Text Input, Low Resoltution. How to optimize?

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Text Input, Low Resoltution. How to optimize?

Postby brun sweater » Sun Jan 20, 2019 12:31 pm

Hello good people.

Looking for advice on how to approach the specific task of displaying text on a 432x36 pixel LED wall?

Setup is:
Pandora Manager at FOH as Master
Pandora Dual Player as client feeding the LED controller with SDI signal (DMX not possible!)

Everything is working fine. The thing is though, I quickly get lost in the various resolution settings throughout the setup!? So I'm just wondering about how to optimally approach this?

And then there's the Text Input Editor, and whether I should use this asset, since it seems I can't manipulate line spacing, and with only 36 pixel height, the default spacing set by the font and size there of, isn't at all optimal? I could of course use a Text Input Editor asset for each line, to control the position of each line, but if there was a way to manipulate line spacing within the Text Input Editor, I guess it would make my life a lot easier!?

Then I have a thing with blurry text when coloring the text in the Text Input Editor. I've turned of every antialiasing feature off, and when making the text white, it renders very crisp and sharp. But when turning the text red (255,0,0), or any other color, it becomes blurry. Soft at the edges of the various letters? Like it's trying to render the letters in 3D, but in such low resolution it just becomes blurry? Perhaps this is related to my lack of competence in setting up the entire system in a an optimal fashion?

Then we have the fonts. It seems to me, that any font is made to be optimal at one specific size? And with my very limited amount of pixels, it quickly becomes a pain finding the right font. So if anybody have some clever things to say about fonts, I'd be interested :-)

Anyways, any input is appreciated!


Cheers
brun sweater
 
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Re: Text Input, Low Resoltution. How to optimize?

Postby Dave Thompson » Mon Jan 21, 2019 3:28 pm

Hello Brun,

What resolution are you sending to the controller?
If you don't have a lot of pixels, you could scale or use your keystone on the output to best line your text to the physical pixels on the panel. - That is if you cannot line it up nicely with the text resource editor/font size/font features.
The blurring when adding colour has to do with the pixel pitch and physical layout of the RGB(and or if W) pixels, as you move away from full white the dimmer or lower value colours will be seems to 'shift away' from the white position, hence giving you the 3d effect.
Have you tried colouring the text with an effect on the layer, instead of changing the text directly?

Stick to White and simple fonts.

Cheers.
Dave
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Dave Thompson
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Re: Text Input, Low Resoltution. How to optimize?

Postby brun sweater » Tue Jan 22, 2019 11:37 am

Hello Dave.

Thanks for replying :-)

I'm sending 1920x1080 to the controller. That was the default, and I figured a pixel is a pixel? And the content I'm using is not at all performance heavy.

I've worked around the "spacing between lines" issue by using a layer for each line. Although this will demand way more text assets to be used, it gives me complete control of the layout, which is nice.

Interesting knowledge considering how pixels work, in relation to the blur of colors. We're going with white all the way, so it's not a problem in my current setup, and probably going this low in resolution, is kind of rare? The venue is running some rather old Barco C11's (11mm between pixels) and most led panels nowadays have higher density?

I've tried every possible way of coloring I can think of, including using the effect engine in Pandora, but the result stay's the same. Red and Blue will blur. Green and White will be crisp and sharp :-) So, as you said, it's down to how the colors in the pixels are aligned. In any case, White is the right choice for us, so no problem.

Cheers
brun sweater
 
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:19 am


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