Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DTS XD-10 Video Capabilities

This is topic DTS XD-10 Video Capabilities in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 04-09-2006, 05:27 AM:

Has anyone used the DTS XD-10 to read DVD(.VOB files)?
I am currently running on-screen ads using PC's,Data Projectors and Power Point Presentations.I thought that i could save the cost of 2 pc's and use my two XD-10's for the preshow ads but the conversion to .VOB files from Power Point seems to loose a lot of quality.Anyone got any experience with this??
Ian

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 04-13-2006, 01:16 PM:

What resolution were you running the PowerPoint files through the data projector at?

If the projector was being given a 1024x768 or even 800x600 resolution, I think it's very probable that a DVD outputting 720x480 is not going to look as good.

How are you doing the conversion from PPT to VOB? Make sure that you aren't saving to JPG or other lossy format, or any text is going to have lots of artifacts that will only get worse when downsampled and converted to DV.

You might also be getting bitten by poor downsampling of the image, especially where text is concerned. If you can create your content for the 720x480 output, I think you'll end up with better results.

I couldn't figure out how to get PowerPoint 2003 to output to either PNG or TIF at anything besides 960x720. I did a screen capture at 1280x1024 and saved it as a TIF, as well as saved out of PowerPoint as both TIF and PNG, and then imported them into a Sony Vegas Movie Studio project defined as 720x480 DV.

While each had varying results, none looked as good as the original PowerPoint presentation as played on my screen. I imported one of the 960x720 TIF's into Photoshop and reduced the size to 640x480 and then rendered both in Vegas to see if there was a big difference between the two. The resized image looked a little better on edges of text, but not as much as I'd hoped.

Doing ads in a capable video editor opens up some interesting creative possibilities, but those are going to lead you away from simple digital versions of the old slide projector. It may be an opportunity for you to take the advertising you offer your customers to a new level, however.