Exporting mpeg aliasing problem

[mattbrown]

OK, first it might be helpful for a visual example, albeit poor quality youtube. : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAnY8c9K58Q

The steps to make this sequence are : Blender outputs Targa Sequence at 720x480. After Effect imports the sequence, adds the titles and red background and outputs to 720X480 DV. The AVI is stretched vertically but looks great (ie, no aliasing, see the bmp link at the bottom). I import it into Premiere Elements, add the soundtrack, and export to mpeg with the MainConcept Codec, Quality 5.0, NTSC, 720x480, 29.97fps, Field Order Progressive, Pixel Ratio Widescreen 16x9, BitRate is CBR and maxed at 9, GOP is default 3 and 15.

I am assuming this will produce the highest possible quality mpeg.

When I render I get a lot of aliasing all through the web, especially on the first three rotating webs (notice when the word "Tyler-Man" appears on the still web). I have tried the anti aliasing effect under blur and sharpen and got some relief but not much. Is this as good as it can get? I'm really not happy with the result and when I burn to DVD it is really noticeable on my 480p Infocus projector. I wish I could show you the real mpeg but it is 74 meg.

I was able to take snapshots of the source AVI and the output mpeg. It looks just horrible when the web is even slightly moving. Jaggies everywhere

Source shot:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1sc6n/TylerMa...AviSnapshot.bmp

Elements rendered mpeg shot:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1sc6n/TylerMa...pegSnapshot.bmp

Any advice to correct this?

Matt Brown

 

[John Kary]

First off, don't output to DV-compressed out of After Effects. You didn't say what bitdepth Blender was exporting, but I'll bet it's better than an 8-bit 4:1:1 DV clip. You lose a lot of color info by compressing to DV, and that will induce the chroma-block aliasing problem. Instead, export from AE as Uncompressed 8-bit BMP/Targa sequence. Premiere can handle an image sequence, not sure if Elements can, but try it out.

Secondly, are you sure every encode is setup for 16x9 aspect ratio? It looks like somewhere along the line one of your encodes is not set to 16x9, causing it to be stretched improperly in the final encode. Your AVI export from AE looks like 0.9 (4:3 ratio)

 

[mattbrown]

John, may I please state the following : "YOU ARE DA MAN!"

I just re-exported the project from AE in to a Targa sequence, imported the sequence into Premiere Elements, rendered into a mpeg and it looks absolutely beautiful. Funny thing, when I was exporting to AVI from AE, I was using lossless settings, so I'm not sure what is going on here. At any rate, you gave me a solution, it works, I'm not gonna ask why, I'm just going to use it.

Thank you.

Matt