Playback Aggravation « Videomaker Community Forums

cohenim
Member

I use Adobe DVD Encore for my DVD authoring and Premiere for export.

I have recently ran into a problem. The playback on a set top DVD player seems to be very blurred and almost looks like slow-motion in a way. VERY IRRITATING. Could it be the player or a codec thing? The set top players I have had problems with thus far are the "progressive scan" types. I need to know how to rid myself of this problem. I am about to endeavor into a 70 minute DV film and I don't feel like having the final output look like this. Any info helps. Thanks in advance.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

It could be a number of things but before I just start typing them down, you need to provide more info for us to determine what might be the cause.

First of all is this your first attempt at doing this or have you done this before with success?

What source file types were you editing with originallY? AVI from DV cameras or some other format?

When you exported out of PPro, did you encode it or did you expot as a AVI file?

Were all of the settings and parmeters set correctly from within PPro?

There are more questions too but let's start with that.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
cohenim
Member

As for the first time being successful, no. I have had many successes with DVD authoring until I put it on a "Progressive Scan." This would have been the only way I knew I had this problem.

The original files were captured by PPRO in the DV-AVI codec from a Canon GL-2.

Here are the settings. I encoded the file to mpeg before exporting.

VIDEO SUMMARY
Codec: MainConcept MPEG Video
Quality: 5.00 (high quality)
TV Standard: NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps drop frame
Program Sequence: Progressive ***Should this have been interlaced?
Bitrate Encoding: CBR
Bitrate (Mbps): 9.0000 (high quality)
M Frames: 3
N Frames: 15

Audio Summary:
Codec: PCM Audio
Sample Rate: 48 kHz

Multiplexer Summary:
Multiplexing Type: None

I have exported files as DV-AVI. However, I did not like the results. Everything seemed to be "shakey" for lack of better terms.

You asked, "Were all of the settings and parameters set correctly from within PPro?" As far as I know, I beleive they were. However, the interlace/ progressive aspect may be the problem. Hope this helps and thanks so much for your help.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

OK now weÂ’re getting somewhere!

Last few questions:

Why did you encode to Â“Progressive ScanÂ”?

When you filmed with your GL2, what shooting mode did you use? Â“NORMALÂ” mode (interlaced) or Â“FRAMEÂ” mode (non-interlaced)

Does you VCR support progressive scan?

Does your TV say it supports progressive scan?

What format are you watching in? NTSC or PAL

What type of TV are you trying to play this on? HD, LCD, DLP, or a basic CRT (tube)

Lastly, how do you have your VCR connected to the TV? RCA style cable, S-Video, Component video, DVI, HDMI, optics or standard coaxial cable.

IÂ’m 99% sure that is all has to do with using progressive scan and how you got there. I donÂ’t know too many people that encode to that for their homemade projects only because if you ever wanted to give a disk to someone else, chances are they wonÂ’t have the correct hardware.

Depending on how you answer the questions above, I think I (or we :) ) can zero right in where the problem is. IÂ’m pretty sure that it could be one of two things. If you filmed with your camera set to Â“NORMALÂ” (interlaced) shooting mode and you edited everything in PPro as interlaced video, that trying to encode to progressive scan which is a non-interlaced format will cause a somewhat lousy picture that could be blurry and full of artifacts. Or... it has to do with the hardware on the viewing end and how you have it setup and hooked together.

Normally however you usually want to use interlaced video settings for television viewing of homemade video.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
kkmac
Member

Couple things. First, DV video is "lower field". Even if the camera says its progressive scan. Your export setting should be for lower field. If you didn't have problems in the past, why change it? It's not that you didn't notice the problem before, you didn't have a problem before. It looks shaky cause the fields are not displayed correctly.

Next, your bitrate for the video is too high. The DVD specs allow 9.8MBps for audio and video COMBINED! Your video is set for 9MBps. Where is the audio? .8MBps will sound horrible, if at all. And, lets just assume that the audio and video are ok, alot of DVD players will "choke" trying to play that high a bitrate. Burned DVDs are harder to read than a pressed one. You'll end up with alot of skipping and freezing. A basic rule of thumb is to not set your video bitrate higher than 7MBps. Even Hollywood DVD don't go above 8MBps.

I also use Encore (1.5) and never have a problem. In fact, I've made DVDs with a bitrate of 3.5MBps and the video still looked pretty good. I fit 2 hours and 10 minutes of video in a single layer DVD.

Posted 5 years ago #
cohenim
Member

Thanks for all the input. For some reason, I had a massive brain fart. Being the interlace/ progressive encoding. I'm going to reencode from PPRO tomorrow and post back.

Thanks again.

Posted 5 years ago #
cohenim
Member

I tried exporting with the following settings:

Video Summary:
Codec: MainConcept MPEG Video
Quality: 5.00 (high quality)
TV Standard: NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps drop frame
Program Sequence: Interlaced
Field Order: Lower
Bitrate Encoding: CBR
Bitrate (Mbps): 7.0000 (medium quality)
M Frames: 3
N Frames: 15

Audio Summary:
Codec: PCM Audio
Sample Rate: 48 kHz

Multiplexer Summary:
Multiplexing Type: None

The results of this was worse and showed up on all set top DVD players I tried. Progressive scan and those that were not.

Any more suggestions? I've never had this problem before now. Hopefully we can figure something out.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

8-O Hummmm!

This is getting interesting. What happens when you play this DVD in a PC?

ALSO

See if you can play the content directly from the folder using a DVD viewing application. If playing from the folder looks good that means that your'e OK up to that point. If playing from the disk looks OK then it must have to do with the hardware you're using to play this on your TV. The plan now is to find out where things are going bad.

One question that you didn't answer that is very important is how do you have the DVD player connected to the TV? What type of cables in other words? When using the progressive scan feature you have to use the correct cables.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
kkmac
Member

Change your setting to VBR (variable bitrate). Your using vital bitrates in segments that are slow and don't require higher rates.

CBR=changing video quality to fit within the set rate.
VBR=changing bitrate to maintain a set video quality.

Also, max out the quality setting. This won't affect the file size as much as you might think.

The rest of your settings look ok. I never use CBR so I'm suspecting thats the problem.

Lastly, have you tried to export from PPro as a DV AVI and let Encore encode it?

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Actually, the opposit is true. CBR requires less work on the part of the DVD player and is therefore more compatible. Adobe confirms this in their Premiere Pro 2.0 manual and on their FAQs.

Posted 5 years ago #
kkmac
Member

I never said anything about compatibility. CBR does not give the same QUALITY as VBR. Ever watch a sports game broadcast digitally. Normally it looks ok, but when the camera pans fast its pixellated. CBR is known for that. Thats why I avoid it.

The problem here is the quality of the playback picture, not its compatibility. Plus, VBR is known to produce smaller file sizes since it only uses higher bitrates when alot of action and movement is present. If your content is constant fast movement then you probably won't see much of a difference in file size.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

Kkmac: Â“compusolverÂ” is correct. The difference between using VBR and CBR is that VBR compress down to a smaller size and requires two passes. Depending on settings the quality can be the same between the two but DVD players have an easier time playing CBR disks versus VBR disks. ItÂ’s kind of like riding a bike. ItÂ’s easier on you when you ride on a flat road versus a hilly road.

Also I sort of have to disagree with you regarding quality. It still boils down to settings. If I take a fast moving video and encode using CBR that is set at 7000 and then I take that same movie and encode it with VBR with the MAX setting set at 7000, there is no difference. 7000 bps is 7000 bps no matter where itÂ’s used. Now if I used 5000 set in CBR versus 7000 max in VRBÂ… yeah then you are correct. The VBR would be the better way to go quality wise in that situation. VBR is only better in that it compresses to a much smaller size than CBR could ever do and still maintains a high quality video. On projects under 1 hr 15 mins I always use CBR set at 7000. There's no gain for me to use VBR.

I still think the problem is hardware related and how it is set up or hooked up. I could be wrong but hopefully we'll find out with some answers to the above questions. The Progressive Scan feature and settings needs to be addressed very differently. The fact that Â“cohenimÂ” was kicking that word around concerns me.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
cohenim
Member

First off, thanks to everyone for their input. I used a bit rate of 7, exported in progressive instead of interlaced and had both quality and smooth playback. So finally the problem is solved and again thanks to all of you for your input.

Posted 5 years ago #