Jerky Photo Pan when Rendered to DVD

[PABrowns]

I have put together a "slide show" of photos set to music and using the pan & zoom function on each photo. I have just upgraded to VS 10+

The photos are JPEG files of photos scanned by family members at 1200 dpi. I just imported them into Videostudio using the Manager.

The photos look great when played in the preview window. After putting everything together I render to MPEG2 LFF 720x480 NTSC. I turn off smart render.

The MPEG plays back on WMP 10 just fine. Everything looks great. However, when I create the DVD there are a few parts where the pan & zoom jerks slightly.

I have tried to burn the DVD at a slower speed. I have tried 16x DVD-R at 16x 8x and 4x and 8x DVD-R at 8x and 4x. Even my 4x DVD-RW working copy burned at 4X contained the jerks.

I'm using a proprietary Compaq setup with a P4 541 3.2 GHz CPU the Intel 915G chipset and integrated video and audio. I have had no problem with video or shorter photo shows. But this show is almost 6 minutes long and in 4 segments. I see about 2-3 jerks per segment even when I just render and burn a shorter (1-2 min) segment alone.

Has anyone had this problem or have any idea of anything else I could try?

The most puzzling thing is that it looks OK right up until I burn it to DVD.

[Terry Stetler]

In the Preferences/General tab do you have "Apply anti-flickering filter in image clips" checked?

Typically sources rendered to DVD's are field video, meaning two fields per video frame. Images are not field sources, they are progressive (bitmap) frames. The anti-flicker filter gives images a 2-field structure like 'normal' video.

[PABrowns]

No. That's one I didn't think of. I'll try it an let you know.

Thanks!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

I would render the slide show first to Dv this will make an Avi file.

Use this file to render to Dvd (Mpeg2)

Share Create Disc--Use the mpeg 2 to create a DVD Folder. Which you can use to play on your pc.
That should save you a disc/coaster
If you are satisfied burn a disc.

What are the size of your images? 1200dpi does not mean much.
Right click an image in the timeline and select properties. What are the pixels.

You should try to keep these to 4:3 ratio.
I am in Pal country but if I were Ntsc I would use sizes 640px x 480px minium.

Trevor

[Jason Rooper]

Guys,

This is my first post so I hope this in relation to PABrowns's thread. I came onto the forum looking for an answer as to why my video project once burnt to dvd is jerky when the camera is panning. I was surprised to see this thread stemming from a similar issue albeit relating to stills.

I bought Videostudio only a week ago having decided to change from pinnacle. I bunged a short piece of film in and followed the share instructions to put it onto a blank dvd-r disc. On playback on WINDVD4 on the computer I noticed that when the camera was panning there was a definite 'jerkiness' to the motion. When subjects are relatively still, playback is fine. This also applied to fast moving objects crossing the screen even if I was not panning.

Thinking this was just a data transfer rate issue into WINDVD I was surprised to see the same effect when playing in the DVD player.

Being new to the software i investigated the settings and discovered that it was set to 'maximum' burn rate which would appear to be in excess of 40x. As I was using a 16x blank I assumed that must be it. Last night i did another attempt at the same footage on an identical blank but at a burn rate of 4x. The same issue has arisen, it's still jerky. Help! Any ideas

[Black Lab]

To both PABrowns and Jason Rooper, what is the field order of your pojects? Also Jason Rooper, how did you transfer footage from you camera to pc? Firewire, USB, etc.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Welcome to the forum.

Not quite the same problem but the result is the same, bad quality.

My first thoughts are a field order problem.
Video uses a field order ‘A’ or ‘B’ ‘Upper or Lower depending how you want to describe it.

If you have the order wrong then you will experience the symptoms you are describing.

Your video file is either from a digital or analogue source
A digital source (DV camcorder) uses Lower Field.
Analogue capture uses Upper Field

Right click on the video clip you bunged in the timeline and select properties
What are they?

In the meantime have a look at the recommended procedure at the top of this forum.
And the quick guide from the link below.

Trevor

[Jason Rooper]

Hi Jeff & Trevor,

Thanks for your replies. The source was my DV camcorder, a Sony PD170P. I transfered the footage via firewire. The first time I burnt the disc the footage was all on the PC's 120gb hard drive.

The second time i burnt a disc I had transferred all of the captured video to a new external usb 2.0 hard drive but the generated video file was produced and saved on the c: drive. different scenarios but same result.

Until the both of you mentioned the 'field order' I had not heard of that. I'm at work currently so when I get home I'll check that.

many thanks for your help.
Jason

[Jason Rooper]

Trevor,

Thanks for the tipoff re the Video studio procedures at the head of the forum. I hadn't done half of these things!

Cheers
Jason

[PABrowns]

I think I found the answer. Although rendering to AVI then making the DVD would probably have the same effect.

I started really looking at the DVD burning options since this only happened upon rendering the DVD image. There are MPEG options for compression found by pushing the disk-i button in the lower left and then selecting the MPEG Options button in the middle.

The second tab has all sorts of options for compression. All I did is slide the speed--quality slider from its default (about 3/4 towards quality) all the way to quality.

Evidently the jerking was an artifact from double MPEG compression. I made an MPEG video from the project and then recompressed to make the DVD. By sliding to highest quality, my guess is that the burning was then done without any additional compression and the jerks went away.

However, in the future I will render everything to NTSC DV, then create the DVD image from the AVI file. This is the best way to do it, unless you start with MPEG video in the first place.

Thanks for all the advice. This board is very useful.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi PA Brown

Just to clarify the working procedure.

You indicate that you are rendering within the burner stage this was not my intension.

1 / Start a new project--Add the images and complete the editing
2 / Share-Create Video File-Select DV (this creates a Dv-Avi file)
3 / The file can now be viewed on your pc, it should be very good quality
4 / Start a new project, inserting the Dv-Avi file
5 / Share Create Video File – select NTSC-DVD (this creates a Mpeg2 file)
6 / Start a new project (Change the project properties to the same as your video file Mpeg 2)
7/ Share Create Disc—Add Video File using the mpeg 2 file.

The stages 2,3,4 could be omitted going straight to creating an mpeg.
I find it best to create an Avi first. (personal preference)

8 / Create your menu.

From the last page you have the option to Create disc, Create DVD folder, Create disc image.
By creating a DVD folder you will be able to play the full dvd on your pc, menus and all.

If the video quality and menus are good, burn a disc.

The process should not render again during the burner stage. Although you may see some indication to this but should be only relation to the menu’s. If rendering is taking a long time then check that your project properties match the video file.

Trevor

[PABrowns]

I basically do all that now. My mistake was rendering to MPEG2. It's faster and with scanned old photos I don't think there's much of a quality boost going to AVI, especially when I'm not planning on any further editing.

What people should be aware of is that VS10 (and possible VS, but I haven't used that for a while) has a default setting that recompresses MPEG2 files a bit when rendering to DVD. That can be shut off in the settings menu of the disk creation dialog by selecting the Compression tab in "Change MPEG Settings" and sliding the slider all the way over to Quality.

I did re-render everything to AVI and then burned the disk image. It took about 5x longer, but now I have an image made properly. I also have the correctly done project files and AVI file for archival. The only thing I really needed to do to stop the jerking was change the quality setting, but I have now done it the way it should have been done had I not had my "senior moment."

I can't figure out how to make that the default, however.

BTW, I also burn my video to DVD-RW and play them on a DVD-TV setup to ensure that everything is in frame when viewed by my audience. This is especially important if you add titles or are framing things very close.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi PABrowns

You cannot change the default templates, but you can create your own.
Once done these will be available in Share Create Video File

Use Tools-Make Movie Manager

For more info read Make Movie Manager from the link below

Hope this helps

Trevor

[Ken Berry]

PABrowns -- just to clarify one point you raised. The Speed--Quality slider, AFAIK, does NOT affect compression settings. It is only used to reflect a balance between the speed of processing and the depth of analysis the program can do of the video while rendering (and thus affecting the quality of the end result). The more time it has for in-depth analysis, then (in theory at least) the better the final quality. So setting the slider to 100% just means that you should get the highest quality product, but it will take (much?) longer to produce it. The compression settings are not affected i.e. VS does not change a setting you have made, say a max 6000 kbps bitrate, to, say 7000 kbps or 8000 kbps.

As Trevor has said elsewhere, I too tend to leave the slider at its default setting of 70% as I am not at all convinced that any increase in quality to be obtained by raising it to 100% will be visible to the naked eye... In your case, it worked because the program was given more time to analyse the situation and devise appropriate approaches to the rendering. But, at the risk of repetition, the compression rate you set will not have been changed...

[jchunter]

PABrowns,
IMO, the procedure you described in your initial post was exactly proper. It is the same one that I use, except I make limited use of Pan and Scan filter. Moreover, the video file played OK in the computer. So, I think that when you burned your DVD, you did not set the BURN properties manually or if you did, you set one of them to a different value than the original video file - chief suspect: field order.

I suggest burning just a DVD folder, being ultra careful to set matching burn properties - then see if the DVD folder behaves better when played in the PC. If OK, then try a real burn to DVD. If the problem resurfaces, it would indicate that the DVD player has a problem....