DVD Final Output Stutters « Videomaker Community Forums

M-323
Member

Hi there.

Im using Video Explosion Deluxe (VED) V1.5 (knock of from Vegas Video)

the packages says "produce flawless DVD's"

For editing, its great, simple but then you have to output the rendering as an AVI or MPEG II file (there are some other options too)

however then, to make a DVD, you are suposed to use MYDVD which is packaged with VED.

However that software will not recognise the Mpeg or avi files. The avi file for a 2 hr program ends up being 20M where as the MPEG II = only 4M which fits on a DVD. Plus, the version of "My DVD" that is packaged, does not support chapter points either.

In either case, Im using DivX to DVD free software to convert the rendering to a DVD file which the DVD burning programs can recognize.

Now Im using Roxio DVD builder for the final output because it supports the chapter points.

however, after burning the final MPEG rendering sever al times, there are still many spots throughout the program that stutter and skip.

So my questions are;

1) is this due to the software?

[My hardware is pretty up to date - I have 1gig ram, Pentium 4 processor operating at a frequency of 1.6ghz with two HD's and 80gig and a 250gig.]

2) is there a program that will do this conversion seemlessley? eg, edit, render, add chapters and output direct to DVD?

3) would there be any way to correct this?

sincerely frusterated,

Posted 6 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

:? Hummm! There is something wrong here!

What version of MyDVD do you have? I used this a few times many many moons ago and at that time it was able to recognize AVI files and you could add chapter points in <BUT> you had to do from within MyDVD. I have to think that if anything the program was improved compared to 4 year ago when I was fooling around with it.

I hate to say it but there could be a whole bunch of things going on here. One possibility is that there could be a Codec issue with the AVI format that Â“VEDÂ” is spitting out of which MyDVD may not like. Mind you that I have never used Â“Video Explosion DeluxeÂ” but I have to think that if it says that it can render to a DV AVI file that hopefully itÂ’s the right kind.

You are also kind of flirting around with a capacity issue with regards to the amount of content youÂ’re trying to work with. 2 full hours of AVI video is really close. DonÂ’t be fooled in thinking that just because the DVD manufactures advertise that their DVDÂ’s can hold 2 hours of video that you can actually do that. You need a certain amount of headroom on these disks for other files needed in making your video DVD work properly in a player. Especially if you have menus and backgrounds. There also might be a chance that MyDVD only uses a certain compression rate of which isnÂ’t enough to compress your whole AVI file to one disk so itÂ’s rejecting your attempt because the AVI file is too big.

IÂ’m assuming that youÂ’re using Windows XP. Are you up to date with all of the updates?

The skipping and shuttering of a DVD can also be from many things.

When you play this DVD in your PC, does it shutter, skip or hang there?

If it does shutterÂ… then itÂ’s probably software related. Something wasnÂ’t done correctly or encoded correctly.

Is the whole thing video or are there static pictures involved? If you are using pictures, there could be an interlacing issue. If this is left unaddressed, it will cause the pictures to kind of shake or flicker while being displayed on your TV. FYI: This shaking of pictures will only show up on a NTSC TV and not on your PC monitor.

If it plays fine on your PC then it could be a whole different animal. ItÂ’s possible that there is a compatibility issue with your set-top DVD player and your home burnt DVD. It could be the DVD format you used (+R or Â–R), it could be the brand of DVD you used, it could be the software you used to burn the DVD, it could be the brand of DVD burner you used to burn the disk and it could even be the speed of which you burned the disk at. I know you're probably thinking, "What the heck is going on here?" but "NEVER FEAR... WE'RE ALL HERE!"

Perhaps if you can answer a few of these questions, some of us might be able to start leading you towards the solution to your problem.
;-)
RAM

Posted 6 years ago #
M-323
Member

Video-maniac;

thanks for enlightening me to all the "possibilities" 8-O

My father has been bugging me for years to convert old VHS tapes (which were converted from 8mm before) to DVD,

I dident think making dvd would be so complicated

I have actually produced a professional dvd before (see http://www.theartofsailing.com)

That project was professional shot using BetacamSP back then - then converted to digital. I did most ofthe editing myself but at the end I gave it to a professional studio to finish it mainly cause I wasent confident about my own abilities - having them finish it was like getting a second opinion before it went to market. The studio used Mac's to finish it up - they claim the platform is much more stable than PC (I know nothing about Macs)

ok to answer the questions;

My copy of My DVD is Version 3 (copyright 2001)

this version does not support chapter points so I import the rendering from VED (V1.5 - latest version) to Divex to DVD -- to Roxio DVD Builder (Professional Version 7)

when it passes through "divex to dvd" these buriing programs will pick it up - from there I can add chapters and burn a disk.

HOWEVER, it skips, stutters etc - totally unacceptable in 2006.

"Could it be the player"? well, I doubt it. My dvd player is working fine, plays all our hollywood dvd's - but the ones I make, skip.

Also tried it on sevearl other machines and it also skips.

regarding space on the DVD - I tried both outputs to render - AVI which came out to 21.8GB and MPEG II which comes out to 4.1GB

AVI will not import into the DVD burners either and even if it would, I woudlent bother becuase it will not fit on a standard 4.7GBDVD.

speaking about space, how do professional 2hr movies fit on a DVD then? (like King Kong or Titianic for instance) they have all the effects etc - their clarity is A1, sound A1 and play without a hitch. Thats all Im asking for - is that asking too much?

Did I try playing it on the PC? No - will have to try that.

"Is the whole thing video or are there static pictures involved?"

Yes, there are photos. Now you got me thinking... at the begining, Im using a photo in teh background while the intro title scrolls by. It skips then.

Then I recall later on its starts to skip again - maybe where photos are again. (the dvds are at my dads just now - will have to review to see if that is a constant)

the footage itself is old pictures that dad took in Europe in 1962. In 91 we converted them to VHS tape using one of those boxes - you project the image in one side, then camcorder the other side while narrarating and adding music.

So I converted the VHS to digital using an ADS converter similar to this.

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV-191-EF/intro/USBAV_191_intro.asp?pid=USBAV-191-EF

which brings me to my next question...

Is there such a thing as a converter that will convert the original 8mm footage to digital? or a lab we can send it to? - cause the process we used in 1991 to convert to 8mm to VHS surely lost lots of quality - taking pictures of pictures.

As for the actual pictures, I was planning to scan the original (still) pictures and import the scans to the media center of VED

** would this fix the problem of the photos stuttering (if that is the problem?)

I've been working with the tech support at Nova Developments - makers of VED - They have been great in support even though they will not be making VED in future. So far though, all we have been able to do is re-render and save the rendering in several different formats - and this time tried saving it to the desktop (not that that will make any differance)

The program itself is simple to use, has lots of effects, looks just like Vegas Video if youve seen screens shots of that - they claim "its not a knock off but does use the same platform"

thanks so much for your help. I want to make the process seemless - I dont think you should have to go out to divex to dvd in order for the burners to accept it.

This whole exercise will hopefully save some memories for future generations. As well, its a learnign experiance for me becasue Id like to make a follow up to my sailing video, only this time finish it myself. I have hours of the original footage from the Betacam shooting over three days. Those pictures are absolutely beautiful!

ah yes, and it is XP P4 1.6ghz, two HDs 80gig and 250gig with 1gig of ram and a good video card 8)

Posted 6 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

OK thenÂ…. Here we go!

First of all your MyDVD version 3 is too old and not supported anymore. They are up to version 8 now. Years back I was using version 5 and I had no problems with it.

There are several ways to go here but if you are just looking for a simple DVD authoring solution that can take files and convert them to video DVDÂ’s <AND> you donÂ’t want to pay a lot of money for features that you donÂ’t think youÂ’ll need, why not just upgrade your existing version of MyDVD? I went to their website and I think it was like $59.00Â’ish. I might be wrong because there were a lot of version upgrade scenarios depending on what version was being upgraded. Then you would have the ability to import AVI files right from any NLE, you can set chapter points from within MyDVD and assign menu items (if you want) and then everything will be transcoded for you either to a disk or to a folder on your HD. (I strongly recommend folders on your HD.) They even have a Â“Fit to diskÂ” feature which IÂ’m assuming means that MyDVD will compress your content just enough so that it will fit on a DVD. ThatÂ’s nice because it takes the guess work out of whether you content will fit or not.

If you go this route, your workflow would be: Capture your camera work or content, edit in your NLE, render and export your complete edited AVI movie file, import into MyDVD, create chapter points and/or menus, transcode everything to video DVD mpeg files to your HD, then burn those files to DVD using a disk burning application. DONE!

As I go down your list I see you had a question regarding if it was your player or not. This has been kicked around in this forum all over the place. Just because a DVD player plays store bought or rented DVDÂ’s does NOT mean that they will play home burnt DVDÂ’s. Commercial DVDÂ’s are massed produced using a special pressing process. That process creates a better track for lasers to read easier. Homemade DVDÂ’s are made by a laser which etches or burns this digital track into a dyed surface on a DVD. This obviously works too but the results are not as full proof as pressed DVDÂ’s. Some set top players (especially older ones) will have trouble reading these homemade DVDÂ’s. They try their best but sometimes they get lost and thatÂ’s when you see the skipping or hanging going on during playback.

You said that you tried playing your disk on other players but did you try and play that same disk on a PC? If it does the same thing there, there could be something wrong with the disk or the process you used to make the disk.

If you follow the workflow I listed above, you will eventually have a folder in a directory called Â“VIDEO_TSÂ”. Within this folder are more files that are used by players to make the video play on players. Getting to this point usually isnÂ’t where playability problems come from. ItÂ’s getting from there to a disk. You will need a disk burning application to burn this (VIDEO_TS) folder to. Depending on what program you have all you would need to do is open your burning app, tell it you want to burn a video DVD, drag that whole folder (not just the contents) which is what you want to burn and then hit BURN. In a perfect world it should work. There are variables however that exist that can affect your results. I mentioned them in my first post (above) in the last large paragraph I wrote. (Scoot up there and read it againÂ… then I wonÂ’t have to type it over.) It more of less comes down to a process of elimination. I would use only Â–R disks, use good quality brand names (I use Phillips & Verbatim) and burn slow. Doing this will increase your chances of everything working by like 75% or so.

You asked about how Hollywood can put 2 plus hours of content on a single DVD. The disks they use are pressed Â“Duel LayeredÂ” disks. They can hold twice as much content as a regular single layered disk. These DL disks are finally out for us to burn too but you have to have burners and software that support that. I guess there are still issues in playing these on regular DVD players yet. They work well for PC use.

Regarding photos: Photos can sometime flicker along edges of sharp contrasting vertical or horizontal features from within the photo itself. This is because you are playing this disk on a NTSC monitor which contains 2 fields of scanned lines (even and odd). Without getting too technical, this is kind of normal because whatÂ’s happening is when the pixels between the two contrasting features get stuck between these two scan lines, they kind of fight for it resulting in a flickering effect. The whole screen wonÂ’t flicker, just the edge features. The only way to combat this is to soften or slightly blur the picture so that the crisp featured edges are not as sharp but rather softened. This way the scanning lines wonÂ’t fight over the edges of contrasting features as much because it's slightly defused.

Lastly, taking 8mm film (IÂ’m assuming thatÂ’s what you mean) and converting it to VHS or digital requires a certain process with special equipment. You have to remember that you are taking a strip of film loaded with consecutive frames of content and you have to get that onto tape. There are frames involved with tape as well and because there is a difference in frame rates, at some point in time they will clash and you will have shuttering or dropped frames. The machine used to do this is called a Â“TelecineÂ”. How it does this is complicated too and IÂ’m not going to get into it. (I typed too much the way it is.) Usually there are special facilities or even local photo/video stores that can do this for you. Just get out the yellow pages and look one up. ItÂ’s not that expensive either.

WheewÂ… I hope some of this helps!

RAM
8)

Posted 6 years ago #
M-323
Member

RAM

Thanks very much for all the work you put into these answers. You have really shed light on a lot of subjects!

Regarding upgrades, I would upgrade in a second if the makers of MyDVD were even a little bit helpful.

I guess because the software is bundled, I got On their mailing list when I registered video explosion deluxe. I receive their promotional e-mails regularly however I have sent them questions on multiple locations which were never answered -- not even an automated computer response.

This leads me to believe that their technical support would be the same way.

I don't mind throwing money at this if I'm sure it will work.

As mentioned before I would really like it to work because I would like to do this professionally.

You brought up a couple of other really good points about the dual layer DVDs/players/and software.

That's where I want to be. If that's what it takes to make a professional two hour video, and that's what I feel I need. Doesn't make much sense to buy any software that will not support that.

I've been experimenting with "Ulead" but I find it difficult to work with.

For instance, if you have 50 scenes and you want to move 37 through 41 in front of scene 21 -- in "Ulead" it's difficult because the main video track appears to snap all the scenes back to each other --

Whereas with VED, it's easy to select all scenes from example 21 on and simply slide them to the right to make space where you need to put in the other scenes.

With "Ulead" as soon as you pull something out, it snaps shut leading you no room to insert the other scenes.

Also I believe the final output is only VCD.

These are just a few issues I've noticed with him playing around with it for an hour or so -- it's a new program to me the so they may all be able to be resolved however if it can't support a two layer DVD I don't think I'll be using it either.

I know what you're saying about the pictures and flicker but that's really not what's happening in my case -- to me it sounds more like what you're saying about the player not be able to read the disk -- and not a flicker.

Finally regarding typing a lot -- I really have to put in a good word for Dragon dictation software which is what I'm using right now.

It's simple to use -- you trained by reading a few chapters into it that it recognizes your voice and types as fast as you can speak!

You can also do a lot of the functions that you would normally do on your keypad (commands).

It's about 95% accurate -- that is there are some words that sound the same but you want to put something else -- in those cases is faster just type it so when the combination of both but the corrections are few and far between!

And what it does recognize the words you are saying, the spelling is 100% accurate!

It's way faster and that I can type or any secretary that I ever had!

Probably save arthritis in the long run as well!

X-D The downside is you will notice that your posts and e-mails tend to get a bit lengthy!

Posted 6 years ago #