Poor Quality DVD Output

[TMC]

I have used version x2 for years and just updated to x7. Created video using AVCHD as source material. Can output using optimizer, AVCHD, mp4, wmv and AVI with no problem. When I try to output to mpeg-2 using the DVD-NTSC video preset, the output appears to have jagged edges as if a discard de-interlace filter was used. This has effect not only on video, but titling as well, which would seem to eliminate source video as the issue. Tried upper field first and frame based with same results. Project setting match source video, but I also tried changing project settings to match DVD output with same result. Jagged edges are most noticeable in high contrast areas. This did not occur in version x2 even using same video camera as source. Is anyone aware of a change in the mpeg-2 output? Really need to create DVDs that will play in standard players.
Also cannot use smart render when creating an mpeg-2 file as the color is vastly different in transition areas as compared to the remainder of the video. For now, I have turned off smart render.
Thanks for your help.

[lata]

Hi TMC

Welcome to the forums.

Can you tell us the properties of the original video file, right click a clip in the timeline and choose properties what are they.?
You mention interlacing which does seem to be the issue, X2 may have used “lower field” as its default, I would have to check on that , but certainly X7 uses “Upper field”.
The field order should match your original either frame based (P) or Upper Field.

If you are successful in rendering to same as original settings AVCHD, then use that file to convert to DVD Mpeg2 rather than rendering the project. That is the approach I took, also seemed to improve render times.

The colour difference is something I haven’t heard of before, seems very strange, but if disabling smart render works then use that, although rendering the AVCHD file rather than the project should not show the colour change.

Can you check you are using the latest Graphics Driver, if not may cause various quality problems.

[TMC]

I was using upper field first source video. Fortunately I still had the project file I used in x2 as well as the old rendered mpeg-2 files, so I loaded the vsp into x7 and rendered to mpeg-2. This way the only variable was the two versions. The problem persisted. There was jagged artifact in video and in graphic overlays as well. This is not a de-interlacing issue with source video. I also tried unchecking hardware acceleration in performance preferences to eliminate the graphics card issue. Same result. It appears to be an issue with how x7 resizes video (just a guess). I will post comparison screenshots.

[TMC]

Producing mpeg-2 from rendered AVCHD files did seem to work a bit better. There were some strange artifacts on the overlay, but overall the quality improved. Interestingly there was a significant difference in color output when smart render was selected. I have attached screenshots for comparison. Note: this difference only occurred when creating mpeg-2 files, not AVCHD, mp4, or wmv. By the way, the image without smart render is the closest to the original footage.

[TMC]

By the way, here are the properties of source footage as requested. Used two resolutions, both upper field AVCHD.

[TMC]

Another bit of information. The smart render selection also effects batch conversion if converting to mpeg-2. So if you are planning to convert multiple files, keep that in mind.

[canuck]

I have a question.

In your first post your state " Created video using AVCHD as source material". What do you mean by that exactly?
Is the video from your camera already in AVCHD or is the original source some other format and you rendered to AVCHD?

If you final video is mpeg DVD why are you rendering to AVCHD at all?

Corel VideoStudio’s SmartRender feature makes previewing and creating movies a lot faster. When you preview your video project for the first time, VideoStudio ‘renders’ the project by creating a temporary preview file on your hard drive which combines the video, image, and audio clips with the special effects which you applied to them. The SmartRender feature detects any changes in your project and if there are no changes, instantly plays back the preview file. If there are changes (for instance, when titles, video filters or transition effects have been added), it renders out only the edited portions, making render times much shorter and faster.So iThe SmartRender feature also skips re-rendering when the properties of the captured video are consistent with the project settings.

If you are rendering to mpeg-2 from AVCHD, smart render will always be disabled (no matter what your settings are) since you are changing formats and every frame has to be rendered. Smart Render is only applied if your render to the same format as the source format (in fact all settings have to be identical). Any transitiins, effects, etc will of course cause re-rendering around the modified video.

Anyway this is my understanding of Smart Render.

[erdna]

Agree TMC. I got the same results some time ago. This is what I wrote to Corel some time ago:

"These days, many people make video's in HD, and quite often they have to additionally make SD DVD's for others. A couple of months ago I briefly mentioned the bad quality of the resulting DVD's in X7. The amount of aliasing is that high that I suppose the lowpass filtering routine neede for basic resampling (HD>SD) has been skipped (forgotten?). Plse find 2 links where I uploaded a 50p and a 50i test movie which clearly shows these aliasing effects when making an SD DVD file out of them. Corel does traditionally not use advanced rescaling techniques (Lanzos,...), so a “perfect” DVD from HD is not possible, but X7 is clearly worse than all other VS versions."
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wfssckmhcecud ... 2050i.m2ts
https://www.dropbox.com/s/42tpk2troyuwi ... %2050p.m2t

[TMC]

Canuck;

What you are describing is how Smart Render should work. However it doesn't. If that were the case, then if we were outputting a file in the same format as the source footage and if we had previewed the entire project, rendering time would be zero. Let's not confuse smart render with smart proxy. The former speeds up file creation and the latter previewing. At least that is my understanding. In fact, proxy files are not used for rendering, but previewing only as that is their purpose. Proxy files are lower resolution versions of the original source files. Original files are then used for the rendering. It is confusing when everything is "smart".

I am using AVCHD camera footage. I edit the footage and then make my first render to AVCHD using mpeg optimizer or "Same as first clip", as I always want to keep the highest quality edited masters in archive regardless of the distribution formats. This does speed up the editing process when rendering to the same format (ie. AVCHD to AVCHD). If however, I leave the Smart Render selection checked and try to create DVD-NTSC from the timeline, then color variations occur at transition points. Colors are over saturated except at transitions where colors are more muted and closer to original footage. This is because the transitions require rendering while the other parts do not. The strange thing is that (with mpeg-2 rendering) the areas that should be left alone are over saturated (see screenshots). The color issue appeared even when converting an edited master file straight to mpeg-2, even though transitions are no longer an issue at that point. That's right, the entire video was oversaturated, including overlaid graphics.

Additionally the jagged edges issue occurs. This is only when rendering to mpeg-2 (see previous posts). The suggestion to render DVD-NTSC from the AVCHD masters rather than from the timeline did solve the jagged issue as long as I unchecked Smart Render to avoid the color issue (Thanks Lata!), but we should really be able to get quality scaling and color using either method. I was wondering why the jagged edges would occur in one method and not the other and the only thing that I can think of is that perhaps they coded the conversion to resize and then convert to mpeg-2, while if we use a rendered AVCHD file then we are in effect converting then resizing. Of course this could be the other way around. Keep in mind the jagged effect also impacts graphics overlays, not just source video, using the same project files and comparing them to output from version x2, so, in my view, something is wrong with the mpeg-2 rendering and/or smart rendering in x7.
This just in:
I ran another test and resized the lower third graphics outside of VS rather than resizing them in the program. The result was that the jagged edges occurred only on the video, not the overlay. Then I tried outputting to AVCHD at DVD resolution of 720x480 and the jaggies were back. Then I rendered to MPEG-2 at original resolution and no jaggies; but this was using the HDMV-NTSC profile not DVD-NTSC, So it would seem that the issue is really one of scaling and/or the UleadMPEG.now encoder.

[TMC]

So just one other thing I didn't mention:

The workaround will only work if converting files through batch convert, not from the timeline. Rendering DVD-NTSC files directly from the project doesn't eliminate jagged edges.

1. Created a master file or files using mpeg optimizer or same as first clip.
2. Deselect Smart Render in the Share Panel
3. Use File > Batch Convert to convert the master file/s created in step one to DVD-NTSC

Then you can take the newly created mpeg-2 (DVD-NTSC) files and create a standard DVD from them without the jagged edges.

Hope this helps those who may be having similar issues.

[lata]

Hi TMC

Can I still assume this is a problem when using X2 created VSP’s then opened in X7.
Or does the problem occur with project made using X7.
Using X7 I have just completed a 86 minute Bluray / AVCHD and converted to DVD Mpeg2 and did not notice any jagged edges??

By the way when I convert the AVCHD to DVD Mpeg2 I always disable Smart Render. I did a quick test last night creating a project in X2 but did not seem to have any jagged edges (interlacing ) issues. May have to repeat those tests a few more times.

After opening a X2 VSP in X7 can you set the Project Properties to match your video files properties, then save the project, try a short render.

Video Studio X7 is the first version to allow us to match HD attributes as project properties. I don’t know if X7 will read the X2 project correctly, they is quite an age difference so I don’t know if anything has changed.
Even so best to set the project properties to use AVCHD settings.

[TMC]

No you can't assume that. I have tried VSPs generated in both x2 and x7 with the exact same results. I have tried changing project properties to match both the source footage and the DVD output... same result. I also tried your suggestion of loading x2 vsp and changing properties (good idea by the way); however, same result. Jagged if rendered from timeline, but alright if Batch converted. They must have coded something wrong for conversion to DVD-NTSC from the timeline as I'm sure they are using the same encoder in both places. Perhaps it is a decoding issue.

You said you made a BluRay and then converted to DVD. Was this through the timeline with the original vsp, or through batch conversion?

The only problem with my workaround (see previous post) is that it degrades the titling because it is now second generation, but the video looks better without the jagged edges. It would be nice if they would fix the bug/s so you could just use the big blue MPEG-2 button for DVD files and get acceptable results.

[lata]

Hi TMC

Quote:- “You said you made a BluRay and then converted to DVD. Was this through the timeline with the original vsp, or through batch conversion?”
I did not use batch convert.

I first converted the project to same as first video clip, that created a single MTS file, I then converted / rendered that file to DVD Mpeg2, in my case Pal.
Yep I could have used Batch Convert for that, but simply added the single clip to the timeline and converted to Mpeg2.

I had tried rendering the entire project directly to Mpeg2 but had some pixilation issues, my project had a small section of progressive 50P video, by rendering to MTS first seemed to improve the quality when converted to Mpeg2 DVD. Besides the conversion to Mpeg2 was faster.

Even so I had no problems with jagged edges.

My old camera a Mini DV recorded excellent quality DV-AVI, conversion to DVD Mpeg2 was very good, I think better than MTS to Mpeg2.
I’m pretty new to Bluray having just installed my new LG Bluray Writer this week.
Earlier I was burning AVCHD / Hybrid discs.

I will test this out again looking for those jagged edges, I’ll find some clips with straight edges to use.

I am now thinking of :-
1 / Converting the project to MTS, I can use that file to burn the bluray disc without any further conversion
2 / Convert the MTS to DV-Avi not tried this approach, then
3 / Convert DV-Avi to DVD Mpeg2 for standard definition disc, I know that works ok. Whether this improves quality is to be seen.
However converting from HD to SD is gonna reduce the quality.

Smart Render

Using Batch Convert as far as I know does not use smart render.
If I convert to “same as” I will use smart render.
If I convert to another format I will disable smart render.

And If I have any problems with quality I will disable smart render.

As I say I will run a few tests but haven’t had any jagged edges, not that I have noticed.

[canuck]

So just one other thing I didn't mention:

The workaround will only work if converting files through batch convert, not from the timeline. Rendering DVD-NTSC files directly from the project doesn't eliminate jagged edges.

1. Created a master file or files using mpeg optimizer or same as first clip.
2. Deselect Smart Render in the Share Panel
3. Use File > Batch Convert to convert the master file/s created in step one to DVD-NTSC

Then you can take the newly created mpeg-2 (DVD-NTSC) files and create a standard DVD from them without the jagged edges.

Hope this helps those who may be having similar issues.

Could you upload a short clip to the cloud or website so that we can download it and so play with one of your clips?

[TMC]

Lata;
Batch Conversion shouldn't use smart render, however I get different results when it is checked. Not the jagged edges, but color issues.

Canuck;
Do you want source video? If so, how would you recommend sending HD video while maintaining original qualities? It would need to be converted to upload to most sites.

And a final question to those making DVDs.. Are you using the 60i or the 30p template. I tried the 30p and it did eliminated jagged edges, but I'm concerned with using 30p for portions of the video that may have motion.