Video Quality on imported video

[Guest]

I am having problems with the video quality on imported clips. I have a high
res screen capture in MPEG4 encoded .avi that looks great when I play it back
from collection pane in Movie Maker. As soon as I drag the clip into the
storyboard or timeline the quality of the image degrades noticeably.

I assume that Movie Maker is compressing the video in some way as you start
to edit it. Is there any way to adjust the settings on this compression? I
have looked at creating custom Windows Media profiles, but this seems to only
allow you to adjust the settins used for video capture or saving.

 

[John Inzer]

I am having problems with the video quality on imported clips. I
have a high res screen capture in MPEG4 encoded .avi that looks great
when I play it back from collection pane in Movie Maker. As soon as
I drag the clip into the storyboard or timeline the quality of the
image degrades noticeably.

I assume that Movie Maker is compressing the video in some way as you
start to edit it. Is there any way to adjust the settings on this
compression? I have looked at creating custom Windows Media
profiles, but this seems to only allow you to adjust the settins used
for video capture or saving.

===========================
From the timeline...the view screen
displays a lower resolution version of
your source files (most noticible when
viewed fullscreen) but that does not
affect the saved Movie file.

Yes, Custom Profiles used when saving
the finished project as a movie.

To save as an .avi movie file...
(and several other options)
Type...Ctrl+P to open the Save Movie Wizard /
Choose...My Computer /
Next /
Enter a Name and a Save Location /
Next /
Show More Choices /
Other Settings /
Open the drop window and choose...DV-AVI /
Next /
Wait while the movie is saved /
Finish...

To save as a .wmv movie file...
Type...Ctrl+P to open the Save Movie Wizard /
Choose...My Computer /
Next /
Enter a Name and a Save Location /
Next /
Tick...'Best Quality For My Computer'
Next/
Wait while the movie is saved /
Finish...

Also, you may find it useful to use
a custom profile:

Movie Maker 2 - Saving
Movies - Custom WMV Profiles
http://tinyurl.com/s2vgu

Creating Custom Profiles
for Windows Movie Maker 2
http://tinyurl.com/cuny7

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! -
Digital Image MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[Guest]

Hi, hope anynone can help. I have continuiously saved my MM project as
DV-AVI format and burned the video footage to dvd using Nero or MyDvd. The
problem i have is playing on the home dvd player....the video is very
blurry...any suggestions???

Should I just use a custom profile?

 

[Guest]

Sorry, but the degradation once the image is recorded is very noticable. I
have tried to save in every available format but there is no getting around
it. The act of dragging a clip to the timeline has a negative effect on the
quality of the video and I am trying to determine if there is a way around
this?

 

[Graham Hughes]

To be honest Jim I'm surprised you get an mpeg4 clip to work at all in MM as
it is a supported file format. Your options are to convert to wmv or DV.avi
then edit in MM, or to buy an app that natively edits mpeg4, such as adobe
premiere elements.

 

[RalfG]

From what you say the problem lies with the Nero or MyDVD conversion to
Mpeg2. MM is not involved unless the DV-AVI souce video is blurry. If the
original video is low resolution the blurriness could be the result of
upscaling it to DVD resolution during the file format conversion.
Alternatively you could be trying to squeeze more than the standard length
of time onto the DVDs, which involves both decreasing the MPEG2 bitrate and
the video resolution, thus reducing the image quality.

 

[Guest]

Ok. Lets try something else. I have used a dvd burner/player to burn the
video footage from the videocam onto a dvd-r using the burner and finalised
the disc so it plays clearly in any dvd player. No on the disk I have 5 VOB
files. What could be a process to follow now to put the footage into MM and
then use either Nero or MyDVD to put the effects in and burn to a dvd.

Any suggestions???

 

[PapaJohn]

see my website's Import Movie Source Files > Video > Discs page..

 

[RalfG]

If as you say you are going to put in the effects with Nero or MyDVD and
also burn using those apps, then bringing MM into the process at all seems
redundant and counter productive. Even if MM performs a neccessary editing
function that Nero or MyDVD cannot, converting the video to DVD only added
extra steps that in the end will put you back exactly where you were before.
If anything the final video might look worse because of all the extra
conversions back and forth between file formats. If you look at papajohn's
page outlining how to extract the video from DVD you'll see that recovering
the video from VOB files complicates the process when compared with working
from the original source video.

You've already converted the video files once when burning them onto DVD so
the quality going in to MM this time will be somewhat lower than it was when
capturing the video as DV-AVI onto the harddrive and working with that
directly. Converting the MPG2/VOB files back into DV-AVI or WMV format with
MM will degrade the video yet again and then you will degrade it even
further when you put the files back into Nero or MyDVD and reconvert yet
again to MPG2(VOB). If Nero and MyDVD produced the blurry looking DVD
videos in the previous attempts then nothing has been changed that would
give a better result this time.

 

[Guest]

Ralf, so do you suggest caputuring the video using say My DVD putting the
effects into the project and buring the disc using only My DVD? I have tried
numerous software applications and have not yet been successful. All in all
the video is coming through blurry.