Newbie: Authored DVDs fine on CRT TV, lousy on LCD TV??

[jbaugh]

I graduated from iMovie to FCE HD and now I'm trying to master the elements of Final Cut Studio.

The DVDs I have produced have a good to very good overall video quality when I play them on my CRT TV set. But I was shocked when I tried to play some of them on my daughter's new widescreen LCD TV. On her LCD widescreen TV the quality is very disappointing, actually quite poor. I know that it is not a problem with her TV since commercial DVD movies on her TV have very good to excellent video. My DVDs, on the other hand, demonstrate pronounced flickering of vertical and diagonal lines. Fabrics or objects with recurring patterns flicker viciously. And people or objects that move across the screen seem blurred and indistinct.

I'm capturing video on a Panasonic DVC-30. After I've assembled my movie in FCP I export it using Compressor with the "Best Quality" preset settings. I then finish it in DVDSP.

Any help would be appreciated. I will post my unrelated audio questions in a post to follow.

Thanks.
John

[edDV]

I graduated from iMovie to FCE HD and now I'm trying to master the elements of Final Cut Studio.

The DVDs I have produced have a good to very good overall video quality when I play them on my CRT TV set. But I was shocked when I tried to play some of them on my daughter's new widescreen LCD TV. On her LCD widescreen TV the quality is very disappointing, actually quite poor. I know that it is not a problem with her TV since commercial DVD movies on her TV have very good to excellent video.

Explain how you made your DVD. Was the source and project format DV? Broadcast TV?

Since the DVD played with quality on the CRT and not on the LCD, it was most likely an interlace DVD and the fault is in the LCD TV.

Normal TV (e.g. NTSC/PAL broadcast, VHS, 8mm, Hi8, MiniDV, 1080i HDTV, etc.) is interlaced. DVD can be interlaced or progressive. DVD progressive is limited to 24 fps or 23.976 fps for NTSC areas and is intended for progressive film sources.

All LCD panels are progressive scan at a "native resolution". Most can accept a progressive 720x480p input from a DVD player. It will then simply scale the 480p DVD input to its native resolution (e.g. 1024x768) and play fine.

For a LCD TV, all interlaced inputs must deinterlaced and then scaled for display at native resolution. The deinterlace process is difficult and is subject to many errors like those you describe. The cheaper the TV, the more deinterlace artifacts you are likely to see. First look at normal TV broadcasts. You are likely to see blurring and motion blocking product errors. If you look at interlaced high quality MiniDV inputs, the problems will be magnified due to increased detail resolution. 1080i may look OK because cheap LCD sets simply toss half the horizontal lines (one field) and display as scaled 540p progressive, but at half the motion resolution (29.97 instead of 59.94 fields per second). It may look a bit jerky.

My DVDs, on the other hand, demonstrate pronounced flickering of vertical and diagonal lines. Fabrics or objects with recurring patterns flicker viciously. And people or objects that move across the screen seem blurred and indistinct.

The better the TV deinterlacer, the less you will see of these deinterlace artifacts. What model is the LCD TV?

I'm capturing video on a Panasonic DVC-30. After I've assembled my movie in FCP I export it using Compressor with the "Best Quality" preset settings. I then finish it in DVDSP.

You are doing most things correctly. The fault is in the cheap TV. If you were to attempt software deinterlace and encode a progressive DVD, you would be introducing many of the same errors into the interlaced display to CRT. If you go that route, make both an interlaced and progressive DVD version and experiment with different deinterlace filters. None will look as good as your interlace original as viewed on the CRT.

[jbaugh]

Explain how you made your DVD. Was the source and project format DV? Broadcast TV?

The source is miniDV tapes captured with a Panasonic DVC-30 camcorder to 4:3 format. Project format? I suppose this is SD 4:3 format? I transfered the DV video to my G5 tower (updated this past week with a Quad) and processed the video (editing, transitions, titles, audio, etc.) on FCP 5 sent to DVDSP via Compressor and burned to DVD.

Since the DVD played with quality on the CRT and not on the LCD, it was most likely an interlace DVD and the fault is in the LCD TV.

The TV is a Samsung LNR238W and the DVD player is a Panasonic S77 with progressive scan. TV is connected to DVD player via HDMI connection.

All LCD panels are progressive scan at a "native resolution". Most can accept a progressive 720x480p input from a DVD player. It will then simply scale the 480p DVD input to its native resolution (e.g. 1024x768) and play fine.

This doesn't seem to be the case with my combination of hardware. At least it doesn't "play fine".

The better the TV deinterlacer, the less you will see of these deinterlace artifacts. What model is the LCD TV?

Samsung LNR238W. Apparently has a poor deinterlacer built in?

I'll have to try and view the DVDs on some other LCD type widescreen TVs.

Thanks for your informative post.
John

[edDV]

OK, that HDTV set and DVD player should do a better job. We need to find the source of the problem. Try these tests.

First play the camcorder through the TV S-Video input directly to test the deinterlacer. This will set a standard for DVD comparison. S-Video and NTSC encoding-decoding limit resolution a bit so you should be able to get slightly better resolution performance from an interlaced DVD but the DVD may have compression artifacts. DV video is 25 Mbps, DVD-SP is ~7.5-8.0 Mbps depending on how it is defined in Compressor.

Also check performance from normal analog TV stations. These two tests should set a minimum on what the TV can do with interlaced inputs.

Next check the DVD player modes. First try to play your interlace DVD at 720x480i (interlaced) over HDMI. That will envoke the HDTV deinterlacer and scaler to the TV's native 1366x768 resolution. Compare that to the camcorder S-Video playback.

Next try 480p (from dvd player). This will test the DVD player deinterlacer. My bet is this will look worse than 480i out for an interlace DVD. The TV set deinterlacer probably works better.

Next try 720p (from dvd player). This will test the DVD player deinterlacer and scaler. When that HDTV gets the 1280x720p input over HDMI, it needs to scale again to reach 1366x768.

This all assumes the DVD was encoded interlace. If the DVD was authored progressive, then all the errors happened during the DVD authoring process.

[Megahurts]

Don't rule out the DVD player. Some players playback interlaced video better than others.

A while back I took an EIA resolution chart and added sound, made a progressive and interlaced mpeg using TMPEGEnc then authored them to DVD. All of the 6 DVD players I tried played the progressive clip fine. Two of the playlers could not get past 250 lines in the vertical wedge with the interlaced clip. This happened using component or svhs output.

You can find the chart at http://www.bealecorner.com/trv900/respat/EIA1956-v3.zip

I use a Panasonic PT40LC12 LCD for vewing and have no problems with interlaced video. Same results with a CRT TV.

Regards,

Chas

[jbaugh]

First play the camcorder through the TV S-Video input directly to test the deinterlacer. This will set a standard for DVD comparison.

With camcorder connected via S-Video to widescreen LCD TV the shimmering and flickering are as apparent as they are on the burned DVD. But when I connect the camcorder to the CRT TV with the S-Video, the flickering is gone.

Also check performance from normal analog TV stations. These two tests should set a minimum on what the TV can do with interlaced inputs.

Unfortunately, my analog TV station reception is via rabbit ear type indoor antenna and is marginal on either analog or digital TV. But I do get a surprisingly adequate TV reception on the LCD TV which is equal to if not better than with my CRT TV. They are in different rooms and use different indoor antennas however.

Next check the DVD player modes. First try to play your interlace DVD at 720x480i (interlaced) over HDMI. That will envoke the HDTV deinterlacer and scaler to the TV's native 1366x768 resolution. Compare that to the camcorder S-Video playback.

Next try 480p (from dvd player). This will test the DVD player deinterlacer. My bet is this will look worse than 480i out for an interlace DVD. The TV set deinterlacer probably works better.

Next try 720p (from dvd player). This will test the DVD player deinterlacer and scaler. When that HDTV gets the 1280x720p input over HDMI, it needs to scale again to reach 1366x768.

This all assumes the DVD was encoded interlace. If the DVD was authored progressive, then all the errors happened during the DVD authoring process.

I'm almost certain the DVD was authored as an interlaced project. I'm not sure I even know how to set authoring to progressive. Is this set in Compressor when exporting from FCP via Compressor?

Unfortunately, I've run out of time for now. I'll have to postpone further testing until I get home form work tomorrow afternoon. But in running through the controls on my DVD player I don't see any way to set it to an interlaced mode ( I don't see 720 X 480i as an option). I'll have to explore this further when I have more time.
Thanks
John

[edDV]

First play the camcorder through the TV S-Video input directly to test the deinterlacer. This will set a standard for DVD comparison.

With camcorder connected via S-Video to widescreen LCD TV the shimmering and flickering are as apparent as they are on the burned DVD. But when I connect the camcorder to the CRT TV with the S-Video, the flickering is gone.

Well that's a show stopper right there. Either a setting is off on the TV or there is something wrong with the camcorder output. My bet is a TV setting since the camcorder plays OK to a CRT.

[jbaugh]

Well that's a show stopper right there. Either a setting is off on the TV or there is something wrong with the camcorder output. My bet is a TV setting since the camcorder plays OK to a CRT.

This makes sense to me. When I've got a few minutes I'm going to go over the TV settings again. The operator's manual is very poor and difficult to interpret. But I believe there is something in the manual suggesting that HDMI has to be turned off to play interlaced material. I don't remember seeing any setting in the TV menu that has an "i" after it. All I remember seeing is various "p" settings. But I'll have to go over it again.
John

[edDV]

Well that's a show stopper right there. Either a setting is off on the TV or there is something wrong with the camcorder output. My bet is a TV setting since the camcorder plays OK to a CRT.

This makes sense to me. When I've got a few minutes I'm going to go over the TV settings again. The operator's manual is very poor and difficult to interpret. But I believe there is something in the manual suggesting that HDMI has to be turned off to play interlaced material. I don't remember seeing any setting in the TV menu that has an "i" after it. All I remember seeing is various "p" settings. But I'll have to go over it again.
John

To be clear here, a LCD, unlike a CRT, is incapable of displaying interlaced inputs directly. A deinterlacer must be used. All analog TV channels, composite and S-Video inputs must be routed through the deinterlacer. So what you should be looking for are deinterlacing modes in the menus. Look for motion options in DNIe. If there are no options, what you see is what you get from that LCD.

If the TV set deinterlacer sucks, try the method above to use the DVD Player deinterlacer by using 480p and 720p on the DVD player HDMI output.