How to Shrink Video without Loosing Resolution

Eatsnax

Eatsnax

Well-known member
I have a scene where at different times I need to overlay video over a TV set or Cellphone. The video is created in Motion 3. It's mostly motion graphics.

This is where I have the problem. When I render the footage 1280 x 720, then scale it down to fit the TV or cellphone in the scene. The video looses resolution! All the lines that were smooth become pixelated! I'm really lost right about now.

The composition that I throw the 1280 x 720 video is really 960 x 720. That shouldn't be a problem should it? What should I do to make sure that the video doesn't become pixelated when I scale down? I would think that having a high res video would give me room to play with, even with scaling down. Any suggestions?
 
Well that's sort of impossible isn't it? If you reduce something in size you are reducing the resolution. The way to do this with the most apparent quality would depend highly on how you are downconverting and to what format. MPEG-4 on a phone is going to look cruddy compared to DVCPROHD at 720p hands-down, no way around that.

Noah
 
Sorry Noah what I meant was, a shot of a person holding a phone. Or a scene where they are watching TV. I shot the TV set with the HVX200 at 720 24PN. Then I've created a News segment in Motion 3 with the same dimensions 960 x 720. Then I render it and throw it in the scene over the shot of the TV set. I have to scale it down to fit over it, when I do that , either in the motion tab in FCP, or scaling down in Motion 3 by holding down shift to keep the ratio, all the lines get jagged.

Im not trying to render to play on a cellphone, which is what I think you thought I said. Is it? lol. Im trying to overlay video over a 'shot' of a cellphone or a shot of a TV. And I cant seem to get the best quality. Do I have to render to a smaller size so I dont have to scale it down so much? Or am I using the wrong codec? Or is it something else?

Your DVD's are great by the way

Mike
 
In FCP make sure your Motion render quality is set to high in user prefs. Also be sure to judge final image quality on a TV not your desktop.

Noah
 
I agree with Noah on this.

Make sure you have everything rendered and then also watch it where you will be viewing it... web? Output it for web... TV? watch it on a broadcast monitor.

Any chance you can do a screen capture of the canvas window and timeline?

CaptM
 
Hey guys thanks so much for replying back.

Okay I checked what Noah said and Im good on that. Motion is set to high.
I also checked on my Totevision field monitor to check the resolution. Your right Capt, but it didn't really render sharp enough. Even though it was better than what my computer monitor showed me in FCP, as far as less jagged lines, but its still not satisfactory. I can see it playing on a huge screen and looking like crap.

But here are some stills...

This here is before i add the overlay
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/3268/dvxuser1ir9.png

This here is the project I created in motion 3, its really sharp and crisp.
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/8953/dvxuser4zz6.png

This is what it looks like after Ive merged the two in Motion 3, and bring it back to FCP

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/6327/dvxuser2fd0.png
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/5514/dvxuser3zl2.png

And finally here is a pic of the timeline , Im not sure what you want with this Capt but here it is.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2089/dvxuser5yw1.png

Thanks!!
 
I did say render.... didn't I????

Why not try building it the size it will actually be in the comp? THen you won't be scaling it so much?

CaptM
 
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I did render it, I said that I ended up realizing that the quality could be better.

You said I should try building it the size of the comp. It is the size of the project though which is 960x720. What your suggesting is to render it the size of the hand held device in the scene? Thats what I was wondering also. Should I just guesstimate it? Or is there a way to measure the pixels on screen? Or is just rendering it a smaller scale, and not having to squeeze it down from a huge version the right thing to do?
 
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