3D-Album Home

Frogprintz · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 1:41 am Post subject:

Tell me more about "focalblade." Do you have a website address where we can get more information?

rsnow · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:57 am Post subject:

I certainly don't want to dispute anything frogprintz has said, as he seems to have much more experience and knowledge about these matters than I do. I am curious however about the 300 res. I haven't actually tried using it because it has been my understanding that it is not necessary for this kind of viewing. Do camcorders, etc. actually record at 300 res? I know my digital camera records images at 72 res.

When creating albums for DVD, I generally use 72 in an 8x10 or 5x5 depending on the configuration of the album. Some albums seem to be set up for better image positioning with 512 x 512 pixels photos. Others do better with 8x10 inch either in landscape or portrait depending on the album configuration.

So far, my DVDs have come out rather nice. At least I think so and everyone who has seen them says they look good. I have noticed that one cannot always depend on the DVD viewers on the computer to give an accurate idea of how the image will look on TV. Even movies from the big studios don't look as good on the computer as they do on TV.

Finally, let me say, I arrived at my combination of res and size after many experiments with other settings. This may not be the perfect solution but as a general guideline it has worked well for me. Oh, and one last thing, I also use a program called FocalBlade to add just a touch of extra sharpness to my images. This seems to help offset some of the fuzziness that occurs during compression.

Charles J. Hentz · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:47 pm Post subject:

emoshe · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 2:37 am Post subject:

Hi All,

From my limited knowledge and expirience with video productions and 3D-Album, I too have noticed that after converting an album with VAC to mpeg2, the quality degrades drastically. The point is that when I convert a video file I make in Premiere, with moving pictures for instance, to MPEG2, the quality of the images is much better. Also, when I see come commercial DVDs that has some pictures in them, the quality is awesome, while the compression is still MPEG2. I Love 3d-album and I think it's the best software in its type, and I'm looking forward for the timeline upgrade, but having the ability to output video files with a higher quality would be great.

And another thing, when I output the video to an Uncompressed AVI, and I watch it on the TV screen through my RT.100X, the quality is the same (not better). So I think we can't blame only the MPEG2 codec but maybe there is a fault in the process before.

Thanks in advance for your time Smile

Eyal

Charles J. Hentz · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:43 am Post subject:

Just from what I've gleaned from the frogprintz, mpeg2 is mpeg2 and the actual conversion process is exactly the same (which makes sense to me.) Which means that the INPUT you're giving your other program is better. I don't think you can compare a movie being converted from one format to another (say AVI to mpeg) to the conversion that the VAC does, as the VAC is converting an application.exe into a movie = totally different. The quality from commercial production he is saying is better also because the input is better (which also makes sense to me.)

Having said that, I am disappointed that apparently giving the VAC better resolution input doesn't help its conversion output. I don't know this for fact as my graphics card is too poor to even try high res images but several have said it won't help and frogprintz while saying better input affects output then goes on to say that higher rez input is not necessary (which pretty much tells me that my expectations are too high for the VAC). I've only tried digital images captured from a 2 mpixel camera. I'm planning to scan in some good 'traditional' camera prints, set the resolution to 97 and see what happens. It is possible that the quality of the digital images I was using wasn't as good as they appeared on screen, but I don't think that is the case.

I still want to get a better graphics card so I can do some testing myself, but now I've got some computer/motherboard issues to work out first. Just goes to say, "it's always something".

Styler · Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 6:56 pm Post subject:

Charles, if possible, would you please send one of your DVD production to me at the address 2200 Ogden Ave, Stuite 350, Lisle, IL 60532. I will have a look at it and see whether there is any problem and you can do any improvement.

Styler · Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 6:57 pm Post subject:

Charles, if possible, would you please send one of your DVD production to me at the address 2200 Ogden Ave, Stuite 350, Lisle, IL 60532. I will have a look at it and see whether there is any problem and you can do any improvement.