Font quality in video render problem (bad aliasing)

[David Else]

Please look at this screen grab of a video I just rendered:

https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/wp...9/04/fonts.jpg

In the video processor I tried font="Adwaita" and font="Arial"; (with total height 0.0.78) but I am getting awful aliasing, check out the '/' in 'video/60fps'... it's a legoland nightmare!

- Are some fonts going to work better than others, maybe I need to choose a different type of font?
- Can i use different sized fonts and bypass the 'text height', could i get around the aliasing that way?
- Is Reaper using a recent version of freetype, are the settings changeable anywhere in the config?

Cheers!

[David Else]

Originally Posted by JamesPeters

I'm guessing the source video is 1920*1080, but the video window in Reaper is resized (smaller). Perhaps it's the preview of the video which looks so rough, especially since it's being resized. Or if that's the rendered video, what does it look like at full size? (Does it look the same when previewed in Reaper?)

See my example. That's from a rendered video (and it looks the same in Reaper when previewing).

I get a little bit of "steppy" look to the "/" character, but not nearly that much. I get about as much as I'd expect by looking closely at the "/" character when I type it in this browser (or even less).

Nice to see Nathan in your test I think you solved my problem! If I resize the image after the text is added it aliases, add the text after... here are the much improved results:

https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/wp...4/awesome2.png

and the settings:

https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/wp...gs-awesome.png

but now I have a new problem... how can I position the text on a resized image with the background alpha effect? I need to be able to move the background to the text independently so it fits onto the robot.

Ideally a snap facility is needed... then I could completely replace Camtasia

I am in fact replacing Camtasia anyway as I formatted my last Windows PC last year, so Reaper is going to do it one way or another. I worked out how to record the screencast with FFMPEG today in fantastic quality with:

ffmpeg -thread_queue_size 128 -f x11grab -video_size 1920x1080 -framerate 30 -i "$DISPLAY" -thread_queue_size 128 -f alsa -ac 1 -i default -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -c:a copy screen-cast.mkv

[JamesPeters]

I have some Nathan For You episodes I haven't watched and it was the first thing I clicked on as a test video. Love the show...

Try the reverse order for those 2 video processors on the track which is the "overlay" (the smaller video with the robot). Text overlay first, image overlay second. Does that do what you want? When I do that, the text overlay is part of the "overlay image" (video) and follows its position/size.

[David Else]

The overlay image is the robot with the video effects on, it is track 1.

If I have text overlay first and then re-sized video overlay then the text fits into the video BUT I get the aliasing. If the image overlay comes first, then the text, the aliasing is gone BUT i can't fit the text into the resized image easily, especially with the background alpha effect.

I think Reaper is trying to do the right thing when the text overlay comes first, but not doing a good job on the text resizing. Here is what I am saying demonstrated:

https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/wp.../good-text.png
https://www.learndigitalaudio.com/wp...4/bad-text.png

mmmm.... I think there is a solution somehow now I have seen perfect text is possible! Thanks for your help in this matter

[JamesPeters]

I think I understand what you mean now.

If your "overlay video" (the smaller of the two videos) has the text overlay on it specifically, if you resize that "overlay video" the text looks bad.

Turn the "filter" parameter to "1" (on) for the video processor that's handling the "overlay video" via the image overlay preset. If you resize the video larger the text will look blurry, but if you resize the video smaller it'll look fine. I assume you would only be resizing that "overlay video" smaller anyway?

[David Else]

Originally Posted by JamesPeters

I think I understand what you mean now.

If your "overlay video" (the smaller of the two videos) has the text overlay on it specifically, if you resize that "overlay video" the text looks bad.

Turn the "filter" parameter to "1" (on) for the video processor that's handling the "overlay video" via the image overlay preset. If you resize the video larger the text will look blurry, but if you resize the video smaller it'll look fine. I assume you would only be resizing that "overlay video" smaller anyway?

Afraid I am already resizing it smaller and it still aliases.

I have a feeling I am going to have a million questions as I get into producing 2 x Udemy courses over the next month or so in Reaper on Linux. I will do more experimenting before I pummel this forum with more questions. The Reaper Blog guy seems to have a wealth of knowledge on video production in his videos.

[JamesPeters]

Did you turn the filter on? When I do that it fixes it, no matter how much I resize it. If I enlarge that particular video then the text will look blurry, but that's to be expected.

[David Else]

Originally Posted by JamesPeters

Did you turn the filter on? When I do that it fixes it, no matter how much I resize it. If I enlarge that particular video then the text will look blurry, but that's to be expected.

You are right, turning the filter on does sort out the aliasing Cheers!

I am afraid there is some kind of bug though, for ages the text had the top and bottom very slightly cut off the taller characters and lumpy rendering with the filter on or off. It looked better or worse depending on the text height. I thought is was no good, then I moved the playback position and it suddenly sorted itself out and the text looked great?! I can't seem to reproduce it again, but if I do I will add a bug report.