16:9 Mask

[Emma]

Hey y'all.

I am working on a project in AVID where I'm using a 16:9 mask. My images are in at 10:1 and when I place the mask in my timeline over them, it noticeably lowers the picture quality. I've tried a couple of things to stop this, to no avail. Anyone have any suggestions as to how I might maintain the standard of my image, or why my mask is making the images lower in quality?

Thanks,

emma.

[E_Tedeschi]

What breed of Avid are you using?

I've seen quality issues related to realtime functions (on MC Adrenaline) - ie if you play the mask (or any other graphic, for that matter) in realtime, the image might be a little fuzzy, but once you render the sequence it is crystal-clear... Although this doesn't happen consistently, either...

e.

[Emma]

I'm on Media Composer. I tried the render prior to asking the question, but I might try and reapply the effect and then render again.

Thanks Enzo.

[Daz]

Usually rendering effects actually makes them look worse. This is because each time the picture is rendered it takes another pass through the JPEG board and gets another dose of compression. Similar to generations on tape!

[E_Tedeschi]

You're absolutely right, Daz. Which is why we get so peeved when the machine decides it doesn't like a graphic. There's in all likelihood something in the various formats of gfx that we're using, but no-one has managed to put their finger on it. Could it even be a peculiarity of the software version??

e.

[JWRL]

That said, though, the difference in quality between rendered and realtime on a simple mask should not be significant. Have you tried setting up your own crop in, say, PIP or resize and verifying that you still have a problem? Failing that, you might like to try creating your own mask as a Photoshop graphic and using that.

These are just potential workarounds, I know, and not really solving the problem, but it might be worth a try if it gets you out of your immediate problem.

[Daz]

On older systems often the only real-time fx were via the title tool, so I used to make up a mask using a title. A cheeky cheat!

[Emma]

Thanks for that Daz,

You are right, when the effect is real time there is no degradation - the moment you render it - there it is, whether it is picture in picture, resize, mask or whatever.

However, rendering titles doesn't degrade the image so I'm now rendering my titles and keeping the mask as a real time effect (without rendering it).


Thanks guys.

Em.

PS. Congrats Daz - or should that now be Dazase?
AND Congrats JWRL - Pete announced that last Sunday too. Sentenced to life eh?

[Daz]

Cheers Emma. Glad to help.

[JWRL]

Thanks Emma. It was totally unexpected, and I'm more grateful than I can say.