VS9 renders DVD Mpg very jerkily

lungbarrow · Post by **lungbarrow** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:24 am

Hi

After resolving issues with VS9 and my graphics card - basically VS9 was causing my monitor to go black (no i don't have power save options activated) and hanging my pc - i was able to produce a DVD mpeg file using the standard output parameters.

However, this video file is very jerky. the text transitions are jerky and the video clips i've included are also jerky. When viewing the project in VS9 the motion of the clip is smooth but the generated clip is very jerky.

I use the default DVD mpeg (4:3) setting and I've tried disabling all check boxes relating to rendering (smart rendering, anti alias (?) and the other one which i can't recall right now) but it doesn't seem to make a difference - the output is still quite jerky.

I've currently switched off hardware acceleration on my graphics card to overcome the issue i was having with VS9 and my graphics card.

What settings should i use to create fluid DVD mpeg files?

Thanks if anyone can help.
Trevor

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:31 am

Is playback jerky on your PC or a standalone DVD player? Background processes and I/O bottlenecks can cause playback to stutter.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:45 am

Some system spec's wouldn't go astray either. Can you elaborate a bit on "jerky"? Could mean anything really. Does the video stop and go or is the picture itself distorted or what?

Which standard output parameters did you use? full DVD, 1/2 DVD, NTSC, PAL? What is your source material? etc. etc.

lungbarrow · Post by **lungbarrow** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:10 am

Sorry. Here are the specs:
Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz, 1 Gig RAM Windows 2000.

I'm trying to generate a DVD MPEG (4:3 PAL) as per the Generate Video drop down menu using the default settings, not via the Custom menu.

By jerky i mean for example, a text transition moving across a picture behaves like this:
- it moves a a little way across the screen, stops for a bit then resumes for a bit and stops; and so on across the screen.
For video clips inserted into the VS9 project the same thing occurs - the motion is not smooth but starts and stops on the rendered mpeg.

The source is mainly pictures interspersed with a few video clips.
The duration between pauses is about 1-2 seconds.

Playback of the VS9 generated video mpeg file is done with only Windows Explorer open. No other applications are running.

When playing back on VS9 the motion is smooth and there is no jerkiness.

Any thoughts?

Thanks once again

Trevor

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:20 am

Did you play the DVD on a stand alone DVD player? As a rule, I never watch any of my DVD's in MediaPlayer or on the PC.

lungbarrow · Post by **lungbarrow** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:41 am

No i played the DVD mpeg file using Windows Media Player.

I didn't want to risk making a coaster for a 4 minute clip. If the mpeg file is jerky does this mean that the resulting DVD that i will end up making also be jerky?

I did find that if i generated an avi file (with no compression) using the same VS9 project the jerkiness isn't there as much - it's still jerky but not as noticeable.

Does this mean anything?

Trevor

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:57 am

If it's only a 4 minute clip, how big is it in file size? Do you have an ftp site where I could download it from or can you e-mail it. Maybe I can look at it and better understand the problem.

I asked if you had it play on a DVD player because often, problems you see on the PC aren't there, unfortunately, the reverse can also be true. Can you burn it to a DVD-RW? At least you can re-use the disk. Another thing though, DVD standard requires at least a file size of 1 GB. I don't think your file would be big enough for that and would require your burning program to add a filler.

lungbarrow · Post by **lungbarrow** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:42 am

Hi

The file that is generated is somewhere between 200-300MB. So it's probably too cumbersome to upload. Thank you for the generous offer though!!!

I'll get a DVD-RW and give that a go.

Should i enable the following when generating the DVD mpeg file:
-Perform SmartRender?
-Perform non-square pixel render?
-Apply anti-flickering filter?

One of the sites listed in the forum says not to enable SmartRender ...

The funny thing is that the avi (uncompressed) file that can be generated is a lot less jerky than the DVD mpeg file.

Trevor

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:37 am

It would also be useful to have some information such as (1) the source of your video i.e. what did you capture it from; (2) how did you capture it; (3) what were the properties of the captured video; (4) what editing did you do to it; (5) what exactly were the 'standard output parameters' you used for your final mpeg?

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:18 pm

Exactly my sentiment, Ken.

lungbarrow, it does not surprise me that the avi file does not display the jerkyness, it has just been copied from the camcorder with no extra compression added. That also indicates that, whatever happens to your clip when rendering to mpg, is due to some issue on your machine, having an effect on the compression process. The twentythousand dollar question is: "What is it?"

It would still pay to get it burned to a DVD and to play it on a stand alone DVD player to see if it still happens. Concerning your quesdtions asked about certain options to be selected or not, well, that depends on what your source and target system is.

lungbarrow · Post by **lungbarrow** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:00 pm

the video files come from my camcorder as avi files.
the settings used for exporting to mpeg dvd are:
- PAL DVD (4:3) from the create video menu item.
- i've set both non square pixel render and anti flickering filter on.
- 720x576, 25fps, 24 bits, lower field first, vid rate of 8000 kpbs, audio rate of 224kbps, mpeg audio layer 2, 48 khz, stereo

I don't think it could be related to the source avi files since the jerkyness also appears during text transitions over static jpeg images (which were scanned in) i only have 2 clips totalling 30 seconds out of the 4 minute clip - the rest are just static images. And it appears fine during preview in vs9. so it could be something related to my pc....

the only thing i've done is disable my video graphics card by turning off hardware acceleration. but this was to overcome the issue i previously had with VS9 in that it caused my screen to go black or freeze up after a few seconds after launching it and using it.

i shall try the dvd burn in a little bit...

Trevor

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:31 pm

It's quite possible that a background process is causing the problem -- the Windows 2000/XP Disk Indexing Service, AV/ Spyware scanners, Folding@Home if installed by the Google Toolbar, MSN Desktop Search, and even Task Manager if left open displaying process information will cause brief pauses.

lungbarrow · Post by **lungbarrow** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:24 pm

I burnt the mpeg to dvd and played it on my standalone dvd player and there is no jerkiness what so ever!!!

So i'm perplexed why windows media player makes it look jerky even when there is nothing else running on my pc besides it.

thanks for everyone's help!!!!!

Trevor

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 4:25 am

That's just WINDOWS for you. remember I stated earlier on, as a rule, I don't watch my DVD's, that goes for mpeg files too, in MediaPlayer.

Glad you found out that your problem is not a problem.

Jeff7 · Post by **Jeff7** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 2:54 pm

Another possibility - DVD's do not always use a consitent framerate. Or it's something to that effect. On a Futurama DVD, the intro theme was a different framerate than the rest of the episode - this of course caused the intro to display at a different speed than the episode.

Solution? DGMPGDec and the VFAPI Codec and Reader.
DGMPGDec filters through the varying framerates and makes a D2V project file. It can also decode AC3 audio and save it as a WAV file. The filename will indicate if there is a sync error between the audio and video, and by how many milliseconds it is.

Next, use the VFAPI reader - it makes a sort of AVI file out of the D2V file. The AVI it creates is only a few megabytes though; seems that it acts as a pointer or parser of the original MPEG2 file.

Now you can open that AVI file with Videostudio, as well as the WAV file, and re-render them as a normal MPEG2 file.

Here's a quick video of the jumpiness I got when trying direct editing with Videostudio:
Link (2.6MB)
Note that the audio is unaffected, meaning that it is purely the video stream that is troublesome.
It is XviD format, converted from the edited MPEG2 file. It clearly shows the skipping in the first segment, and a little more in the second part.
With DGMPGDec, the resulting file is perfect.