DVD Stutters

[rroberson]

I've also posted this in the DVD recorders section.

I recently purchased an OPPO dvd player. It's used with a Tosh 65hx93 rp-crt using DVI, and a SONY Rcvr 701 via digital coax. So far I'm fairly happy with the OPPO, with a couple of caveats.

I do a fair amount of recording of OTA TV using an Emerson(funai) DVD recorder - DVD-RW in DVD-Video mode. My last DVD player was a Onkyo CP 500. I had no problems sith the dvd's stuttering. When I play any of the recorded DVD's on the OPPO, they stutter.

The dvd picture will slow down, as if its dragging, then within a few seconds speed up, as if it's trying to catch up. It throws audio out of sync, but then the audi and video actually come back in sync. This cycle is repeated pretty much over and over. it happens every 1-4 minutes and lasts about 3-5 seconds. My description makes it sound worse than it looks, it's actually very subtle, and you could even overlook the video if the scene was apnning, or changing. But I'd still like to fix it. OPPO sugested trying differnt media, I did that and it didn't help. I also used the same media, and recorded movie from my PC dvd burner, and hand no problem with it. The picture quality I get from the OPPO is much better with these dvd's than what the onkyo delivered, else I'd just watch them on the onkyo.

I'm not suggesting this is a problem with the OPPO (even though it does not happen when playing them with the onkyo), but perhaps a combination of my recorder and the oppo.

I've tried using dvd decrytper and dvd shrink to re-write the recorded dvds to see if that help, but it did not.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I could try? Are there flags set that could be edited with IFOedit perhaps?

I'll be posting this on another forum as well (where they talk about OPPO players) and I'll send to OPPO, and to Emerson(funai) but I know there are quite a few experts here and I though someone might have suggest something else I can try. I've even gone so far as to try to convert them to DivX format to see what would happen, but so ar I havent figured out how to do that and get it back on a DVD.


Thanks,
Rick

[bugster]

Please do not crosspost. One topic is enough

/moderator bugster

[monzie]

My guess is that your DVD player simply cannot read the data fast enough from the brand of DVDr's that causes the problem..i have a player that causes similar 'choking' problems..the answer is to set the MAX bitrate lower when encoding your files...eg I use 7500 (video) as a MAX...a quick rule of thumb (and in no way 100% accurate) is if you see MACROBLOCKS..(garbled squares) or the player refuses the disk then its a media problem...BUT..if the player 'plays' the disk but keeps choking then its a bitrate problem with the DVDr's...to put it simply your DVD player cant read the VIDEO data fast enough off of the DVDr disk to sync with the audio..so internal error correction steps in to allow for a audio/vidio resync .

So..your answer is.

a) Drop the Video's (max) bitrate

or

b) Use another brand of media

Answer a) is usualy the easiest/cheapset route if you still have loads of the problem media yet to use

[rroberson]

Monzie,

Thanks! I don't have a setting in my recorder to change the bit rate. If I change the recording time, will that have the same affect? ie. I've been using SP (2hour) mode. I tried using XP (1 hour) mode and it still happened. But if I understand what you're saying, maybe if I used LP (4 hour) mode, it might improve the stuttering problem?

I'll give that a try, and post results.

thanks,
Rick