XviD Encode, Playback is Jittery ~ Plz Help!

[Mark-2009]

Ok well basically i'm encoding from MKV to XviD ... i know how to do it, its just when i encode it to XviD (avi) its very jittery/jerky on playback... have no idea why ? Its not my machine as other AVI files play fine without jitter. So if anyone can identify what the problem is, i would be very grateful, if needed i can upload a short sample of the clip and/or i can provide all the details i use to encode.

Plz Plz Help! Very frustrating!!

-Mark

[FulciLives]

Load the troublesome MKV into MediaInfo and do a TEXT dump then post it here.

A sample of the MKV would be great but often times cutting out a sample is not really all that easy-to-do unfortunately

Also it would help if you explained how you did the conversion ... what program or programs you used and the steps taken etc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Mark-2009]

General
Format : Matroska
File size : 4.37 GiB
Duration : 2h 3mn
Overall bit rate : 5085 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-02-20 13:11:04
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.4.2 ('Oh My God') built on Jan 18 2009 17:30:28
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 2mn
Bit rate : 4234 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 4443 Kbps
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 536 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.270
Writing library : x264 core 66 r1114 a933a3e
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=2pass / bitrate=4443 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English

Audio
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2h 3mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Rear: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz

Text
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text

[Baldrick]

Are you converting to same frame rate as the source? 23.976.
What video bitrate?

Also it would help if you explained how you did the conversion ... what program or programs you used and the steps taken etc.

[Mark-2009]

Yeh the frame rate is still 23.976... encoding it to XviD with a bitrate of around 2500kbps. Well i used MKVExtract to extract H.264 video and AC3 audio, put the h.264 in a .avi container and opened it up in VirtualDubMod and encoded with 2 pass xvid, applied a couple of filters i.e resize, sharpen and adjusted the HSV to my specifications. Took around 4 1/2 Hours. Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

-Mark

[poisondeathray]

It might be VFR (variable frame rate)

You can check by looking at the timecodes. mkv2vfr.exe comes with the haali splitter package, it's a command line application. The syntax is :

mkv2vfr input.mkv output.avi timecodes.txt

These are V1 timecodes, so they are easier to read. If there are multiple transition points in the time codes with different FPS, you have a VFR video

AVI container doesn't support VFR, so you are better off not converting at all.

If you must convert, you can try to convert to CFR by using avisynth's DirectShowSource, and convertfps=true, but the results aren't perfect because it just inserts/deletes frames to make the timecode transitions smooth. The syntax looks like this:

DirectShowSource("input.mkv", fps=23.976, convertfps=true)

If it's not VFR, there must be something wrong with your process. I wouldn't extract the raw h264 video at all, rather use an .avs script as input into vdub. If you do all your filtering in avisynth, you can use "fast recompress" in vdub and avoid the quality loss from the internal colorspace conversion that vdub does.

Cheers

[Mark-2009]

Cheers for the feedback, will try out some stuff u suggested!

[Mark-2009]

Ok so i've tried some of the avisynth filters, but to no avail. I've tried the DeJitter and Deflicker but both didn;t really do much at all, what filter do you guys think would be suitable ?

[poisondeathray]

Did you rule out VFR as the issue yet? If it is VFR, no combination of filters will fix your problem

Also, h.264 isn't completely compatible in the AVI container. A hack is required for compatibility to force it into the AVI container, so your method might have introduced errors. Did you use AVC2AVI or some other application? Again, I wouldn't use MKVExtract, because the loss of delay offset

Other possibilities: perhaps it's a decoding issue? Is this xvid/AC3/AVI ? Is AC3 filter installed? Do other AVI's with the same specs have the same issue? Try a different player e.g. KMplayer or VLC

[Mark-2009]

Yeh its not VFR and yeh i used AVC2AVI...
I only put the h.264 into the AVI container so VirtualDubMod coud open it.
Basically the main problem is, little pixels flicker quite rapid on solid colours on the movie, i.e. background colors. What could cause this ?
And other files like this play fine so its not the player im using (VLC).

Cheers for your feedback poison is much appreciated!

[poisondeathray]

"litttle pixels flicker" and "jerky playback" are two different things

If you can't figure it out, maybe you could upload a sample , enough to demonstrate what you are trying to describe. I'm assuming the .mkv did not have those effects?

You could try converting it by another process (e.g. xvid4psp should be able to convert it directly, without the intermediates steps)