Help With Choppy DVD

[hgsouth]

Hi everyone

I'm so lost...whenever I try to make a DVD it just does not come out right.

I'm making a DVD of my film and video projects for my grad school application reel so it has to be good.

I do not have up to date equipment, but let me tell you what I'm doing and maybe you can tell me where I'm going wrong.

Videos edited on a Windows 98 box
Encoded from Adobe Premiere to an AVI file using HuffyUV 2.1.1 codec at 720 x 480
I had to encode into multiple video files so they weren't too big.
Made a separate audio file

Transferred files to present computer (WinXP SP2, etc.)
Used Avisynth (.avs) files to join the video pieces
Encoded files using TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 into their "DVD" encoding option

Created DVD using Nero 6
Burned with Sony DVDR onto Sony DVDR discs



When played back in various DVD players it's just not right...the video halts at random spots and then continues a few frames later...sometimes the videos don't start correctly...a frame is frozen for a few seconds then the video starts to play. It's all very strange and not really acceptable for a Grad school application.

Can anyone help?

[Baldrick]

It could be a dvd media problem.

How does it work if you play the burned dvdr on a computer usng a software dvd player?

And check so nerovision is not reconverting your video again, I would use something else for authoring like tda or dvd-lab.

[poisondeathray]

Test the output at each stage to determine where the problem is introduced(problem could be introduced at any stage during your workflow, including bad media, bad burning software, bad authoring etc...)

Does the authored DVD video files play fine on the PC?
Did the output form TMPGEnc play fine?
Did the transferred files play fine?

[LJB]

Burn your project with imgburn rather than nero. Even if you use nero to author (I use it for some projects), use imburn to burn the video_ts folder to the dvd because imgburn will give you a far more reliable burn.

[hgsouth]

Thanks for the quick replies

the MPG files that TMPGEnc makes play fine on the PC.

The DVDs are choppy and have the same problems on a DVD player as well as my PC.

I just burned a trial with ConvertXtoDVD and it played fine without the choppyness (I started with my raw files by importing the .avs files to ConvertX and went from there).

So, maybe Nero is doing something funky behind the scenes.

Now, I can either use ConvertX, which is fine with me, although the menu was ugh, really ugly and I didn't have much control over it.

I will try dvd-lab and dvd author now and see how that goes.

[hgsouth]

Burn your project with imgburn rather than nero. Even if you use nero to author (I use it for some projects), use imburn to burn the video_ts folder to the dvd because imgburn will give you a far more reliable burn.

I'll try this too...I guess I have to save the Nero file to my hard disk and then use IMGburn?

Sorry I'm a total noob

[hgsouth]

Update:

I used TDA to author the DVD this time and burned it with imgburn.

The DVD has none of the choppyness issues and seems A-OK.

However, when I try to play the DVD in my first-generation Panasonic DVD player it is generally ok but sometimes things get caught and the player freezes (seems to only happen at the menu screen). Do you think this is a result of it just being a very old DVD player (from the late 90's) or is it something else? We've had this problem with other commercial movie DVDs.

[CogoSWSDS]

Try it on a more recent DVD player. Some of the first players did not play burned disks well, nor were they designed to. If you don't have one, try it on a friend's DVD player.

CogoSWSDS