Re: Photo Story 3 : Encoder profile settings for PAL-DVD as end-r

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I beleive the "PCTV" effect that you observe is a result of temporo-
spatial aliasing.

While zooming or panning, a feature in the photo is moving across the
pixel matrix of the rendering at a certain number of pixel positions
per second. In turn, this matrix is sampled in time at the frame rate
of the video conversion. When the rates are such that photo pixels
move about one video pixel per frame, the "beat frequency" between
the two pixel matrices is zero, as if they were stationary.

If the motion is of a speed such that a photo pixel moves across
a video pixel in, say, a fifth of a second, then you will observe
a 5Hz "flicker" of those pixels.

I believe this is the reason for the dependency of the flicker effects
on transition rates, and it would therefore also be expected to be a
function of the ratio between the photo pixel density and the video
pixel density in the rendering.

All of this could be avoided by doing proper digital filtering of the
photos prior to resampling them to the video resolution.

Simply low-pass filtering the photos (blurring them) is a brute force
way of accomplishing the same thing, but with lower quality.

-michael


JL4VIDEO wrote:
Hi again Michael,

Maybe you will find it interesting to read this new post I put in another forum, because it proves almost scientifically that 1024x768 is the best pixel size to render a slideshow in Photostory 3

http://www.windowsphotostory.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=259

John


"Michael J. Mahon" wrote:


Now I have some more results, and they are quite satisfying!

I recently tried creating the Photo Story 3 .wmv output using its
built-in 1024x768 profile, followed by NeroVision Express 3 to burn
it to a DVD.

The results were every bit as good as the slower 1280x960 .wmv file.

So my new standard for creating high-resolution (DVD quality)
DVDs of Photo Story 3 slide shows is:

1. Create slide show in Photo Story 3
2. Save it as a 1024x768 .wmv ("for playback on a computer")
3. Import it into NeroVision Express 3 (with any other slide
shows I want to combine with it, and add menus)
4. Burn it to DVD.

Using this procedure, transcoding is faster and the results are
as sharp and smooth as any commercial DVD (unlike the results
produced by using lower resolution profiles or the Sonic add-in).

-michael


JL4VIDEO wrote:

Hi Michael,

Any more news as result of your experiments with the high resolution .wmv output files and Nero Vision Express as encoding/authoring/burning tool ???

I have the best results if I take the new PapaJohn profile (which was in fact my suggestion) but save it under the old filename (having copied and saved the old profile under another name before)

So file {3E54A8AB- … }.prx (for PAL over here in Europe) or {913A60D4 -…}.prx (for NTSC in the US) now has the new parameters while keeping the old filename (this could also be done directly with the Windows Media Profiles Editor if one has downloaded that package from the Microsoft website)

Using this filename seems to trigger a few hidden actions behind the curtains, which I regret are not documented by Microsoft, resulting in a slideshow which (with the original profile parameters) is too blurry to show even to friends or family.

But using the high resolution parameters this effect is largely attenuated and a little bit of residual “smoothing” of the pictures is good against what I use to call the PCTV syndrome (a problem which is very typical for these sort of slideshows regardless of the software used to create them: very often when one is using the “zoom”, in the resulting video a number of Pixels in a Cluster get jumpy and start Twinkling and Vibrating)

So probably going up to even higher resolutions may result in even better quality, but so far I have not tried that due to technical limitations. Already with 1280x960 one must have a fast PC with enough memory which is doing noting else, and even then one should carefully monitor the virtual memory with the Windows Task Manager. On the PapaJohn website some information can be found on these memory problems which may, if the system is “overstressed”, result in a video with a lot of “hickups” both in image and in sound.

I hope to read something from you again in the Forum. Our combined experience could be a help to a lot of people using PhotoStory in the whole world !

JL4VIDEO


"Michael J. Mahon" wrote:



OK, Nero Express did a *great* job transcoding from the higher
resolution .wmv file!

And there are narrow "letterboxing" bars above and below my
images, so using a pixel ratio of 4x3 is the correct approach.

I'll re-do my work using 1280x960 now with confidence that the
detail I'm looking for will be preserved.

Thanks!

-michael


Michael J. Mahon wrote:


I guess I'll try Nero again, with the new resolution(s).

I've never figured out whether 4x3 pixel ratio or 720x480 ratio
was more amenable for DVD transcoding. Apparently, DVD pixels are
not square...

I think that the Sonic encoder (at least with its provided profile)
produces very low video quality. It would look fine on a 12" screen,
but not on a large format hi-res TV.

I'll let you know how Nero does!

-michael


JL4VIDEO wrote:



I always use Nero Vision Express 3 as combined tool for MPEG-2 encoding/DVD authoring /burning and I have had no problems.
I render my slideshow as a 1280x960 pixel size .wmv file which is totaly unrelated to the standard PAL 720x576 but it has the normal TV screen aspect ratio of 4:3 !!!
This may be the reason or else it is related to quality or flexibility of the encoder in the Sonic plug-in. Nero Vision Express 3 is normaly delivered as part of the Nero 6 package, so maybe you have it on your PC and you could try it out. I like it also because it gives the possibility to create chapters and to build very nice menu's

"Michael J. Mahon" wrote:




Well, I tried it.

The rendering as a WMV file worked fine, but I notice that the playback
pauses for a fraction of a second during each transition... ;-(

When I tried to burn a DVD, I noted that the Sonic add-in that I bought
doesn't give any choices except a 720x480 NTSC and a similar PAL
profile. Choosing the obvious NTSC option produced a very fuzzy,
much less than 720x480 resolution result.

This is thoroughly unsatisfactory.

So how do I get one of my "enhanced" profiles encoded for DVD and
burned (besides the deficient Sonic solution).

-michael


JL4VIDEO wrote:



Sure, go ahead and try. Edit the original profile as I wrote before but enter 1440x960 as new size. Then you can do 2 things. If you want above all *sharpness of the pictures* and you don't mind some occasional PCTV effects (when using pan or zoom) then export it as a new profile with a filename you choose yourself (and CLOSE afterwards without saving or the original file will be overwriten). On the other hand if you accept a little bit of *smoothening* and thus avoiding all PCTV effects, overwrite the old profile while keeping its old filename.

One warning though: rendering 1440x960 is going to ask all power of your PC and sufficient memory (512K minimum, but 1024 would be better). I ran into a problem with 1500x1200 which produced a .wmv file with some occasional "jitter". Anyway it's worth a try, but shut down and restart your PC, and then immediately do the job in order to have maximum memory available.


1500x1200

"Michael J. Mahon" wrote:





Interesting...so the idea is to provide *much* more resolution than an
NTSC DVD encodes, so that the DVD encoder will be the last step-down
in resolution? Wouldn't 1440x960 be even better (for a 2:1 resampling)?
Or maybe that's not available...?

-michael


JL4VIDEO wrote:




Hi,
I never tested the NTSC related profiles because over here in Europe it’s all PAL of course.
But I feel pretty sure that you have the same problem and this could be a good solution to it.
What you must do is edit the profile with filename={913A60D4 -…}.prx and change the parameters into the following:
size: 1280 x 960 - frame rate : 30 - quality : 100 - key frame interval : 1 sec
Then "save and close", thus overwriting the old profile, while keeping its filename !

It would be nice if you let me know what the results are


"Michael J. Mahon" wrote:






I think you are on to something.

I have noticed exactly the same problem with NTSC DVDs, and, though
Papa John's 720x480 profile makes it somewhat better, it still is
only half as sharp as the DVD I can record from Windows MCE slide
show (which is essentially a "random effect" Photo Story 3).

Therefore, the problem is clearly not the number of pixels (my DVD
recorder records in 720x480), but in the "smoothing" applied by
Photo Story 3 using either standard or Papa John profiles.

I would *love* to have pictures rendered sharply enough that there
are occasional "twinkling" effects. (BTW, when viewing pictures
including water surfaces, they appear to be actually moving. ;-)

(BTW, for those who have never seen good 720x480 slide show output,
saying that it looks "fine" as it is doesn't contribute much.)

-michael


JL4VIDEO wrote:





It is a widely known secret that something seems to be wrong with the original Microsoft profile for PAL-DVD in Photo Story 3 (a problem which is not solved in version 3.1). With this setting you end up with a slideshow that is too blurry to show to your family or friends.


From Papa John’s website you can download a slightly modified

profile, to be



placed in the folder C:\\program files\Photo Story 3 for Windows\profiles\1033 , and this turns out to be a real improvement! Every picture is sharp again, but here and there you may encounter another problem now, which is very typical for these sort of slideshows. Very often when one is using the “zoom” a number of Pixels in a Cluster get jumpy and start Twinkling and Vibrating which I would call the PCTV syndrome.

What Papa John most likely did, was to change a few of the numbers, using the Windows Media Profiles Editor, and export the result in order to get a new file. However if you reinstall in this profile the original numbers and export again, you would expect this third profile to generate the same output as the first, but this is not the case! It generates something that is very similar to that of the second profile!

So my guess is that the Microsoft people, in order to tackle the PCTV problem, have hidden some sort of magical trick inside to soften the pictures, triggered only by a specific filename {3E54A8AB- … }.prx , most probably linked to a register key. And it worked just fine for PCTV, but they overdid it, and the resulting slideshow is a real disaster! And moreover as a user I have no “attenuator” available to trim their softening process.

But if I now import the MS profile and modify whatever parameter I want, but then rather than export the new profile just “save and close”, it is a completely different situation. The old file is overwritten, I have a new profile which by its filename is linked to this magical anti PCTV trick, and I can start a series of experiments.

So as Photo Story uses we have two ways of action:

1- We kindly ask Microsoft to provide a way to attenuate their anti PCTV trick in the next software release, which we all hope will be in a few weeks
2- Meanwhile we can use the following temporary solution: overwrite the old PAL-DVD profile with a new one, which has the following parameters:
size : 1280 x 960 - frame rate : 25 - quality : 100 - key frame interval : 1 sec
With this profile you get a very acceptable slideshow without any PCTV syndrome
(I also tried 1500 x 1200 which at first glance seemed even better, but then from time to time the video images became a little bit unstable)


-michael

Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."



--

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/


--

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."
.

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