I am trying to bring in a large background image and I'm having trouble as this is the first time that I have tried using VS this way. I have tried bringing it in as an SVG and a Jpeg (even worse!) and the png is coming through at low res, (I have tried many kinds of res,800/1600/3000, all the same blur)the SVG is showing black 

 Attaching your jpg, png, and SVG would be useful for troubleshooting.

Your SVG is probably saved in a way that is not compatible with videoscribe.

check the save settings described in this thread: http://help.videoscribe.co/support/discussions/topics/11000012336

or attach your SVG if you would like customer support or other users to look at it for you.

Alternatively,  if you want to improve the sharpness of all of the drawings, you could add only the blue gradient as a huge background image and then all the other elements as smaller individual images on top of it.

-Mike (videoscribe user)