Scanned articles text
 

Hey everyone,

I scanned some articles from a newspaper and the file is about 1,2 mb now. If I use this file in Final Cut and transfer the project on a DVD, the text of the articles are bad and you can't read them. Transferring text into a JPEG and read it out as a video file probably makes the text quality go bad. Is there anyway to make the text readable, without having to rescan it in higher quality? Thanks in advance.

Cheers Niels

You're trying to put newspaper text on a video screen? :eek: SD video or HD video?? SD can only have 480(NTSC) or 576(PAL) pixels height - and that's filling the screen for your text.

How many lines of text are you hoping to appear on a single video screen at one time?

As well, different codecs will handle fine line detail better than others. Realizing you need to end up as MPEG-2 for DVD, you MAY still be better off using the Animation or another high quality, less lossy codec for editing than say DV which is notoriously bad for fine line detail, like text.

Thanks for the reactions guys.

It's for an SD project Martin, I told the client that you are not able to read the text if you put it on a DVD. But for them it has to be readable or removed. Probably going to be the last one. I suggested to put it on the DVD as a normal file and make a reference where to find it, so they can download it from the DVD and read it on a computer screen or something. At least it's something.

Shaun, thank you for the advice, I am going to experiment a little bit with it.

Cheers Niels

I place PDF files on the DVD-Rom portion of "video" DVDs all the time. An elegant solution if the readability is paramount.

Niels, still at it?
Here is a solution I prefer in such cases.

Fade in - Scan of original article very close.

Zoom out and defocus at the same time until
complete article or main chapter is barely visible.

Overlay text with one or two core sentences
(animate if approriate).
Voice (off): Read these lines, complete article
in the DVD-ROM section of this DVD.

Plus: Link from Menu to article.

Good advice Peter, sounds like a good solution for it, going to suggest that to the costumer. Thanks a lot for that!

Cheers Niels

No worries :-)