Blocky artifacts on authored video---what gives????

[unclescoob]

You put so much effort into cleaning a video with Virtualdub or Avisynth (all dust and noise is eliminated), you sharpen, make it look nice and presentable...then you burn the video on DVD. You play this video on your DVD Player and, in some areas (particularly flat dark areas/ black screen) you see macroblocks (some of them even crawl) taking the place of the noise that has been eliminated.

Now from what I've gathered, this is "bit starvation"? Meaning since the dust, specs, etc. are smoothed out, there are not enough bits to fill that area, resulting in these blocky artifacts. Am I on track here, or is there something I'm missing?

Does the DVD burning software that you use have anything to do with this? For example, Nero uses smart encoding and you have the option of doing a two-pass encoding before authoring.

How can I eliminate these blocks and have a nice, solid flat image? Please keep in mind that these blocks don't show on the computer monitor. Just on the TV (after burning the video on DVD and playing it on the DVD player).

All help is greatly appreciated!

[SLK001]

No, "bit starvation" is when a scene needs 6Mbps to render correctly, but you have re-encoded the stream so that only 4.5Mbps is available. The only recourse for the player is to generate the macroblocks that you are seeing.

The burning software should have no effect on your results, re macroblocks. It sounds like you are using Nero as your encoder. I'm not up-to-speed as to its encoding abilities.

As to how to eliminate your blocks, you need to post your script and some sample pics of what you are referring to.

[hech54]

Does the DVD burning software that you use have anything to do with this?

Absolutely not.

For example, Nero uses smart encoding and you have the option of doing a two-pass encoding before authoring.

That's encoding and authoring....not burning.

[Baldrick]

Use a better dvd converter like HCENC (together with avstodvd) and highest possible bitrate.

[unclescoob]

Will do, Baldrick, thanks for the tip. So what you're stating is that these blocky artifacts are usually caused by low bitrates?

[Krispy Kritter]

They can be bit rate related, but most likely the result of using poor tools. Hence the recommendation for better software.