Video Quality and Aspect Ratio

[AMVguru]

Ok so it KILLS me to admit this but i've been doing this for about 4 years now and im just finding out that changing a 16:9 ratio clip to a 4:3 is a BIG deal. what i can't figure out is why?? does it effect the quality or something if so then why can't i tell the difference on my computer?? also if not the ratio then how else can i improve the quality of my AMV's ??

[Kireblue]

Ok so it KILLS me to admit this but i've been doing this for about 4 years now and im just finding out that changing a 16:9 ratio clip to a 4:3 is a BIG deal. what i can't figure out is why?? does it effect the quality or something if so then why can't i tell the difference on my computer?? also if not the ratio then how else can i improve the quality of my AMV's ??

Its all about how you get your footage, and what you do to it before and after you edit your AMV.

Lets start off with your latest AMV. Did you rip the DVD footage yourself, or did you use downloaded footage?

[mirkosp]

The reason is that the shapes will be all distorted. The moon should be somewhat roundly shaped, not a thin oval. >_>
Same goes with stretching 4:3 to 16:9, really.
In order to properly change ratio, you'd have to crop or letterbox/pillarbox.
The amount of detail also plays a role in this: for example, if you have a 720x480 input (standard DVD resolution), scaling it to 1280x720, even with the proper cropping, will most likely look bad. Of course, it's possible to upscale in a way that doesn't look like eyecancer, but upscaling is stupid since you're inflating the filesize for no detail gain. Chances are actually the upscale might come out looking worse than the original, especially if you try to go back to the original resolution.
As for improving quality, there's avisynth for that, but here's the thing: you don't use avisynth to magically improve quality, because it doesn't do that. You don't throw filters to the video and call it done, what you do is see what issues your video has, and try to fix them in a way that the output wouldn't have been better left unfiltered. For example, if you have some slight haloing, it might be best to leave it there, 'cause chances are fixing that will blur away more detail than the halo removal is worth.
You can find out about these things and more if you Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides Lovingly Overhauled Largely by Zarxrax</a>. There are specific sections that deal with them. Be aware that some things aren't quite optimal in the guide, but generally speaking the explanations are "good enough" for AMVer purposes.

[Kireblue]

For This it was a 'Raw' download and then i converted to use on Vegas

That's the first problem. Raw video is always gonna produce a lower video. The best option is to get access to DVD quality footage by "various" means.

Then depending on how you got it, you would have to follow the steps in this guide http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech3/

Keep in mind that this guide can be seriously overwhelming. It took me an entire year to understand most of it. I'm about to send you a pm with more information.

[Kireblue]

Also, when you converted it, did you use AvsP and VirtualDub? If you convert footage by any other method, you will loose quality. I tried using Quick Media Converter last year for my "Tears are from the Heart" AMV. It produced a AMV that I felt looked ok on my computer, but when I saw it on a huge screen at AWA, I could tell that a lot of quality was lost.

If you haven't already done so, download the AMV app, and whenever you want to convert something, load it into AvsP. Then save the script file, load the script into VirtualDub, set the start and end time, set your compression settings, and then save the script as a Avi. Its actually really easy.

[AMVguru]

yea i actually just downloaded it um in the process of figuring out the ends of the AvsP Program lol