[MacDV] Re: iDVD Menus

[Mark M. Florida]

The only thing I can think of that would cause a visual "degradation" of
quality when viewed on a TV is the fact that computers and TVs use
completely different color spaces.  This usually causes images that look
great on a computer monitor to look bad on a TV -- with mids going darker
and light colors getting "blown out", while looking fine when played back on
your computer.  Also, if you use type that's too thin, it will flicker
violently on a TV --  make sure there are no lines thinner than 2 pixels,
and use "block" style type, or if you must use serif fonts, use them at a
point size larger than 40 (at 72 dpi).

Anyway, those are the basic problems.

The only way to really know what your graphics are going to look like on
video is to preview them on a TV/video monitor first.  You can use iMovie or
Final Cut Pro to preview your stills and DVD menus and have the output go
through your DV camcorder/converter to your TV/video monitor.  That will
give you an idea of what the colors will look like.  Now DVDs also use heavy
compression, so if your image is really busy you may see what look like JPEG
artifacts around high-contrast areas of your image...  So you may need to
de-clutter the design a bit if that's the issue.

Hope that helps.

- Mark

> My titles are definitely degraded and I am viewing them on the same TV and
> with the same Panasonic RP91 DVD Player. I can't figure it out. Any
> thoughts, anybody?
> 
> Geno
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ian Tucker" <carlian at picknowl.com.au>
> To: "Macintosh Digital Video List" <MacDV at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
> Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 10:10 PM
> Subject: [MacDV] iDVD Menus
> 
> 
>> 
>> Approx. one month ago I listed concerns I had with the quality of menus
>> I had prepared and burnt with iDVD3 ( the finished product was
>> seriously degraded from the template etc I had worked on in preparing
>> the DVD).  My concerns were confirmed by at least two other people.
>> 
>> I now have to confess that I had not tried the finished DVD in my G4
>> and instead,  had based my observations on watching it on our Loewe TV
>> via our Pioneer DV-344 DVD Player.  A couple of days ago I  decided to
>> view a couple of the DVD's I had burnt on the G4, using the Superdrive,
>>   and found the actual quality is not much less than the original
>> template , buttons etc.   It seems that the combination of our TV set
>> and DVD player is the main cause for the reduction in viewing quality,
>> not iDVD!   Sorry Apple!!
>> 
>> Is there anything I can do to improve the clarity of the picture when
>> using our TV and DVD Player?   I notice, particularly when I first
>> start watching one of my DVD's prepared in iDVD3 that there is a
>> certain amount of pulsing/shimmer with some images.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Ian Tucker.
>> 
>> 
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