DVDSP and Crappy Quality Text

[actingbiz1]

I just finished a Wedding DVD and I test the DVD out and then when I play a video on my TV... The text is pixelated. It's Zapfino typeface and it's supposed to be smooth, but on T.V> it's all blocky.
How can I get to DVD exactly what I see on my computer?

I export it as DVCPRO HD 720p
Im burning it onto a standard DVD and playing it on my HD TV
In DVDSP I have it set to 16:9 Letterbox 720ix480
Is there anyway to change it to 720p?

[matteusclement]

i've had the same thing. total piss off for me.
let me know what happens.

[Heb1228]

A standard DVD is limited to 480 resolution so its just not going to be that sharp on an HDTV and will likely show jagged interlacing lines it there's any side-to-side movement at all. If you can change it from 480i to 480p it'll look better but still not very good.

It will probably look great on a SD television.

[LethalWolfe]

W/all those fine edges and sloping lines Zapfino is going to look like crap on a regular TV. For interlaced material, especially SD, you want fonts that are thick, straight and don't have any points and such hanging off the letters. DVD SP is SD only so no 720p authoring is going to happen.


Lethal

[matteusclement]

So at the risk of sounding stupid, what fonts work OR what settings make it better?
I always burn to SD DVD.

[filman408]

DVD pixels have like a 1.2 aspect ratio, they are not simple squares - hence the reason for blocky test and think fonts that look better.

[actingbiz1]

Well it's not even JUST the text that's blocky, the whole picture is blocky.
I did a test and increased the BitRate to 8.5 Mbps. with avg of 6.4mbps which should have increased my quality by 70% from what I had (4.0avg and 6.0 max)
It helped a little, but it is still bad.

Do you think Adobe Encore would work better?

[filman408]

Encore would not be better, it would do the same thing considering the media kind you are using.

Export your video in a format other then DVCPRO, as it actually exports the video as 960x720, then stretches it to fill the 1280 frame.
Be sure to use ProRes or AIC and have the frame size be a full 1280x720. Also, use compressor to make your mpeg2 files, choose a 2-pass.
But one thing: dont export your video any larger then it actually is. Dont upres, as it could make these issues.

[LethalWolfe]

Well it's not even JUST the text that's blocky, the whole picture is blocky.
I just realized that you are playing it back on your HDTV. That's going to make it look even worse. Play it back on an SD TV and see how it looks.


Lethal

[actingbiz1]

STOP THE PRESSES! I have found a solution! (Go me)
I was screwing around with different things and I came across a good workaround.
I export my videos in DVCPRO HD 720p @24fps (23.976).
I went into my settings and doubly made sure that it was exporting in Progressive rather than interlaced, and it was progressive.
I then exported it with those settings.
I imported it into compressor and then used the DVD Best Quality 90 - Min workflow and then used the audio AC3 workflow and imported it into DVDSP.
Burned it and it is beautiful!
The text is as smooth as it is in Final Cut (didn't change it from Zapfino)
The colors are blended correctly, and the resolution is great whether its on my XBOX connected to my HDTV or my crappy DVD player hooked up to a regular TV.
(Also, I changed my XBOX resolution to 720p to view the video. But the 1080i works fine too, theres only a little distortion that can be seen if you're picky. But nothing to the extent it was before.)
Hope this helps for anyone else having this problem, and thank you all for your help!

[matteusclement]

maybe we were talking about different things.
I was talking about the DVDSP text on the opening menu looking like garbage.
are you talking about the text IN the movie?

[actingbiz1]

maybe we were talking about different things.
I was talking about the DVDSP text on the opening menu looking like garbage.
are you talking about the text IN the movie?

Yes text in the movie.
I'm sorry if my post was misleading.

[matteusclement]

So does anyone have an answer as to how to make the text in the DVD menu look decent?