Edge Flickering and Blurry Titles
 

Vegas 6. Working on a short production company logo similar to those shown before theatrical films begin. Think Dreamworks, Paramount, Spyglass, etc. Using a still image of a tree composited with a time lapse video of sky for the background. This looks great full screen (4:3). About halfway into the clip I shrink or recede the full screen image into the distance until there is a black border on all four sides. Then 40 point white (220/220/220) title text appears above and below the image in the black (0/0/0) border..

When I watch the preview, all is well. But when I render to avi, the crisp edges of the title text become blurry, and the edges (especially the horizontal edges) of the image flicker annoyingly. This blur and flicker is apparent on computer monitor as well as TV monitor.

I rendered with the standard AVI default preset except I changed “good” to “best”. I’ve turned on the “reduce flicker” switch with no apparent improvement. I’ve fiddled with the thing for hours trying various fixes with little success.

So, are my expectations too high or am I missing something?

Does the blur and flicker begin instantly or after you start zooming in?
What font are you using? Hopefully a nice plain one as opposed to something fancy.

Anyway, here's a few things to try.
Double the frame size of the font (i.e. from 720x480 to 1440x960). This option is in the top left of the title FX window.
Change the black in the text to 16-16-16;
Apply a very slight gaussian blur (Vertical only at 0.001 or 0.002) to the still image;
Render it out in progressive and see if that helps.

Thanks Mike. I'll try your suggestions.

Font is Long Island. Very similar to Times New Roman. Nothing fancy.

By the time the text appears, all animation is finished.

To clarify... the issue with the font is blur. The flicker is confined to the horizontal top and bottom edge of the image that the font accompanies. And it flickers continuously as it shrinks to roughly 50% and continues to flicker while it's sitting still, but to a lesser degree.

I'm trying to make my production company logo as well. What software are you using to create one? I need help getting started making one....

Nothing particularly designed for the task.

My music department (music major son) composed a short orchestral piece using Finale.

For the visuals, I downloaded a royalty free, rather low resolution clip of time lapse blue sky and clouds. With some blur, glow, and a bit of saturation and gamma adjustment, it looks splendid.

Layered on top of the sky is a tree that I cut from another photo using Photoshop. With those raw materials, some pan and crop, keyframe effects animation, and the Vegas titler, I cobbled together something that looks fairly decent.

BTW... with the suggestions above, most of the flickering is under control and the text is considerably sharper. I'm now mostly happy.

Where did you get your resolution clips at? Also, where are the keyframe effects animation located at in Vegas 7? I never used it before...

I got the low res footage from www.freestockfootage.com. For what I used it for, the low res clip was fine (after a little tweaking). Anything other than something like sky and clouds, anything with any detail at all, will likely be too pixelated. But, they will sell you higer res versions if you find something there you really like.

As for keyframe animation... basically any effect, filter, color corrector, etc can be controlled using keyframes. Just type "keyframe" in help, or search the manual and you will find an afternoon's worth of things to try.