Jerky motion on rendered PAL video

[petgray]

Good morning

I am using UVS 10 and I have a problem with jerky motion at the final output stage (share step ¡V rendering and burning to DVD). The problem is with PAL video taken with an old analogue camcorder. The finished DVD is in NTSC format. The quality of the PAL video imported into UVS is adequate although not great, but on the final DVD it is much worse, motion is very jerky. I have not yet analysed the video frame by frame to see what is happening (that would be my next step) but my visual impression is that it is running at around 5-10 frames per second instead of the 25-30 frames per second which it should be running at. I changed the output quality from ¡§good¡¨ to ¡§best¡¨ but this didn¡¦t help. Any suggestions about causes / cures? Thank you.

[lancecarr]

Take a look at this link first. That should give you at least an idea as to why you are getting the jerky motion.
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=11847

[Ken Berry]

As you will have seen from Lance's very helpful tutorial, there are a couple of potential pitfalls in converting PAL to NTSC or vice versa. And a major probable cause of the jerkiness is the added or substracted frames in - respectively -- bringing up the PAL 25 fps to NTSC's 29.97 fps, or reducing from 29.97 to 25 fps.

Added to that, though, in your case, is what you describe as being only 'adequate' quality captured PAL footage. Quite apart from the PAL/NTSC conversion (a huge topic in its own right), there is another huge topic which is how to capture good quality video from an analogue camera or other source. The answer will largely depend on your pocket, though some cheaper alternatives are at last appearing on the market.

Essentially, you should be aiming if possible/affordable, to use a capturing method which allows you to capture from the analogue source in DV/AVI format. There are specialised devices out there which allow this, but they tend to be expensive. The cheapest alternative is to see if your *digital* video camera allows pass-through i.e. connecting the analogue camera to the DV camera through the latter's AV plug, then connecting the digital camera to the computer via Firewire if it is a mini-DV camera. That way you can capture high-quality DV format from the analogue source.

A third way is also rather expensive -- I specifically bought a Sony digital 8 camera (apart from my Canon mini DV) which allows me to actually insert my old analogue 8mm or Hi8 tapes, and play them back direct to my computer via the camera's firewire connection. The quality is truly excellent and I have difficulty distinguishing between captures from these analogue tapes and from digital DV tapes...

Most people, however, only seem able or prepared to afford cheaper capture devices which cannot capture to DV format, though they can capture to DV-compatible mpeg-2 and also to other formats (mpeg-1, WMV etc). Some of these work well. They tend to be those which have a chip embedded in them which does all the hard work of converting the analogue incoming signal to digital mpeg-2 on the fly. (This is important because if your computer is not overly well endowed with resources, capturing to mpeg-2 can be a very hit and miss affair.) A very good device in this category is the Adstech DVD Xpress DX2, which I think sells for around US$100, though you may be able to find it for less.

If you take this route, however, you then open up yet a third huge topic in its own right -- whether mpeg-2 is an editable format, and if it is, how far can you edit it, and what quality and problems you might expect along the way. But enough said for the moment.

[petgray]

Thanks ever so much Lance Ken and Terry, those replies were really helpful. I will do some fiddling along the lines you have suggested and I am sure I can get a better result.

We emigrated from the UK to Canada last year which produced some challenges in producing the annual family Xmas video. This year I have to cobble together footage from the old analogue PAL 4:3 camcorder and the new digital NTSC widescreen camcorder, edit it and render it into two versions, a PAL version for the relatives in the UK and an NTSC version for the relatives in Canada. Needless to say this is a bit of a technical nightmare. It would be nice if there was a solution which I could buy and use straight out of the box which would handle all the technical stuff for me so I could concentrate on the editing (but I know there isn't one!). I'm getting better at this digital video editing year on year but I have a long way to go yet.

On the subject of analogue to digital conversions, I have tried several methods with varying results. Best was plugging my PAL analogue camcorder into a PAL DVD recorder and recording the output onto DVD. Unfortunately I didn't bring the DVD recorder with me when I left England, which was a tactical error which I now regret, since the computer based solutions (internal capture card or external Plextor converter box) didn't produce as good results.

I have a week to finish this so that the DVDs can go on Santa's sleigh (or alternatively, in the Canada Post mailbox) in time for Xmas, so I'd better go, but thanks again.

[2Dogs]

Hi Peter,

it might also be worth pointing out that many, if not most set top DVD players can cope with either NTSC or PAL DVD's. I send NTSC DVD's to relatives in the UK who have no problems playing them on their set top players connected to PAL TV's. I've not checked with a PAL DVD in my NTSC player here.

Of course that would only help for projects that are entirely PAL or NTSC, and not the mixed variety to which you seem to refer.

Anecdotally, the cheapest players are capable of dealing with the widest range of formats and types of disk.

[Ken Berry]

I'd endorse 2Dogs comments, with the slight (anecdotal) gloss that from what I have heard, most PAL DVD players will happily play NTSC DVDs, though the reverse is not always true i.e. it seems more than a few NTSC players have difficulty if fed a PAL disc...

But in your case, this might be less of a problem, given that you would be sending NTSC discs to a PAL country.

However, as 2Dogs also points out, and as you already realise, I am sure, mixing videos sourced from both PAL and NTSC on the one DVD, is more of a technical nightmare...!

[petgray]

Gentlemen, you are all geniuses and I take my hat off to you. I fiddled with all the little codec bitrate thingys as per the instructions above and produced a near perfect rendering of my PAL files into NTSC, the main artefacts present now being those which were introduced at the time of the analogue-to-digital conversion, which I am sure I could also improve upon with a bit more fiddling.

But I am now puzzled about one thing. It is clearly necessary to make these adjustments in order to make UVS 10 work properly, and Ulead should therefore explain to users how to do this. Instead, they do their best to hide it from you. The bits I was fiddling with were all in the Advanced Codec properties, but the dialog box for this doesn't even appear unless you alter the program code, and if you do this it apparently invalidates your third party liability insurance or something (see above). So why do Ulead do this? I think they have some explaining to do.

On the subject of PAL DVD players playing NTSC DVDs, this is a bit hit and miss. It sometimes works, it sometimes doesn't, and one time it played the NTSC disk at about three quarter speed (presumably thinking that the 29+ per second NTSC frame rate should be played at the same speed as the PAL 25 per second frame rate). But I'll try sending my English relatives PAL and NTSC copies of the disks and se how they get on.

Thanks again, Peter.

[lancecarr]

Hi Peter, glad to hear the process is working itself out for you.
Not that I want to jump to Ulead's defence so much but the action of converting from PAL to NTSC is not actually a "feature" of VS. That's why there is no mention of it or any explanation in the supporting documentation. What you are doing is something it was never designed to do.
As far as access to the advanced settings for the MPEG encoding goes that too is something that is not intended for the average user. Remember that VS is a product squarely aimed at the consumer, not the prosumer. For that reason they would be trying to keep the program as simple as possible so that "Joe newbie" doesn't go digging around in those things and upsetting everything...then whining to tech support that it doesn't work!
It's just that some of us here are a bit nosey and like to dig around in things!

[sjj1805]

.........
But I am now puzzled about one thing. It is clearly necessary to make these adjustments in order to make UVS 10 work properly, and Ulead should therefore explain to users how to do this. Instead, they do their best to hide it from you. The bits I was fiddling with were all in the Advanced Codec properties, but the dialog box for this doesn't even appear unless you alter the program code, and if you do this it apparently invalidates your third party liability insurance or something (see above). So why do Ulead do this? I think they have some explaining to do............

Thanks again, Peter.

Reply:
Hey Mister Software engineer Chappie, I know you said don't mess but I did anyway. I messed about with your carefully thought out and developed computer program. I didn't really know what I was doing but who cares because I knew that if I broke it I would ask you to pop along and put it all back together for me again.

Hey Mister Da Vinci, I liked that painting of yours so much that I thought I would add myself to the people sitting at the last supper. Unfortunately I messed it up, can you get your paint brush out and remove the mess I made. I know you won't mind. Thanks.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Peter

Video Studio provides a Make Movie Manager, this allows you to create your own templates.

You can also copy the properties from an Mpeg or Avi file to produce a template.
You may find this option useful when creating your Pal and Ntsc templates.

Read my guide to Make Movie Manager for more info.

When creating a template use Pal or Ntsc-Dvd as the compressor do not use Mpeg 2.
This will provide compatible dvd mpeg properties.

Trevor

[petgray]

Actually, to give Ulead credit where it's due, this seems to be fairly idiot-proof even in its post-messed-with state. If you change the codec properties they appear to go back to normal when you close then re-open the program.