How to create NTSC safe titles??
 

I just exported my HD movie to DVD (aspect HD) from PP2. When I played the disc on my 27" sony trinitron the titles looked all crappy! They were really fuzzy and flickery. None of my colors appeared to be unsafe for NTSC.

How do I ensure that my titles are going to look good on tv?

Even the Arial font in adobe's default White looked fuzzy. Interestingly the titles with a black outer stroke (type: edge, size 20.0) looked ok. Is this a problem due to the font or overly sharp edges or something else? I've attached a jpg of the titles as they should appear.

Any suggestions?

More information...
 

Here are two pictures of the crappy looking titles from the DVD itself. Apparently the titles are messed up even when I play the disc on my computer's 20" apple cinema display.

I've also noticed that the titles look bad when I export to wmv via adobe media encoder. Perhaps the problem lies with adobe's encoder(!)

In that case I better figure out a way to export my movie, encode it using some other program, and burn it to DVD using yet another program... Oy vey!

When titles display on an interlaced tv screen, they must have certain attributes that will make them look good. You need to put a slight blur on the edges. That's why your black outline characters looked okay. Also, use simple sans serif fonts (which it appears you did). Make sure the horizontal elements of the characters are more than one pixel in height, otherwise they can disappear on alternating fields of an interlaced display. You should also make sure your vertical roll rate is an even multiple of 60.

Most of these suggestions are from Adam Wilt's site so you might wish to go there for additional information and background on why this is necessary.

-gb-

Greg Thanks for those tips. The blur (starting from 0.0 and going to 20.0 points) acutally made it worse when I encoded a wmv! The titles, roll or not, all have the same problem... (Incidentally, how do I make sure my roll rate is a n even multiple of 60?)

At this point I actually think that this has something to do with adobe's encoder. The titles looks horrible on the DVD regardless of whether or not I play it on my tv or on my computer. If I export my movie to wmv I get the same problems.

I wonder if this has something to do with cineform's aspect hd or not. No idea yet.

Does your video footage look OK? The screenshot looks like it might if it were very heavily compressed - but that would affect the main footage as well...

The video footage (from the DVD) looks ok on my TV but not on my computer monitor. It does however, look better than the titles.

I just imported an de-interlaced CFHD avi into TMPGenc and encoded it as a mpeg. That titles in that mpeg look good.

One problem down, one to go.
 

Ok. I'm using TMPGEnc which solved the crappy title problem. But now I can't seem to get TMPGEnc to output to 16:9. All my mpegs I create have black vertical black bars on the sides instead of horizontal black bars on the top and bottom. Am I missing something here? My original file is a widescreen CFHD avi.

Anyone know how to solve this?

The original problem was with the titles seems to be with Adobe's encoder (doing something to the titles). Whether this is due to my having created weird titles, something intrinsicly wrong with the adobe encoder or just some odd bug, I'm not sure.

Under TMPGenc's 'settings', there are 3 things you need to check: the aspect ratio on the 'video' tab (set that to 16:9) and also the source aspect ratio and video arrange method (both on the 'advanced' tab).

Graham,
I'm using TMPGEnc 4.0. I'm not sure where the advanced tab is.

OK, you are on Xpress and I'm familiar with Plus (V.2.5). Their interfaces are different, so ignore my post.


Nevertheless, there should be settings for BOTH the source aspect AND the output aspect...somewhere....

What's the difference between the two?

TMPGenc.net got bought out or something by Pegasys in 2004. Their original MPEG encoder, which was at Version 2.5, got redesigned with a better GUI and a wider range of encoding options and a heftier pricetag and remarketed as "Xpress" by Pegasys. Plus remains available at TMPGEnc.net.

"Plus" basically has a single window with lots of parameters, whereas XPress has a series of windows with Next steps that step you through the process. I assume the encoding engine in "Xpress" is essentially the same as "Plus".