MPEGs have reddish tint upon burning to DVD

[wallmg]

Couldn't find this exact problem mentioned on this site, so here goes:
I'm using an ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 Pro card to capture home movies from VHS-C tapes. I'm capturing in MPEG-2 format, 752x480, 8 MBit, etc. The capturing works fine, and the video plays and looks fine when played from my hard drive to my computer monitor or to my television. However, when I burn the files to DVD and play them from my console DVD player, the colors are "richer" and have too much red color in them.

I've tried burning my DVDs using Roxio DVD Builder and using TMPGEng DVD Author and get the same results either way. Even backups of movies come out a little too rich.

I'd like to know why this is happening and what I can do to remedy it. Is this a normal artifact of the burning process? Do I have to adjust my color during capture, which could involve a lengthy trial and error process? Or is there a way to take the MPEG-2 files I've already captured and adjust the color on them? (They won't open in Virtual Dub for filtering for some reason.) Or is there some other solution?

Thank you for your time.

Mark

[sitlet]

well if the video looks fine on your computer, its either your dvd burning sofware, your player, or your tv. first check your tv and dvd player settings and rule that out. what happens when you play the burned dvds on you computer? do you get the same results? if so, then its either the software or your media.

[johns0]

You can run the mpg thru tmpgenc and encode with simple color correction and turn down the red a bit,have you looked into your capture settings and see if you can adjust any of the settings for color?Just do a minute capture and burn to a dvdrw to test.

[wallmg]

Thanks sitlet: You know, I didn't try playing it on my computer's DVD drive ... sometimes the simplest things ... I'll try tonight. If it still has a reddish hue, I'm assuming it's the burner (I/O Magic 8X dual format). It wouldn't be my console player because other DVD's look fine. It shouldn't be the media: I've tried it on Ritek DVD-R (checked for authenticity) and Imation brand DVD-RW with same results.

Thanks johnso: I'll try the tmpgenc tip. I am able to adjust coloring through the ATI capture program, it's just a pain to have to recapture all that video, plus it's so haphazard getting the settings right so that it looks right when burned. I have done the testing to DVD-RW like you suggest and I'm able to make it look better but haven't done extensive trial and error that way to perfect it.

Mark

[sitlet]

is the reddish tint constant throughout the movie, or does it come and go? the only other thing it might be is the macrovision copy protection. but that only happens when you use a vcr. are you using a vcr to capture the tape, or the camera?

[wallmg]

The reddish tint and richness/saturation seems to be throughout, though it's more noticable in some segments than in others. There is one particular segment where by son's skin color is almost as red as a beet throughout the 3 minute segment. It's contant, not fluctuating. I am capturing from a jvc vcr to take advantage of the S-video capability that my jvc camcorder doesn't have. But like I said, the redness doesn't appear until I burn it to DVD. (I didn't have time to check the burned DVD from my computer's drive yesterday. Will have to try tonight.) Thanks again for any help.

[wallmg]

OK, now I'm truly befuddled. I played the same home made DVD that is tinted red and oversaturated throughout on my computer's DVD drive, outputing the playback onto my television, and the picture was perfect. No redness; no oversaturation. I put it back into my console DVD player, and the reddish tint and oversaturation problem is back. What the ...

So, what does this mean? My console player is a JVC XV-N3SL, which, luckily has definable user presets where you can save saturation, tint, gamma and other settings to use in various situation. To get the picture on this DVD to look right, I have to drop the saturation level to something like -8 and change the tint pretty drastically as well. That just doesn't seem right. I guess my next step will be to play this DVD on someone else's console DVD player to see if it does the same thing. I don't understand why regular movies look fine with no adjustments, and this won't.

Someone mentioned macrovision, but that would only be if I was recording a commerical video, right -- not a home movie shot with a camcorder?

Thanks to anyone who can help me clear up this problem.

[sitlet]

yeah technically macrovision doesnt affect home movies, i was just putting it out there. how do you have your dvd player hooked up to your tv? if your dvd player is hooked up to your vcr, then to the tv, that is the problem. dvd players dont work right when passed through a vcr. the signal gets messed up. your dvd player should be hooked up directly to your tv. its obviously something with the dvd player itself. i checked the player compatability list to the left, and nobody mentioned anything about this. i would try playing it on another player, and maybe trying a different brand media.

[JimJohnD]

The ATI cards have settings under the display options in the control panel that allow you to change brightness, contrast, color hue and the like. It sounds like you have your ATI video card out of adjustment (at least compaired to standalone DVD to TV). I had the same kind of problem untill I adjusted my entire setup. See if you can find a DVD with the video setup tests. I'll have to look and see which one I used. I think the THX discs have the tests in the setup options. Look for the 'Color Bars' setup.

1. Set your TV video settings by running the tests from the standalone DVD directly to the TV. Make sure the DVD players color correction is set to the default.

2. Once you have the TV set you need to adjust the ATI video output settings. Run the Tests from your computers DVD player. Make sure you do not have the player biasing the video. In Power DVD you have to make sure you are using the "origional" settings for the video and not something like "vivid". Using the ATI control panal adjust the ATI to look as close to correct (like it looked from the standalone DVD player to the TV) as possible.

3. Then finally the ATI video capture program (TV App) lets you change the video settings for the TV app. This is where I change brightness and such to match the quality of the video I am capturing. Remember to reset this to default when you are done.

After going through all the setup your video should look the same played on the computer or standalone DVD player. Try to stay near the default settings just to be safe.

[wallmg]

My standalone DVD player is connected directly to the TV, so that shouldn't be an issue. I will try the disk on another player at the first opportunity.

Meantime, I'll try the other suggestion of making adjustments. Not sure I understand how the "color bars" setup will work. Is it a self-explanatory thing if you have it on one of your store bought DVDs? And I guess I'm not understanding how this will help if the regular DVD's play fine on my standalone unit, and burned DVDs play fine from by computer drive (when output to my television) but don't play fine on the standalone unit. If I adjust my television settings, won't regular DVD's then look wrong?

I'll try to follow your guide anyway because as a newbie, I know there are just some things I'll have to do, whether I understand them or not (but I do like to know the "whys." )

Mark