[STORM5.0]

I have recently completed a 10 minute film using Liquid Edition 6, and I am ready to burn onto DVD-R.

Having followed the 'Export to DVD' procedure, I am disappointed to see much of my footage is very blocky (not grainy, but rather severe 'blocking' tainting the picture) particularly in bright outdoor scenes and with lots of movement onscreen (handheld POV shots especially).

The picture looks fine when viewed on my computer screen through Edition, so something is obviously wrong in the transfer between PC and DVD.

It was shot using a JVC camcorder so I do not expect crystal clear or a high quality reproduction, but I would certainly expect better than this from my end product when I view it on television.

Can anyone help with some advice as to how to increase the quality of my burnt film, and get rid or significantly reduce this terrible blocking I see before my eyes?

Looking for a solution as soon as possible, since my film is ready for submission to competition but I can't send any discs off in this state.

Thank you!

[senu]

Sounds like the encoding parameters are wrong as the mpeg2 encoding from AVI to mpeg in LE are very good.
I use LE 6.1 and Avid Liquid 7 fairly regularly and have never found the output unacceptable

The template should be a program stream ( not Elementary as this spilts the audio) ) and encoding parameters : Variable statistical bitrate: You can experiment with a CBR of 8000. The image from one I tried earlier (below) may help

As an experiment, fuse the sequence and play your resulting Avi thru WMP or VLC to see what results

[STORM5.0]

Thank you for your quick reply - I'll try this and report the results.

[STORM5.0]

Thank you, though PROGRAM STREAM would not give me the option to commence burning (?) - I got excellent transfers through DVD1 and DVD2 instead.

Cheers again for your guidance.

[senu]

You are welcome.
Hope the Competition went fine
The DVD options really are program streams which have audio already multiplexed as ac3 ( or chosen DVD audio) so they are "DVD ready"

The program streams can be used outside Edition ( eg in a standalone DVD
authoring Program Like Ulead MovieWorkshop ( or Factory)) if one choses not to Use Editions Built-in DVD authoring

[STORM5.0]

Hi Senu -

Thank you, the competition went reasonably well (nominated for Best Sound)

I have another question regarding Liquid Edition I hope you can help me with.

I want to put my film on YouTube, and I understand the size limit for files there on a standard account is 100mb.

My film created in Liquid Edition is (almost) 10 minutes long - could you advise how I can compress the film down to within 100mb ready for uploading to YouTube?

In my experiments so far, 'exporting' my film 'sequence' as an AVI/WAV file gives me a huge 4GB (!) file! I have tried playing around with the settings a little, but seem to be making little progress. Saving the file in different formats and with lower frame rates/picture size seems to affect the size of the file, but then there are problems testing it through the usual channels (Nero etc) with 'filter conlicts' and suchlike to blame. And of course I cannot seen to get my file anywhere near under 100mb with Liquid Edition.

I have asked around and obtained Blaze Media Pro, which perhaps can handle the compressing of the file for me. Could you - or anyone with Liquid/Blaze/YouTube knowledge - assist me with the following:-

What is the best format to save my film sequence to in anticipation of compressing and uploading to YouTube, and how do I then use my software to compress this file to under 100mb? Can I specifically set a target of, say, 99mb and ask Liquid or Blaze Media Pro to transform this?

Thank you - any help much appreciated!

P.S.

I'm aware there will be significant quality loss in packing my 10 minute film into 100mb - I still want it up on YT though, and once I get the hang of the converting/packing process intend to upload more films with shorter running times and better quality

[senu]

The best thing would be to export your film from Liquid as WMV or MOV ( Quicktime.
This came up in your earlier thread re :YouTube

Liquid should also be capable of compressing down to DIVX ( mpeg4) gennerally able to combine small files with decent quality

As for whether you do it in Liquid or whether you use Blaze media pro : Im not sure it makes a difference: I use Canopus Procoder2 .

Im not sure why nero has "filter conflict" but Nero would not be your "monitor" video file player: that would be VLC

Specifically if you are unable to use Liquid to get the right format at right size you can output your project as mpeg1 vcd size: then let Blaze media pro convert to mov, mpeg 4 or wmv if it is still too large.
Given that I hr ( 60 min ) of VCD fits on one CD your 10 min movie may just about stay within the 100mg target

I guess whatever you do there is going to be an element of trial and error to see what works best for you
HTH

PS:You should use the "fuse sequence" option rather than export if you want to end up with a DV AVI which for 10 min footage should not be more than 2.1Gb: this smaller starting size is easier for the likes of Blade to compress into wmv, mov or mpeg4 , and also youll find that nero will play it or its "offspring" without chocking

[STORM5.0]

Thank you for your advice.

However I'm struggling to achieve the desired results.

I am totally new to file formats and conversions, and am finding it difficult to determine which settings are correct for what I want - a compressed video/audio file of under 100mb.

I did a 'fuse sequence' in Liquid and came up with a 2.1gb AVI file as you said. This plays just fine in Nero etc.

However when I have opened Blaze Media Pro, I cannot seem to find the right way to get what I want from this file - to have Blaze look at it and compress the whole thing for me.

It really doesn't matter to what format at this stage, it is only the size I am bothered about.

I don't really know how to use Blaze to be honest, since I do not understand many of the principles as yet.

Perhaps you could help me jump forward a little in the learning process by guiding me through a suitable Blade conversion process. The WMV tab has many options ('video for dial-up modems? video for web servers? many different kbps?'), AVI and MPEG have different frame rates to consider (should I alter these?) and I have customised the OUTPUT tab to the required 320 x 240 size as recommended by YouTube (is this the right thing to do).

And when I have come to 'convert' my 'fused AVI sequence'... 'file format error - an error occured during conversion of one or more files'

Could you be specific about exactly how I might set up the whole thing for compressing my Liquid file in Blaze, or within Liquid itself?

Thank you again for your help so far.

PS

Overnight I will 'export' from Liquid as a 'WMV file' (on default settings, or should I change any?). I started this earlier but had to abort as it was painfully slow (does this mean it will be a big file, or that Liquid is working hard to compress? Don't I have to tell the program to compress?) and I did not have much time.

[jomike]

Have you seen this, noting that they recommend mpeg4 divx or xvid:
http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_makevideo

This might also help:
http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?...DV%20to%20DivX

Regards, Mike

[senu]

STORM 5.0,
Hang in there, you are doing all the right things , it seems
I will download Blaze and have a play with it tonight but compressing does take time and people do leave stuff overnight sometimes (leaving it till last thing at nite)
If need be I can compress it for you with procoder ( then tell you exaactly how) If you burn the AVI on a DVD and post it off
All the different settings for wmv, avi and mpeg relate to size vs PQ vs compatibility: Dont worry too much about them for now