random pixelization on stand alone dvd players - help

[godfeast]

I have just finished a dvd set that I want to play flawlessly on several different stand alone players ( copies will be given out as presents to friends).

I started with 30 small, 10-15 minute .avi episodes of my cartoons.

Each was downloaded from an individual source, although different sources weree used.

Each file had the audio extracted in virtualdub and rendered to .ac3 with ffmpeg. ( no audio problems exist, even when pixelization occurs).

video was processed thusly:

1. scripted with Fitcd to dvd spec - size was changed from 512 x 384 to 720 x 480 ( kept aspect ratio), fps was changed from 23.97 to dvd mpg1 spec.

2. cce was used to encode video to m2v and pulldown was used to get fps correct.

3. final video was muxed with dvd lab to the ac3 audio.

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The videos all play flawlessly on the computer and pixelization occurance is truely random on stand alone player - sometimes it happens, sometimes not - it can be a whole screen or just a small spot in the center, it can last for seconds or minutes.

If dvd is replayed in exact same machine, it will not occur in same spot, maybe not same video, or even at all.

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My concern, obviously, is to get rid of this altogether so that I can give out dvd's and not have anyone think its junk after I spent all this time on them.

I would also like to be educated as to what is causing this in the first place, so that it can be avoided in the future.

If anyone needs more info or specs, please ask. I used the guides on this site to make these videos with no "touches" of my own. (big thank you to those that made the guides - they rock!)

[proggy]

Type of media used?
Type of encoding used? --CQ, VBR, CBR
What bit-rate is the video?
What bit-rate is the ac-3?
What standalone player are you using?

[godfeast]

media is 2.4 speed imation dvd r+ burned on a pacific digital x4 speed burner.

encoding - cq_vbr at 85 quality and 4000 max bitrate

bit rate of video before encoding is around 960 kb/s to 1106 ( varies from video to video), all encoded to 9766 kb/s.

bit rate of ac3 is set to 224 via ffmeggui.

my main test dvd player is an apex ad-500w

[proggy]

encoding - cq_vbr at 85 quality and 4000 max bitrate......bit rate of video before encoding is around 960 kb/s to 1106 ( varies from video to video), all encoded to 9766 kb/s.

You encode all the different formats to 9766 kb/s and then encode the final dvd to 4000 kb/s max at CQ? Is that correct?

If that is correct I cannot tell anything wrong at the moment. However, I could never find an optimal seting for CQ on my own players even though the settings were fine, they always jerked for some reason. Now I just use CBR if the movie is very short and if it is long I use VBR.

[godfeast]

yeah thats what I ment.

I dont fully understand the different settings ( cq, vbr, etc) myself or really have a grasp for how each one functions, I just do whats recommended from the guides.

You seem to be implying that issues like this occur then from the variations on this particular bitrate setting.

Can you explain at all, in a little detail, what exactly is happening with these settings and what you might think could be the reason for the errors?

If not yourself, then can anyone else explain this?

I will go back and re-encode them all using cbr, since that seems to be your suggestion on a fix ( I may be reading into that though), and we'll see what turns up.

Just for educational reasons though, I would like to get an answer or two to the above quandries.

[proggy]

My first thought was you were setting your bit rate too high. If the bit rate is too high, the dvd player cannot decode the video fast enough and it stutters. However, your max is set to 4000, so I don't see that as being a cause.

I am not familiar with CQ. I tried it a couple times with different setings and could not get it to work without stuttering. I don't doubt at all that it was my error, but you may be making the same error whatever it is.

Your goal is to get the highest bitrate from your movies without going too high that it cannot be decoded by your standalone dvd player. your computer should be able to decode just about any bitrate because of it's "unlimited" resources.

If your movie is very short, you can set your encoding to CBR so the whole thing is at a high bitrate. I usually set the max around 8000. If your movie is long, you will not have enough room on the dvd to keep a high bit rate. So then you would choose VBR. The encoder chooses what bit rate it wants to encode each frame or scene. I usaully choose a max of 8000 for this also.

Sorry if I don't know as much as you hoped, hopefully some of the stuff I mentioned will help. the best thing to do is experiment with some dvd-rw media if your player can play them. That way you don't make a bunch of coasters.