400x300 enough for 4x3 meter screens?

[TommyJ]

Hi there,

next week I have a gig with to huge 4x3 meter screens.
My current library contains avi files with a resolution of 400x300 (indeo codec).
Will this be enough for a average image-quality on the screens?
And, I'm going to use VGA cables to connect my (dual head) graphics card with the beamers (incl. a VGA Splitter). Will/can this result in a loss of quality?
And one last question: VGA or S-Video... what's best to use and why?? Thanks all.

cya,

Tommy J

[solly]

I definitley recomend svga over svideo. Much better quality and sharpness. 400X300 is also good enough resolution no problem.
Solly

[TommyJ]

Allright. Does anyone disagree with that?
And, does a VGA splitter adds to some quality loss?

[LEVLHED]

I don't think the splitter will cost any discernable rez...in fact I think that even if it did, your output will still look better than going svideo...really I think you'll be doing just fine with what you have described.

[thomase]

actually, vga will give you better quality, try an active (powered) splitter, then you should not face any problems...

[syzygy]

This really depends on what your expectations are and how far your audience will be from the screens.

If you are expecting really well defined graphics then 400x300 on a 4mx3m screen isn't really going to cut it. If you don't mind things not being perfect then 400x300 is just fine - its what you show that really matters.

Each Pixel is going to be 1cmx1cm, so that gives you a good idea about how it is going to look. Try printing an image on paper with 1cmx1cm pixelation and see what it looks like at different distances.

With this res on this size screens, I would actually recommend going with svideo rather than svga. You don't gain any resolution by going vga and the blurring of svideo can actually be helpful with low res, to prevent the pixelation being too visible.

This is a personal taste thing, but I would much rather have a slightlly blurred display than one with clearly defined obvious pixelation.

So it depends what you want. If you want a clearly defined, but more obviously pixelated output then go for VGA. If you want to hide the pixels then svideo will help you a bit.

Good luck!

Dan.

[MoRpH]

Focus on the quality of your content, not on the resolution......

SHIT content is still SHIT content @ 1024x768

[seex]

Its like syzygy, explained the vga is a data output and takes beter care of graphic detail, like if you go trough s-video to make a big projection you will have truble reading what is under your icons on you desktop, but when it comes to a video picture i actualy prefer that the image is a bit blury, cus it look more like video and less like data. The picture is more dynamic. Ok i use mostly video footige of real things and not so much of abstraction, if you will do a lot of graphic and abstractions it culd lok beter to go trough vga.

[ultrapepita]

For me too, VGA is BETTER of the s-video.
And not only for the resolution...

-Color, w/VGA there is more colors and it are more sharp.
-the frames is really in true full frame and not interlaced, w/VGA we have a sharp image without flickering and interferences.

Try to make horizontal lines with s-video ;)

Personally I prefer to have a sharp picture with a pixelation rather than an blurred picture.

Boris.

[vonKitsch]

No doubt that VGA have better quality output, but in productions (short films, videos, m.graphic...) for TV, I know that the referent signal is that you see on your TVscreen - so when I finish my work, I connect my pbook with S-video to TV... and my profesor of TVtechnology say that is referend image.... I don't know... maybe for VJing is not the case...:rolleyes:

[syzygy]

If you are making a production that will be viewed on TV then a TV is the obvious reference to use.

If you are making content to be projected then a projector will be the most appropriate reference.

Dan.

[vonKitsch]

:up:

[Anyone]

a few factors need to be considered...

firstly,
make sure your clip res size and output size are scaled at an interger number of times. meaning, if your output is 640x 480, then 320x240 clips is actually better than 400x300, because each pixel of the clip is spread over two pixels on the output, not 1.6 ...

if you must use 400x300 clips, you absolutely need to set the output to 800x600.

Second,
what type of images are you projecting?
sharp graphics with few colors will work really nicely on VGA outputs,
but probably scale at 1:1 will work best, so forget what I said above...
for gradients, filmed footage or anything with a gazillion colours,
I actually prefer to use S-video outputs over VGA,
cuz the slight blurriness makes the footage look better,
closer to the texture of film...

Ne1