Jagged red text in web video, any solutions?

I know this situation has come up before (as in ) where red-colored text looks jagged in FCP and when compressed for the web. Wondering if anyone has a solution for this? I know that you need to look at text on a broadcast monitor -- however, in my case I'm producing content solely for the web and encoding to H.264 and Flash. My client can see the jaggies on his end and isn't happy.

I'm starting out with 1080p material and placing text over it in Motion, rendering out to ProResHQ and bringing it back into FCP for final export to a ProResHQ SCQT. The HD outputs look fine, but once I compress to H.264 all hell breaks loose and the type looks jaggy. I've played with darkening the red a bit (bright red that's 255,0,0 seems the worst) which seems to help, but is there any setting within the compression that might help? Or something I can do with the Chroma sampling in either Motion or FCP to alleviate the problem?

Can post sample if you'd like,
JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

FCP is not the culprit here. As this problem happened with me
on Red text in FCP, or Premeire, or stuff created in 3ds Max.

Its in the divX, h264, etc conversion.

The lossy converters butcher the red.
The only solution is to desaturate your reds with green,
or use a stable color like yellow.

But this may not be a solution for you.

I feel your pain.


John K Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know this situation has come up before (as in )
> where red-colored text looks jagged in FCP and
> when compressed for the web. Wondering if anyone
> has a solution for this? I know that you need to
> look at text on a broadcast monitor -- however, in
> my case I'm producing content solely for the web
> and encoding to H.264 and Flash. My client can
> see the jaggies on his end and isn't happy.
>
> I'm starting out with 1080p material and placing
> text over it in Motion, rendering out to ProResHQ
> and bringing it back into FCP for final export to
> a ProResHQ SCQT. The HD outputs look fine, but
> once I compress to H.264 all hell breaks loose and
> the type looks jaggy. I've played with darkening
> the red a bit (bright red that's 255,0,0 seems the
> worst) which seems to help, but is there any
> setting within the compression that might help? Or
> something I can do with the Chroma sampling in
> either Motion or FCP to alleviate the problem?
>
> Can post sample if you'd like,
> JK

Thanks man.

I actually found a shade of red that holds together after compression; not as bright as I would like (a little on the pink side) but at least it doesn't fall apart.

Ugggh, what a pain.



JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

And divx is the WORST for Red.



John K Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks man.
>
> I actually found a shade of red that holds
> together after compression; not as bright as I
> would like (a little on the pink side) but at
> least it doesn't fall apart.
>
> Ugggh, what a pain.
>
>
>
> JK