Something I’ve heard thousands of times runs like ‘…. my pictures are beautiful before I put them into my movie editing software… but soft, pixilat
ed, generally poor when previewing the project or watching them on my DVD…. Why and what can I do….?’
You may be the reason. Perhaps your expectations are too high, or you don’t realize the changes your files are undergoing to get to the end point.
In recent years, my personal digital cameras have gone from 1 megapixel to 3, then to 5, 7, and now 10. Over that same period, high quality DVDs have been rigidly fixed by the MPEG standards at 720x480/NTSC and 720x576/PAL pixels for image dimensions, the same dimensions my mini-DV camcorder shoots at. Multiply the two numbers and you get a tad more than 1/3 of a megapixel. Is it any wonder that, when comparing the pixel quality of still pictures against that of camcorders and DVDs you can be disappointed, especially when the pictures are your personal treasures and you're intimately familiar with every little detail in them?
What’s wrong? Nothing. What can you do about it? Part of the answer is to get your expectations re-calibrated. Even if you jump into the world of high definition, multiply the pixels of 1920x1080, the high end of high definition, and you get 2 megapixels. What’s the megapixel size of the cameras you’re shooting pictures with today?
When you add a 10 megapixel picture to your video timeline, it is automatically resized to fit the tv standards, so you won’t see a 10 megapixel picture. It will be compressed to that 1/3 of a megapixel size!
Still pictures and videos are different, so comparing them on the basis of pixel count isn’t fair. The added dimensions of movement and sound make for a multimedia experience. As you get absorbed in video content your brain will automatically be fairly forgiving when it comes to the visual pixel qualities… less forgiving when you hear audio glitches. Enjoy your pictures and videos for what they each bring to your life. Strive to enhance your skills to reach the point that the content will be so satisfying that the pixel-pickers will be so impressed that they’ll stop noticing the little individual boxes that we call pixels.