Eric Sands
I often produce photo montages using CS3 Premiere Pro, then burn a DVD, then play the DVD at the gig from a DVD player. Would the picture look better if I do NOT burn a DVD, but just export my CS3 timeline to an AVI file (uncompressed) and simply play that AVI file from VDJ?
Posted Fri 01 Aug 08 @ 1:44 pm
Andrew87
Technically yes, especially if you keep it progressive. But uncompressed would be very costly in terms of space even using a lossless compressor such as huffyuv. If you don't need to manipulate the video then the method you're using is fine.
Posted Fri 01 Aug 08 @ 2:07 pm
Eric Sands
Do you think the quality difference would be noticeable?
Posted Sat 02 Aug 08 @ 2:01 am
Andrew87
It depends on what screens and output cables you are using. If you use HDMI/DVI, VGA or component cables and outputting to an LCD or Plasma screen(s) then perhaps the very observant would notice the improved quality. The difference between 1080p, 720p and 480p degrades over distance. If you're using normal 32" ish screens and your audience are always at least a couple of meters away then they won't perceive a difference between the high resolution PC output or the DVD output, here's a graph:
Another thing to factor in is how long your montages are. If they are longer than a normal song, e.g. maybe 30 minutes, then you would need maybe more than 256 MB of memory just for the audio component (as well as losing a deck obviously), then there would also be some tax on the CPU/GPU to decode the video why may affect your audio mixing, although it should be ok.
If you are using any other type of cable, e.g. S-video, scart or composite, dvd resolution is the most you can achieve. If you do have very long videos and think you would benefit from outputting it at a higher resolution from your computer, you could of course use another program alongside Virtual DJ, providing you don't need to manipulate the playback beyond basic pausing.
Another thing to factor in is how long your montages are. If they are longer than a normal song, e.g. maybe 30 minutes, then you would need maybe more than 256 MB of memory just for the audio component (as well as losing a deck obviously), then there would also be some tax on the CPU/GPU to decode the video why may affect your audio mixing, although it should be ok.
If you are using any other type of cable, e.g. S-video, scart or composite, dvd resolution is the most you can achieve. If you do have very long videos and think you would benefit from outputting it at a higher resolution from your computer, you could of course use another program alongside Virtual DJ, providing you don't need to manipulate the playback beyond basic pausing.
Posted Sat 02 Aug 08 @ 5:54 am
Eric Sands
Typically, I am doing 8 minute montages that are being watched with nothing else going on at that time. I have both the DVD player as well as VDJ outputting via S-video cable into Edirol mixer, then output via s-video to projector. I guess the thing to do is just play both and compare.
Posted Sat 02 Aug 08 @ 3:54 pm
Andrew87
If you're using s-video then your resolution output will be dvd quality at best. And as your source material is presumably high, i.e. photos of at least a megapixel, converting to mpeg2 (dvd) will give a high quality output. If you're doing this using a portable system then by all means Virtual DJ will be able to do this sort of thing perfectly.
If you're going to do a comparison, it may be useful for other members if you could post your thoughts on how the quality was with both methods, cheers.
If you're going to do a comparison, it may be useful for other members if you could post your thoughts on how the quality was with both methods, cheers.
Posted Sat 02 Aug 08 @ 4:16 pm
Eric Sands
Yes - next week I'll give my findings.
Posted Sun 03 Aug 08 @ 11:30 am
Eric Sands
Well I exported my CS3 timeline directly to an 8 minute uncompressed AVI file. When I went to load it into VDJ, it took about 1 minute to load, and then the program froze. I could tell there no codec problems because it played a few random frames, but it looked like it couldn't keep up. The file size is 1.5 GB. I am using a P4 with XP and an ATI mobility X800 video card, 1 GB of RAM.
So I guess the question is... what spec needs to be improved to be able to play a file this size?
So I guess the question is... what spec needs to be improved to be able to play a file this size?
Posted Mon 18 Aug 08 @ 11:00 pm
RicardoM
Wow Andrew! Thanks for that chart, very useful.
Posted Tue 19 Aug 08 @ 12:20 am
digitalwiz
Eric Sands wrote :
I often produce photo montages using CS3 Premiere Pro, then burn a DVD, then play the DVD at the gig from a DVD player. Would the picture look better if I do NOT burn a DVD, but just export my CS3 timeline to an AVI file (uncompressed) and simply play that AVI file from VDJ?
Eric I recommend that you continue to burn to DVD and continue using a DVD to play from ur gig, instead of using VDJ
Another OPTION is that you could use a regular player... (VLC, Windows Media Player ) to play your AVI files and that output would be cleaner than both DVD Player or VDJ
1. size.. will not affect DVD player at all... less chance of freezing if.... burnt properly as opposed to VDJ or media player.
2. VDJ does not output the exact size and quality of the playing vid.... (probably see if you should capture a vid set from VDJ)
you may also need to look at the settings at which you burn your DVD in terms of the quality..
do you display from a monitor... a projector... or from TV?? that again... would tell...
Posted Tue 19 Aug 08 @ 7:50 am
Eric Sands
This is being rear projected to a 10 foot video screen. I did end up using the DVD via DVD player, which looked fine. Why would Media Player look better than VDJ? What is a VID set? I burn the DVD at high quality.
Again, the whole point of this is to avoid a loss of a generation in encoding a DVD. In addition, the HERC distorts my analog audio IN from my DVD player, so that's why I am trying to play this from VDJ. If I increase my RAM, would VDJ be better able to load and play the track?
Again, the whole point of this is to avoid a loss of a generation in encoding a DVD. In addition, the HERC distorts my analog audio IN from my DVD player, so that's why I am trying to play this from VDJ. If I increase my RAM, would VDJ be better able to load and play the track?
Posted Tue 19 Aug 08 @ 10:57 am