exporting to sorenson from xpress pro 5.5.1

[dog666]

Hi everyone,

here is my issue. I have burned a DVD and I noticed that the resolution is poor when on the large flatscreen at work. The color is fine, it's just that everything is soft, and almost pixelated. I know when I watch the footage when hooked up to my TV straight from in the camera, the footage looks great, with no pixelation. I know this is a compression issue of some sort. somewhere along the line I have lost resolution. I use a DVX 100a camera, I shot the footage in 30i, and transfered via firewire to avid xpress pro 5.5.1.

Here's where I feel may be a problem but I have no clue if it has anything to do with it ...(but probably)

I initially had trouble with my exports and I couldn't get my files out right. I export as a quick time reference, but when I went to watch the mov., only the file's audio was showing up and the video was black. I was told to try not clicking the "use Avid DV codec" button. This worked, and I was able to export all the footage fine. One of my questions is, am I missing out on good resolution this way? And how the hell do I get this avid codec? I tried to get it before, and I even downloaded some codecs from the avid website and put them into the avid folder, not the system folder, but still it doesn't show up, or work. Any suggestions?

Also, what is the difference between, DV 25 411, DV 50, 15:1s, and 1:1 resolutions? (these are the resolutions available to me in the media creation settings) I currently have it set to DV 25 411, but will changing this to something else improve my resolution?

I export the non DV avid codec footage to sorenson squeeze using the "large" compression, but I am not sure if there is something here I am missing, but obviously this is where my major compression is? what would be my best bet here? Now that I think about it, I don't think I used the mpeg2 button ,I just clicked the DVD NTSC large button, opened my file and squeezed it. Should I hit the mpeg2 button and adjust settings here? what would be my best bet here? I see that I can use the "custom settings" menu, and get a bunch of options,

My audio is fine by the way.

How do I find what the frame size of my project is? I think this would help? and do I set it to that? What is the "data rate", what is this? I know this is a lot of questions, but I should learn this crap. Ben

[dog666]

I have just watched a clip I exported to the quick time reference mov. which I haven't compressed yet, and I notice even here that my footage has some resolution loss. So it seems my problem may even be before I squeeze it. HMMMMM...... I will try my best to describe what I see..... I have paused my footage on a car driving by, and the movement of the car has horizontal lines going across the car, like if you were drawing hatches in pen and ink. Is this normal? Should I maybe film in a different setting?

[Carlos_E._Martinez]

Why don't you have a look at the Avid and Sorenson settings suggested here?

http://www.videoguys.com/XDVtips.html#squeeze

It might be a good starting point. They worked for me.

With a DVX100A camera you should have top quality images.

[MagicCat]

I could be wrong, and Im sure there is someone that can elaborate on my not so high tech answer but it sounds like what your seeing is actually Interlaced video "tearing". If so, it has nothing to do with the Mpeg codec per say, it has to do with Interlaced video playing on a progressive scan montior. I have had the same problem for years going to DVD or some sort of web format that wants progressive scan footage. The more motion, the more tearing. I have had good luck de-interlacing the footage upon export to an AVI2 format first, re-importing it and encoding to the final format of choice. Usually I do this in Premiere Pro simply becuase IM used to it.

BTW, I sure wish someone at Avid and Premiere would explain to me how to capture natively shot 30p DV footage. I have yet to see anything that will import 30p DV footage as 30p not Interlaced. They all allow you to export as such.

[MichaelP]

...and some large flat screen monitors don't have the best resolution - they can be noisy, and blacks aren't as black as they should be. Interlace on progressive monitor as MagicCat suggests could also be an issue since it will introduce field blending if your sources are not progressive to start. How does it look on a regular NTSC monitor?

Michael