, then rendering out to include in a DV project.



Post Edited (06-20-05 12:09)

I get good results with Lifetype. Just make sure that the preset is DV.



God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]

I know how to make titles in LiveType, Potoshop, FCP...My question is about designing titles in a different codec to get better end results. Is anyone doing this?

If you're ending up as DV, it doesn't matter what inbetween codec you use - it won't come out any better.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

I render 99% of my After Effects / Motion clips for Broadcast in either the Animation Codec or Avid Uncompressed Codec (because they are both super-high quality and they both support Alpha Channels. DV codecs DO NOT SUPPORT ALPHA CHANNELS).

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Joey, that's a different kettle of fish though! Animation codec is great for that, but as no SD video format supports either alpha or 4:4:4 RGB it's got to get converted to something else for broadcast. As an intermediate for computer generated images, Animation 100% + is the best you can get, but if you were to render the composite direct to DV, or render the elements toe Animation, and then composite and end up with DV, the results would be identical.

Still, nothing gets around the fact that if a graphic looks bad on the DV codec, it's not going to survive broadcast anyway....

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

There is a problem with files imported from PS in FCP5. A work around is on the sequence Settings, Motion Filtering Quality to Fastest instead of Best.
I haven't used PS for titles but it works for pics.



God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]

I see a noticable difference. FCP DV titles look good, but I am seeing a noticable difference on my television monitor between the animation codec compressed to DV, and my normal FCP DV Sequence titles. Especially if you go small.

It might be how you placed them in the sequence. Titles in FCP can look blurry if they are placed on the wrong resolution line. Try this with your title: select it and then hit the down arrow key to nudge the title down a line. If it clears up, then great, if not...

The difference you are seeing is probably not due to the codecs since you are ending up in the same place, DV. There might be subtle differences in the way that the outside titles are being created, but it has nothing to do with animation codec. Some of the tricks are: slight gaussian blur to kill moire, bold or thicker fonts since DV doesn't handle thin fonts well, 98 or 97 percent opacity instead of 100 percent white. All these things can have an effect on the end product and may account for the differences you're seeing.

Andy

"If you're ending up as DV, it doesn't matter what inbetween codec you use - it won't come out any better."

Not true.
If you make the titles in after effects and render them as an animation and then bring them into FCP you will get a good final result.

Now try rendering it out from After effects as PAL and then taking it into FCP and it will look like horseshit.

For some reason the DV codec in FCp and that in After effects is different.


Furthermore the best way to make titles look sharp on TV is to add 1 pixel gaussian blur and also double whatever spacing inbetween the characters you initially used. At least.!

...and you should also check when using any Livetype or Motion file that the alpha mode is set to "Black" in FCP rather than the default "Straight" mode. It makes a BIG difference to the quality you see on screen, especially if you have soft drop shadows and glows on the text.

Martin Baker
www.digital-heaven.co.uk
----------------------------------------------
10 Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each

I was having some problems with titles, Michael Horton suggested I look in the sequences and set field dominance to "none". Cleared things up nicely.

My best,

Chet Simmons
Las Vegas

WOW what a huge difference. I have noticed my .psd titles and photos were looking very bad when i would drop them into a next. I did as Douglas suggested by selecting "fastest" instead of "best" in the Motion Filtering Quality. Can someone explain why? Why would I ever want "best" if it is going to make things look so crappie.

Thanks
Royce