Photostory 3: how to make a DVD?

[Michel]

Good morning,

I just downloaded PS3 and I would like to make an animation from about 75
pictures.

The final movie is to be played on a PAL DVD Player. Strange enough: there
is no dv-avi output solution in PS3...

1) First, I notice that the default PAL DVD profile (4:3 aspect ratio) plays
very blurred/unsharp on the computer (Media Player 10). Why?

2) The PapaJohn's PAL DVD profile has a 5:4 aspect ratio. It plays fine on
the computer (sharp). I suppose this profile is better than the default one
(why else should PapaJohn made it?). Right?

3) TMPGEnc reports that a file from PapaJohn's PAL DVD profile has an aspect
ratio of 4:3 (instead of 5:4). Is it normal?

4) TMPGEnc judges the field order: "Bottom field first (B)". Is it right?

5) I would like to import my PS3 stroy in Movie Maker in order to make some
more editing. What would then be the best profile to do that? The DVD
profiles or a "profile for computer"? (the final objective remains: to make
a PAL DVD).

6) One of these "profile for computer" is "type 4: 1024*768". On my
computer, a file rendered with this profile freezes after some seconds....
Why? Types 1, 2 and 3 play OK. Only type 4 freezes (and there is no error
message during the rendering process...).

Thank you in advance

Have a nice day

Michel

 

[Rehan]

The DVD profiles in PS3 do produce blurry results and in my opinion they
have have some sort of bug and it has been reported by many users here and
elsewhere.

If you are using TMPGenc or other high quality encoder then keep your source
video in its original aspect ratio untill it gets fed into the encoder. The
encoder can do much better resampling from 4:3 to 3:2 (NTSC) or 5:4 (PAL)
than photostory or moviemaker.

The reason for 1024x768 profile results not playable properly are most
likely due to your computer resources and processing power. What sort of
machine is it? Nevertheless the same result (1024x768) can still be used for
input to TMPGenc and it should produce good mpeg2 that play smoothly.

 

[Michel]

Thank you Rehan for your answer,

If I understand you correctly, whatever I want to go form PS3>TMPGEnc of
PS3>MM21>TMPGEnc, the profile I should use in PS3 is the 1024x768 profile,
and not the DVD PapaJohn profile. Right?

[I have imported in MM21 a file made in PS3 with the 1024x768 profile, in
order to save it to dv-avi. And yes: it then plays correctly. My computer is
thus too slow to play it as a wmv file (P4M, 1.7 Hhz, 256 MB)].

Michel

 

[Rehan]

If I understand you correctly, whatever I want to go form PS3>TMPGEnc of

PS3>MM21>TMPGEnc, the profile I should use in PS3 is the 1024x768 profile,
and not the DVD PapaJohn profile. Right?

This is my preferred choice. But there is no one correct answer to this as
quality is a subjective matter. I would suggest try Papajohns profiles too
and compare the results as played on TV. Also it will be useful to know your
experience so please post back.

[I have imported in MM21 a file made in PS3 with the 1024x768 profile, in
order to save it to dv-avi. And yes: it then plays correctly. My computer
is thus too slow to play it as a wmv file (P4M, 1.7 Hhz, 256 MB)].

Why do you want to save it to DV AVI? presumably because of the quality.
Although it is the best profile for video material, in my opinion it is not
the best for still slideshows.

The idea should be to keep the data in the same profile as much as possible.
If you capture something in square pixels 4:3 aspect ratio (such as digital
pictures), it may be better to keep it to this pixel format all the way. For
video that is captured in DV AVI, obviously the best output is DV AVI.
However if you capture in a lower resolution then outputting it to dv avi
cannot increase the quality.

There is a custom profiles for 1024x768 size for movie maker too (on
papajohn's website). I would have preferred that in your case.

--
Rehan
www.rehanfx.org - get more effects and transitions for Windows Movie Maker

Thank you Rehan for your answer,

If I understand you correctly, whatever I want to go form PS3>TMPGEnc of
PS3>MM21>TMPGEnc, the profile I should use in PS3 is the 1024x768 profile,
and not the DVD PapaJohn profile. Right?

[I have imported in MM21 a file made in PS3 with the 1024x768 profile, in
order to save it to dv-avi. And yes: it then plays correctly. My computer
is thus too slow to play it as a wmv file (P4M, 1.7 Hhz, 256 MB)].

Michel

The DVD profiles in PS3 do produce blurry results and in my opinion they
have have some sort of bug and it has been reported by many users here
and elsewhere.

If you are using TMPGenc or other high quality encoder then keep your
source video in its original aspect ratio untill it gets fed into the
encoder. The encoder can do much better resampling from 4:3 to 3:2 (NTSC)
or 5:4 (PAL) than photostory or moviemaker.

The reason for 1024x768 profile results not playable properly are most
likely due to your computer resources and processing power. What sort of
machine is it? Nevertheless the same result (1024x768) can still be used
for input to TMPGenc and it should produce good mpeg2 that play smoothly.