Choppy playback on DVDs

[DWaldie]

I've just put together some clips from our last holiday. They were recorded as either 1080 @ 30fps or 720 @ 60fps. Predictably the 30fps shots can be a little choppy of you pan too quickly. Unfortunately the created DVD has a lot of choppiness throughout. The DVD is a PAL spec one at 25 fps but the quality of the playback is significantly worse than the 30fps clips. Is there something I can do about this? Do I need to change a setting to get better quality?

[skier-hughes]

There are many variables that can make it choppy, so if you could firstly tell us the exact properties of both files first we'll be able to give more guidance. R/click on a file while on the timeline and choose properties and paste the results here.
Then add the properties you chose to make your dvd files.

[Ken Berry]

Both lots of video are NTSC and would need to be burned using NTSC DVD if you want to avoid the first cause of the choppiness. To get them down to 25 fps, VS has literally to throw away some of the NTSC frames and this normally means instant choppiness.

The situation is further complicated by your 720 x 60fps video. This is progressive or frame based video, and does not translate easily into standard definition mpeg-2 which is what you are converting it to when your make a DVD. In theory at least, you can convert such video into mpeg-2 using a setting of frame-based, which should work. But if it is mixed with the 1080 x 30 fps, which is almost undoubtedly using Upper Field First, then one or the other lot of video will suffer in the final conversion.

[DWaldie]

Thanks Ken. I think I've just about got what you explain. It's just occurred to me that my camera has settings for both PAL and NTSC, but I'm pretty sure it still defaults to 30 or 60 fps. Wouldn't you expect 25 or 50? I also need to check if our DVD players can handle NTSC. Are you suggesting that I set the camera to record only 30 fps and forget the 60? There would seem little point If I am going to burn to DVD. Especially if it makes the quality worse.

[Ken Berry]

While it would obviously be easier to produce a PAL DVD using video filmed with PAL settings, you could still burn an NTSC DVD since just about all PAL DVD players will play NTSC discs. The reverse has not always been true, though these days I think most NTSC players can also play PAL discs.

As for producing 1280 x 720p video (i.e. at 50 or 60 full frames per second) I would agree there is little point in doing so when your only intend to down-convert it to standard def DVD quality.

[DWaldie]

I have created some clips in NTSC with a view to creating a NTSC disk. When I come to "share" my settings are still listed as PAL. I've checked the manual and Mark Bech's book and can't work out how to change the project to NTSC. Where is it? [EDIT] I've got this one sorted and you are correct: no dropped frames and it plays fine. Pity I can't get my camera to record in true PAL.

Are there any good guides on how to maximise the quality of my DVDs? I'm not too bothered if they take ages to render.

Additionally, I've created some templates. How do I select one of these for the project properties?

Thanks again.

[DWaldie]

I've uninstalled and then re-installed in NTSC. It gives me more flexibility with my camera video files and the DVDs work fine. Thanks for your help. I'll post the other questions in separate posts.