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Hi Paul,<br>
<br>
Sound very likely that the quality degradation is from the movie file
compression. The movie compression algorithms use a perfect image
every tens of frames and differences that are compressed between those
frames I think. I suspect MPEG1 is one of the worst because it is the
oldest format. You may see some improvement using the MPEG4 based
codecs (mp4, avi, and mov movie command mformat values). The movie
encode command two options that control compression are "bitrate" and
"qscale". The bitrate option pertains to fixed bitrate compression
schemes while qscale refers to variable bit rate (more modern)
compression methods. In your old Chimera version I believe the default
is bitrate 2000 Kbits/sec which gives pretty horrible quality but was
chosen to improve the chances of PowerPoint being able to play the
movie. Current Chimera daily builds instead use qscale 8 as the
default which gives quite good quality but much bigger movie file
size. If you really want the best possible quality and giant movie
files is not a problem use qscale 1.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/movie.html">http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/midas/movie.html</a><br>
<br>
Tom<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
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<div class="Section1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Hello,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I am using chimera alpha
version 1.3 (build 2577) running in
linux (sled11) to make a movie using POV-Ray.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The quality of the first
few frames is stunning but
thereafter becomes fuzzy around the edges of the molecule. Is there a
way to
fix this so that the entire movie is as clear and nice as the first few
frames? Is there something wrong with my settings? Is what I’m seeing
an artifact of mpeg compression?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I am using the following
POV-Ray settings to make an Mpeg1
movie<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Quality 11<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Antialias: true<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Antialias method:
recursive<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Antialias depth: 3<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Antialias threshold: 0.3<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Jitter: True<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Jitter amount: 1.0<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Transparent background:
false<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Wait for POV-Ray to
finish false<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Keep input files: false<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Thanks for the help!!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Paul<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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