Pixelation upon writing to DVD

[wacnstac]

Hello,

This has been driving me up a wall for the last couple of days. I have successfully captured home movies from Analogue tapes using an ATI AIW card thanks to the tips here. The resulting mpeg looks fine with no dropeed frames as does the post processed resulted from Tempgen Author when I watch it from my hard drive using a utility such as Cyberlink Power DVD. The problem is that upon burning to DVD's I get major episodes of large pixelation, totally dropped sections of movie, etc. It seems to vary from one burn to the next where it happens in the movie. Any suggestions on what to look at? I tried slowing my burn rate down to 4x on an 8x burner and it still didn't help. I am not running out of data to feed the Nero burner during burn time as it's buffers are almost always 100% full.

HELP, pulling my hair out on this one!

[wacnstac]

BTW the video was encoded for half DV1 at about 4500 mbs VBR with interlacing.

[steve2713]

Put your burner model in your profile. Tell us what discs you used. Download DVDInfoPro and tell us what the media code is of the discs.

[wacnstac]

DVD burner is Sony DVD RW DW-D18A and I am using Sony DVD-R discs.

[steve2713]

Reviews on the drive are not very kind, poor burns are a definite possibility

You could download Nero CD/DVD Speed and run a transfer rate test on the discs, if you have significant dips in the test it can often cause skipping issues. You could also do a scandisc on the discs, any errors on the disc will surely cause playback problems.

Your DVD player may also be very picky, what player do you have? Do they skip when played back on your computer?

[wacnstac]

Player is a Samsung DVD-P701 progressive scan player which at the time was rated fairly well. I do not seem to get the pixelation and dropped sequences when I play it back on my computer.

[steve2713]

Try the discs on a couple more players if you can. Also, still do the tests I suggested, it could still tell you whether it is more of a player issue or a disc issue, your computer's dvd drive will be better able to play a poorly burned disc than a standalone player, but if you do those tests it may give you some answers.

[mats.hogberg]

Definately sounds like a media (or media/hardware compatibility) issue. Try some other manufacture of DVD-R, or DVD+R

/Mats

[wacnstac]

And what brand of media would you suggest?

[mats.hogberg]

Here's the rundown

/Mats
PS! IMHO, it's a matter of trial and error - there are 3 variables: Your writer, the media and your player. Keeping writer and reader constant, the problem is to find the media your writer likes to write on, and your player likes to read from. DS

[steve2713]

Have you done any transfer rate tests or tried the discs on other players yet?

[wacnstac]

Well I think it is the player. I was able to take the same dvd and play it on another laptop DVD with perfect results and also tried it on a cheapo dvd player that is a few years old and it seemed to work. The only problem I've had is playing it on my "good" Samsung DVD-P701 progressive scan machine. This machine at the time was supposed to be a pretty good one but that was in late 2001. Any suggestions on what is the most tolerant, quality progressive scan machine available today that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?

I ran the DVD info program on the disc in question and it came back with no errors. Below is the graph from the PIE/PIF test. Not sure if this looks good or bad.

[steve2713]

That test looks extremely good, it is definitely the player and not the burner/discs judging by that test. Just for reference, my main player is a Samsung N501 and it has only on rare occasions had any skipping issues on a burned disc. It did skip and freeze constantly on some really cheap pressed discs from a series of discs I bought though, which is interesting. I believe that my dvd player is from about the exact same time period, but it is not a progressive scan dvd player (actually yours may be the model above mine).

Regardless, it definitely appears to be your player. I don't even own a progressive scan dvd player yet, but ironically most of the cheapo dvd players work the best at playing anything you throw into them - for example, Sony players are the whiney bitches of dvd players, they are very picky, so I'd suggest against Sony for burned discs.

I'd just look through the reviews of dvd players on here and find one with good reviews that is sold at your local Wal-mart, Target, Circuit City, etc. Don't be afraid to look at some of the cheaper players, some of the best players also happen to be some of the cheapest.

[mats.hogberg]

the most tolerant, quality progressive scan machine available today t

IMO, the more expensive, "high quality" brand name players are the least tolerant. ElCheapo players overall are much more tolerant, even if they may lack some other features.

/Mats