Thread: Premiere - titles look poor

I'm a bit puzzled by this.

I've put some quite basic titles over a video and they look fine during editing and when I render the sequences. The titles are 100% opaque and sitting on top of a black bitmap, which is 50% opaque. Pretty standard stuff and nothing complicated. I've got a 12" CRT TV that I view the output on and the titles look just right - clear and smooth.

However, when I export the clip to an AVI file (and view on the PC) or to a DVD (and view on a 28" CRT TV) the titles look far from perfect. They are bitty, edgy and certainly not clear or smooth. The same goes for the 50% opaque black bitmap.

Am I doing something obviously wrong? Is it a field issue?

Any help or suggestions would be really appreciated.

Thanks,
Paul

Can you tell us a bit more about your setup? What version of Premiere are you running? How were the titles created? Are they .prtl files from the title tool or maybe PSD files from Photoshop? You didn't say.

Also, what are your export settings? If things look ok while editing then it's likely your export that causing the issue.

Also, can you describe further the details of your timeline. It sounds like you have a title (prtl?) in layer 2 and black video sitting in layer 1 but I suspect that's not right because making the black layer opacity down to 50% fromt here will just show up the 'black nothing' underneath.

And, as an aside, I checked your profile cos I used to work with a chap with the same name. You'll be too young though but I did notice you have the same birthday as me

Alan,

Thanks for such a quick reply! Here's some more information.

Premiere Pro v7.0. Yes, the titles are .prtl files. I've exported to .avi files and to a DVD (14 mins long, 4-7Mbps VBR, PAL 4:3 720x576 - the same dimensions as the source video). The source video is on track 1, the 50% opaque black rectangular bitmap is on track 2 and the titles (100% opaque) are on track 3.

As I say, it looks fine when I watch it through my TV monitor but awful after it's been exported (really grainy).

PS. I don't *think* we've worked together before - strange about our birthday!

I'm intrigued about this one. If possible can you zip up an example Premiere Pro project and the prtl and the black rectangle graphic. Don;t supply any actual video. Leave the video in the project and I'll replace it with something local. Then email it to me at [email address removed as it's not required]. Oh and tell me how you exported it. What menu options you used and which export template and settings you used. Or catch me on MSN at the same address.

edit: email address removed as it was not required after all.

Hi Alan,

I could send those bits through but I'm beginning to think it's an encoding issue when I create the DVD.

As a test, I created a brand new project and decided to create the titles solely in the Title Designer. Therefore, I created the black rectangular background for the white font using the Rectangle Tool and made it 50% opaque. I then exported the sequence to an AVI file and, like the output in my monitor TV when I'm watching it back on the Program Monitor, it was absolutely fine.

I then exported a short sequence to a DVD (2 pass 4Mbps VBR - effective bit rate 9Mbps), played it back on my PC's DVD drive and through my standalone DVD player on my 28" TV and, once again, it looks poor.

So, I must be doing something wrong in the DVD export settings (field order?).

I certainly don't claim to be an expert on this so don't worry about stating what may be the obvious (to you)!

Thanks,
Paul

I'm still trying to narrow this down a bit so I've been doing some experimentation.

It might be worth me supplying some more information about my source video. It's from an indoor 5-a-side football match, filmed on an analogue camera some years ago (without a tripod so it's jerky and there's constant movement in the video, as you'd expect from a football match). I captured the video via analogue pass-through (analogue in/digital out) using a VHS recorder and my digital camcorder via fireware. The original AVI file was captured in Windows Movie Maker but Premiere doesn't import WMM AVI files very well because it's the wrong DV type so I used a free DV type convertor utility to convert it to the correct DV type before successfully importing it into Premiere. It looks and sounds fine in Premiere and on my TV output monitor.

So, as I've said before, if I output the project to an AVI file, it all looks fine but when I output to DVD, that's when I get the grainy footage (it's also slightly blocky and it's not just the titles - the video isn't great either). I've tried exporting just 15 seconds as well (taking up just 9MB on the DVD!) and it's still poor.

Although it's a rather strange test, I frame-held the entire video sequence just to see what the titles look like on top of a still and they came out brilliant on the DVD so it's clearly having problems compressing the constant movement in the source video.

At this point, I'm lost for ideas to fix it. I've tried all three field options and setting the bit rate to 7Mbps CBR. There's not much else to try...is there?

I've got the same problem. Title looks fine while editing but when exported to AVI it is blury and doesn't look good at all ... I've got a simple title too with just a black background

I am not sure if this is the problem, but hard contrasty edges often cause trouble on tiltes, expecially when thay are vertical.

I soften the edges using a bit of blur on the text or try using less contrasty colours or a 'curvy' typeface.

I solved my problem. The title alone looks poor when exported, but I made a image with black background and added it to the project and put it "under" the title. Then it works when exported.

I had a similar problem recently.

When creating my titles using the built in titler in PPro2.

My problem arose while using the colour RED within a mainly white line of text.
How strange you say?!

All the other titles in the same line of text had nice crisp clean edge but the one word which I wanted in RED had a very blurry edge!

I ended up just using a bright green which turned out to be exactly the same as white, nice and sharp.

anyway, just thought i'd mention it!