Jerky video in PowerDVD but not Media Player

[Boomer2]

Captured video in VirtualDUB using Pegasus' MJPEG encoder.

Edited the video in VirtualDUB.

Used the frame server to pass it to TMPGEnc set to NTSC VCD.

When I play the resulting mpg in Media Player it is fine. When I play it in PowerDVD (from HDD or VCD) I get jerky motion, much as it looks in the preview window in TMPGEnc (shows about every 18th frame). However, the audio is perfect.

Any insights into why this is happening and how to fix it?

Thanks

[Feslmogh]

It could be the player itself. Anyone else...?

[MPereira]

PowerDVD is a software player whose performance depends on the available hardware (e.g., video card chipset, HDD speed, amount of RAM, and, of course, processor speed).

I witnessed the same behavior with my .mpg titles, created with almost the same tools, on a PIII 700, RAM 128 MB, Voodoo3 (no hardware acceleration), under Windows ME.

Using PowerDVD to watch DVDs I notice some image artifacts and hissing sound. In Windows DVD Player the image and sound are excellent, the movie runs smoothly.

My guess is that Media Player uses the hardware more efficiently than PowerDVD. I observed that the image quality in PowerDVD is slightly better than in Media Player, but the sound in Media Player is much better.

[Boomer2]

Here's a new wrinkle:

I expanded the viewing window in PowerDVD to at least double its original size. The movie played cleanly and with sound in synch. Expanding further in increments to full screen resolution (1024x76 had no ill effects (besides the normal blockiness that shows up). However, reducing viewing window size down to about the original size brought back the jerkiness.

Thanks for the insights!