Solved I've given up, I need some help with text quality in DVD.

Hello,

This problem has been puzzling me for over a year, each time I'm creating a DVD menu I try to find a solution to this, but each time I try to find a solution I don't find any relevant information. I was hoping that I will find some help in your forums.

The problem is with text that is typed within DVD architect, button text for example. In DVD architect and DVD architect's preview text looks really nice and sharp but after I finish making disc, and preview it in VLC media player, text that I typed in DVD architect looks bad, blurry.

I've tried many different settings, but nothing seems to solve my problem. I've attached two pictures explaining this problem in more detail, It would be great if you could take a look at them and tell me what you think.

I also added a zip file with both pictures at full size, since you can best see the problem I was talking about, when viewing pictures in full size.

Hi Wonderland

Sorry for the delay in answering your question.
I became completely overwhelmed with questions during the last couple of weeks and had to take a forced break to preserve my sanity.

The problem you are experiencing is called Aliasing.
It is being caused for two reasons.

#1 DVDs only use Standard Definition video at 720x480 pixels. Compared to 1920x1080, there are not as many pixels to create the illusion of sharp edges when the text is running diagonally or shaped round.

#2 Different colour combinations also cause bad aliasing. So when creating DVDs, you need to be very careful with the colours you choose for text areas.

Solutions:

* Choose better colour combinations.
* Adding black or dark colour shadow behind the text will help a lot. If you study bought DVDs made by Hollywood, you will see they use this trick a lot in DVD menus. Inside the DVD Architect controls for Text, you can turn on Shadow and make adjust opacity and size.
* Burn Blu-ray discs instead of DVDs - this will give you much higher resolution and reduce aliasing a lot.

This article explains the science:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing

This video explains anti-aliasing:


Regards
Derek.

Hello,

Thank you for looking into this and explaining in great detail. I have a better understanding now.

I was thinking that maybe I did something terribly wrong in DVD architect, maybe some setting that I didn't know of or didn't understand.

But it seems that DVD architect's preview isn't accurate at all then, maybe DVD architect previewed as if it was Blue Ray?

What are some good color combinations? I guess contrasting colors like black on white are bad?