Deploying video on the computer
 

Hi Everyone,

Have a client that wants me to shoot a segment of video and deliver the end product in a quicktime file at or very close to the resoluiotn of 800x600.

Couple of questions:

DV is 720x486...therefore can I even create a 800x600 image?
Will it degrade the quality?
Will I have to compensate for the aspect ratio?

They want the video to run on the computer monitor like a traning video...but full screen...is it possible?

Thanks in advance...

I'm sure there are plenty of ways to do this, but a couple come to mind. If you have QuickTime Pro you can use the "full screen" option to show the video by itself on the screen. The software will actually set the display resolution using hardware (if possible) for the best fit (eg: if you monitor was set to 1024x768 it would actually change the resolution to the closest possible size, just as though you did this in the monitors control panel). There is also a fit to fill option for this mode which will further scale the image in software. I use these features all the time when I want to show somebody video clips on my powerbook.

Another option, again using QuickTime Pro, is to export your video to a new file at 800x600; just use the DV codec for compression. Since you're viewing on a computer monitor with square pixels I don't think there will be an aspect ratio problem. I don't know that this really "degrades" the quality, but you can't create detail that wasn't there in the first place obviously. My own experience is that it should look pretty good.

I imagine you could also do this in your NLE, and Final Cut Pro should give pretty much the same results. I just like to use QuickTime Pro for this sort of thing since it's so easy. Also, under "get movie properties" in QuickTime you can set the clip to play automatically on opening and disable the conroller if you like. One other thing you should definitely do is enable high quality playback using the properties of the video track; it really makes a noticeable difference.

Caveat: all this applies to the Mac version of QuickTime Pro, I'm not familiar with the Windows version.

The problem with creating a video with 800x600 res, would be the file size for one, and the computer not having enough graphic power to play it without skipping and jittering. Try 400x300, and 20 - 25 frames a second. With decent compression, I have had videos with this resolution come out really nice, even full screen.

making the video larger (ie: 640x480) as opposed to something smaller (320x240) doesnt really make the file that much larger. what is more noticable is playback of that file. slower pcs and older video cards (memory can also playin to as well as ide speed, etc) have more probs. newer machines can handle it fine. i put up clips at 640x480 as opposed to the tiny 320/240 fro streaming and most viewers never have probs, unless they have older pcs.

ofcourse this is my experience when using short clips & WMP9 mostly. i havent done the same in REAL or QT so i dont know how file viewing res effects file size in those apps...

You could rent a PAL camera??

That will give you a resolution of 768x576 if you display it as square pixels.

That is incredibly close to 800x600.

Also you get the added bonus of 25fps.

Zac

<<<-- Originally posted by Keith Forman : The problem with creating a video with 800x600 res, would be the file size for one, and the computer not having enough graphic power to play it. -->>>

Well that's one reason to just play back your native DV footage with QuickTime Pro in full screen mode and let the program scale the image on the fly. This works perfectly well on my PowerBook G4/667 and Power Mac G4/733. Don't know about PC's. Most modern video cards appear to be up to this task.

But regarding file size, I have exported anamorphic 720x480 DV files to 853x480 square pixel files using QuickTime and they played back fine. I was also surprised that they didn't get much larger. So I suspect if you have a newer Mac 600x800 would also work.

But the real answer to your question, of course, is to just give it a try using the target hardware and see what happens.

Thanks everyone for the responses...helps a lot for this project and most items have been ironed out the ones that have not will be as soon as we are into the think of it.

Jay Reilly