Help please, suggestions for jittery playback

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hi all. This is a first for me since back in the days I went crazy with mpegs.

I have footage captured completely from my panasonic PV-GS200. Clips of pre-k kids lined up on stage singing. Side movement is very jittery just as field order issues would present themselves on TV playback.

I captured all the footage into Adobe Premiere and after trimming saved the compilation as a DV/AVI file.

I then brought it into DVD Workshop as I always do to menu. This time on playback (and ONLY on TV) the side to side pans I did of the kids and any real fast movement shows as very jittery. If played back full screen on my PC 21" crt through WMP all is crystal clear.

I tried two ways to encode in DVDWorkS. Variable bit rate 7500 and Constant bit rate 8200 LPCM audio. The only encoder in my list of available is the ULEAD MPEG Now Encoder. If you were to look at this you would say its a field order problem, but can it be using DV/AVI and then DWS ?

edit*** btw the speed ..... quality slide is all the way to quality


Am I missing something obvious here? This is a first. I always start my menuing with DV/AVI files. There is nothing else in this thing, very basic.

thanks,
dcp

[sjj1805]

You seem to have taken into account the obvious answer of incorrect field order. If its not the field order it could be a faulty disc.

Try burning to a hard drive folder and playing back the DVD that is created.
Is the problem still there?

Another possible cause would be accidentaly changing from NTSC to PAL or vice versa.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Thanks for the quick reply Steve.

Here is some further info.

I did burn two seperate DVDs using first variable 7500 and checking off the box to burn to folder on HD.

The second burn from DVDWS was using constant 8200 and I did not this time burn another DVD Folder.

I am trying something now,and when done I will take that folder structure from my HD and burn another disc.

But this is interesting .......

I opened the completed project file in Premiere and selected a portion of the compilation using the workbar of a good "example area" of movement.

Using the Adobe burning module, without any menuing (of course) this is just a chunk of timeline, I burned a DVD. Playback of that portion of project was super clear both on TV and on PC.

I did do one other thing to this project file of course before I was able to use it in DVD Workshop. I had to create a DV/AVI file of the project file.

I am now in the process of using Premiere once again with the same workbar area of the clip, only this time not from the project file, but rather from the previously completed DV/AVI file of the project file.

I am burning this same area, once again using the Adobe burning module to see if something changed from the original captured clips that were assembled in the project file, to the rendered DV/AVI file of the whole compilation. (If that makes any sense to you)

[DiscCoasterPro]

Ok, the results of both the Adobe encode from project file to DVD mpeg as well as the Adobe encode from previously saved DV/AVI full project file to DVD mpeg of the worst jittery area, resulted in smooth as silk playback both on TV and PC

Something is happening in the encoding process in DWS. I do not see a setting choice in my project to reverse fields or deinterlace. Is this a setting that I'm missing and that I should be trying?

[DiscCoasterPro]

And .... lastly, taking the DVD folder structure created by DVD Workshop and using Nero. Placing the HD content into the Video_TS folder of Neros program and burning resulted in the same choppy jittery playback on TV.

All this from a DV/AVI brought into DWS for menuing.

encoding of the same area in premiere is smooth.

Is this the standard codec everyone is using with Workshop Ulead Mpeg now?

thanks,
dcp

[DiscCoasterPro]

After not sleeping all night, trying to find the change slot in my brain to put another nickel in so I can think, I came up with another idea.

I opened DVD Workshop, created a new project.

I imported the full DV/AVI movie that was rendered from the timeline in Adobe Premiere.

(remember, the compilation in the Adobe timeline was made up completely of captured clips from my Panasonic MiniDV PV-GS200 camcorder, Adobe transitions and one music audio mp3 of row row row your boat) which is not even near the segment of clip I'm testing. No MPEG2s no nutty file types)

Now I took this single DV/AVI and set in and out points around a segment that jittered badly. I set one chapter marker in the middle, and I made the simplest of all main menus. 1 play all and 1 play chapter button.

I burned it CBR 8200 highest quality to time ratio. It ended up being 1gig in size.

The result is still the same. Very jittery! Any time I create a dvd from the Adobe included burning module... it plays back smooth as can be both on TV and PC.

This is crazy, its never happened before. I am now going to render and encode the entire DV/AVI file back to my hard drive using the Adobe Premiere program to create an MPEG2 file.

I hate to do this, but if it is compliant with DWS and it doesn't re-encode maybe it will play smooth. Geez ..this is nuts!

dcp

[DiscCoasterPro]

Gentlemen, in lieu of figuring this problem out, can someone guide me through what process (if any) I could use to purchase and change the video encoder from Ulead MPEG NOW to say Mainconcepts or something else. I don’t know how to do that, and can only assume this must be the problem.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want to start changing DWS encoders and find out I messed up Adobe Premiere in the process.

Boy this stuff can be fun, or it can be so frustrating you want to take a hammer to everything.

thanks all for your thoughts on this issue
dcp

[Devil]

I hate to tell you this, but MPEG.NOW IS MainConcept's!!! Unless I'm mistaken (not 100% sure), I think Adobe also use the same encoder in Premier. The only difference is in the skins. And, FYI, Ulead do keep up to date with MC's versions.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Great ... the proverbial dead end.

[skier-hughes]

Why not encode from Premiere and import the mpeg2 file into WS?
I do this all the time using Canopus procoder.
Then use WS to make your menu and author and burn...

Only downside is that you have to wait for the encode before importing, rather than import your dv-avi and then just wait for the encode adn burn all in one.

Doesn't solve the problem, but it does give you your playable dvd

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hi Graham, yes thats my next move as I mentioned above. I'm currently cleaning out my Ext. HD and defragging it before I do so.

Now that I've been re-bitten by Murphys Law, I am even considering the best approach to encoding to MPEG in Adobe prior to importing into DWS.

Should I risk encoding the entire compilation, and then allow DWS to menu based on markers I put in the DWS project, or should I split the Adobe compilation into the parts I want to use as chapters prior to using DWS.

I'm thinking if I import the single big mpeg and then set chapters, DWS may have to run its encoder

Its more work in Adobe if you don't think its necessary, but ya know the old saying ... "IF you're scared, say your scared." I'm scared! I don't want to make a career out of this thing. LOL

thanks much for helping!
dcp

[Jethro]

Greetings:

I'm new to this group and have noticed this thread. I can add my experience but I'm afraid I am just as confused about this problem as everyone else.

I used to use Magix Movie Edit Pro to do my movie editing AND my DVD creation and buring. I am absolutely MARRIED to Magix for movie editing but their codec and menu creation system was abysmal. I got those jitters you described, intermittently throughout my videos. It drove me to distraction. I took to allowing Magix to create the DVD disk structure on my HD and then using NERO to do the burn. That got rid of the jitter. I have no explaination for that.

Next, last fall, I discovered NERO's "NeroVision Express" DVD menu creation system and it seemed slightly better than Magix. So I began using Magix only as far as editing and producing one long continuous DV/AVI file (which could be up to 1-1/2 hours of playing time (25-30 GBytes)). I then used NERO to do the DVD menuing and the burn. Never had any trouble with jitter.

Late last year, I discovered ULead DVD Workshop and loved the menu creation system and found the codec and DVD burner produced excellent results. One odd problem that I have with it was that DWS did not seem to load or recognize the audio portion of my DV/AVI files from Magix. So I would have to get Magix to write out a separate audio wave file and then load that into my DWS project as an audio overlay. It was a small price to pay for a good menu editor and good codec.

Here's the interesting part:

One day, I decided that I when I got Magix to render the DV/AVI file, I would un-check the "Include Audio" option because I figured the resulting DV/AVI file would be smaller and since DWS was not recognizing the audio part anyway, it was not needed. I rendered and loaded the audio wave file into my DWS project as always and burned the DVD with DWS. IT JITTERED LIKE CRAZY !!! I was totally baffled. I went back to Magix MEPro and re-rendered the DV/AVI file with video AND audio as I had done in the past and then rendered the audio wave file separately as always and then re-burned my DVD using DWS: Smooth as silk!!!

So, I leave this to your interpretation. In one case the DV/AVI file is loaded WITH audio built in but ignored by DWS. Audio is loaded as a wave overlay. Result: Smooth Video. In the second case I render the DV/AVI but tell Magix to leave the audio out making the DV/AVI slightly smaller. All other settings and procedures exactly the same. Result: Insane jittering.

Just FYI, the settings I use in DWS that are displayed in the little window just prior to burn, I like to save in a text file for future reference. Here they are:

MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: 5000 kbps
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

That's my story.
By the way, I posted three questions yesterday about separate but nagging issues with DWS. If any of you have a moment, I would appreciate if you could have a look and see if you could shed a ray of hope there.

Cheers,
Mark

[skier-hughes]

If it's dvd compliant then it won't re-ernder if you tell it not to.
I keep my total - video and audio - bitrate to 7,800.
If you want the chapters to return to menu then you need seperate mpegs, if you don't mind them playing to the end then just do one large one.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Jethro, thanks for the input. Just for fun I'm going to export one more AVI portions from Adobe without audio and see what DWS ends up doing to it.

Graham, If I export the full mpeg and just split the clips in DWS rather than making 3 seperate mpegs in Adobe, will that cause DWS to re-encode the new 3 portions of the clips if they started out compliant as one? I do want the chapter endings to return to the main menu unless play all is ticked by the user.

thanks guys,
dcp

[DiscCoasterPro]

I'm burning that little chunk now w/o audio just to see what happens.

In Adobe, I checked the AVIs properties.

Source audio was 16bit 48hz

file audio was interestingly 48hz but 32bit floating point ... now I'm not sure if Adobe defaults to this setting. I'm not even sure what it means to be honest or if it has any bearing on this whole dilema. we'll see shortly ...