This means that the video that looks just peachy in the preview window of your editing software may not look all that great when it’s viewed on a regular TV. Computer monitors and TVs differ in three important ways:
- Color: Computer monitors and television screens generate colors differently. This means that colors that look fine on your computer may not look so hot when viewed on a TV.
- Pixel shape: Video images are made up of a grid of tiny little blocks called pixels. Pixels on computer monitors are square, but the pixels in TV images are slightly rectangular. This usually isn’t a problem for video captured from your camcorder, but still images and graphics generated on your computer could be a problem.
- Interlacing: TV video images are usually interlaced, whereas computer monitors draw images by using progressive scanning. The main problems you encounter when you export a project to tape is that the very thin lines that show up on the screen may flicker or appear to crawl. Pay special attention to titles, where thin lines are likely to appear in some letters.
If you use the LCD display on your camcorder to preview your movie, keep in mind that the LCD panel probably isn’t interlaced. However, the camcorder’s viewfinder probably is interlaced. This means that flickering thin lines (for example) may show up in the viewfinder but not on the LCD panel. Preview the movie using both the LCD display and the viewfinder before you actually export it.
