Jitters from Satellite Signal ?

[Happygolucky]

Good day all.

I decided to connect my satellite receiver to the s-video input jack on my digital-8 camcorder for a little experimentation.

The taped / replayed video looks great, but I believe I've also recorded what others are describing as "jitters".

Will one of the those Sima SED-CD Video Copy Master gizmos help?

Thanks in advance.

[ironwood321]

Hi,
Some stalactite boxes etc tend to put macrovison in there signals to stop people making great recordings. You have to get a signal cleaner type device. Not to sure about the box you have mentioned but if it offer some form of cleaning or resycing or reconditioning it might remove macrovision.

[txpharoah]

1. They don't add Macrovision to tv signals. They don't work that way. Not the same as tapes or DVDs. Especially not DSS.
2. Get a GOOD shielded, gold cable. Monster Cable is best. RG6 if using coax, not RG55. And avoid splits as best as possible. Maybe add a decible amp (Walmart $25) along the coax.
3. SIMA? Only if the problem persists with GOOD cables installed. Probably not. That device is a stripped-down TBC, and this issue may be out of its capabilities.

[SHS]

I agreee with txpharoah you should get a high quality s-video cable.
What satellite receiver are you using?.

[unloopme]

I use an Optimus(32 bit Radio Shack) IRD for DirecTV. I've captured directly to MPEG2 and the video and sound is great when I play it on the PC, even in Full Screen. BUT, when I've burned to DVD there seems to be some jitter when theres alot of motion on the screen. When the action is more tame or the camera is focused on one object or person the picture looks great. It's driving me nuts!!!

[mkelley]

Capturing direct to MPEG may well be your problem. Unless you're spending *big* bucks most real-time encoding can't do the job that a software only encoder can do.

Try capturing to DV-AVI and encode using MainConcept or CCE. I'll bet a lot of money the results will look better.

[unloopme]

Capturing direct to MPEG may well be your problem. Unless you're spending *big* bucks most real-time encoding can't do the job that a software only encoder can do.

Try capturing to DV-AVI and encode using MainConcept or CCE. I'll bet a lot of money the results will look better.

I'll surely give your suggestions a shot. Should I go ahead and capture @ 720x480 and 48000khz 16bit stereo? Any other tips would be great.
thanks

[SHS]

Hmm that odd mkelley I do capturing direct to MPEG in REALtime and I had DirecTV before but not it Dishnetwork and get really good quality from my PVR 250 beat heck out of doing the hard way and long way.

[Happygolucky]

I'm recording Bell Expressvu (Canada) to digital 8 tape.

When I play the tape back, it looks pretty good, but "flutters" a little.

Yes, I'm using a S-Video cable.

Any input (no pun intended) is appreciated.

[mkelley]

Capturing direct to MPEG may well be your problem. Unless you're spending *big* bucks most real-time encoding can't do the job that a software only encoder can do.

Try capturing to DV-AVI and encode using MainConcept or CCE. I'll bet a lot of money the results will look better.

I'll surely give your suggestions a shot. Should I go ahead and capture @ 720x480 and 48000khz 16bit stereo? Any other tips would be great.
thanks

Yes, capture at those settings and you should be happy. (The usual caveats about capturing apply: use a dedicated disk, defrag, stop if dropping frames, etc).

[mkelley]

Hmm that odd mkelley I do capturing direct to MPEG in REALtime and I had DirecTV before but not it Dishnetwork and get really good quality from my PVR 250 beat heck out of doing the hard way and long way.

If you like what you see then don't worry about it.

Everyone has a different set of eyes and different tolerances to what they consider good quality. For a long time I thought TiVO was doing a terrific job of real time encoding -- then I started noticing artifacts on the b/w series I was recording. Some of it may even be due to the sat signal itself, but it's interesting that for years I never noticed it.

The real bottom line is what works for you -- don't let anyone else (me included :>) tell you different. The original poster wasn't happy, and I suggested a solution that should make him happier (BTW, encoding in software doesn't have to be hard and long -- I use MainConcept and it does it almost real time).

[BJ_M]

go up there and grasp that satellite firmly and pet it real nice ... that should fix its jitters ...

[txpharoah]

I use an Optimus(32 bit Radio Shack) IRD for DirecTV. I've captured directly to MPEG2 and the video and sound is great when I play it on the PC, even in Full Screen. BUT, when I've burned to DVD there seems to be some jitter when theres alot of motion on the screen. When the action is more tame or the camera is focused on one object or person the picture looks great. It's driving me nuts!!!

So the video looks fine up until burning? Have you considered bad media? The direct-to-MPEG2 captures may also be interlaced improperly (common if you use an ATI capture and directly dump it to disc with field-order correction in TMPGenc). Can you describe "jitters" better for me?

[unloopme]

So the video looks fine up until burning? Have you considered bad media? The direct-to-MPEG2 captures may also be interlaced improperly (common if you use an ATI capture and directly dump it to disc with field-order correction in TMPGenc). Can you describe "jitters" better for me?

-I don't think it's the media. I've used some good Memorex and some cheap stuff too...looks the same.
-As far as "jitter" goes, like I described above, it tends to jitter/stutter when theres much motion on screen, as in panning or multiple objects moving. It looks great if it's slow motion action, or just someones closeup during some dialogue.

common if you use an ATI capture and directly dump it to disc with field-order correction in TMPGenc

-I'm using an Nvidia Personal Theatre geforce2 mx400 card for capture. I've never done a thing to the files in TMPGenc. Just captured to mpeg2 and authored with MovieFactory.

[txpharoah]

-As far as "jitter" goes, like I described above, it tends to jitter/stutter when theres much motion on screen, as in panning or multiple objects moving. It looks great if it's slow motion action, or just someones closeup during some dialogue.

Yep, that's probably it. Since you only see it at motion areas. It's a "line" effect isn't it, or a stutter? You have an interlace error. Your capture card grabs starting with the TOP A FIELD yet encodes the MPEG2 with information that the video file uses BOTTOM B FIELD. You need to reverse the field order in TMPGenc. Set the SOURCE to TOP A FIELD so that the final encode is good. The "encode" is actually a transcode, and should zip by in realtime or faster if no filters are applied. Read the guide in my signature for more informatin on this, specifically that area on TMPGenc.

If anybody out there knows how to write a good video utility, this one would come in handy. ATI and other makers need to fix this problem.

[unloopme]

It's a "line" effect isn't it, or a stutter?

I don't see any actual "lines" in the video if that's what you mean, but it does seem like a stutter or bluring of the action. I will surely give your suggestion a try. I really appreciate the information. thanks very much

Set the SOURCE to TOP A FIELD so that the final encode is good.

In TMPGenc, do you mean in the "setting", "advanced" tab to set the "field order" to TOP A, first?

[txpharoah]

In TMPGenc, do you mean in the "setting", "advanced" tab to set the "field order" to TOP A, first?

Yep.

[unloopme]

Set the SOURCE to TOP A FIELD so that the final encode is good.

I guess an obvious question would be if there's any capture software that would allow you to set this beforehand, AND capture straight to DVD mpeg2 to avoid all en/transcoding all together?
thanks again for all the help

-Also, I did a little test encode in TMPG. I have some issues
1. It doesn't zip by in real time. I guess because it splits audio & video. Is there any way to transcode and keep the mpeg2 file the same?
2. When the video source file is split, I try and play the .wav file and there is no audio. Is that normal?
3. I can't set the audio file source as my mpeg2. It says unsupported. Do I have to "simple demux" first?

[ironwood321]

1. They don't add Macrovision to tv signals. They don't work that way. Not the same as tapes or DVDs. Especially not DSS.

The mpeg transport stream transmitted to the box from the dish contains no macrovision. Macrovison can be added by the box to the composite signal when it is considered necessary say on pay per view channels. Or primetime channels. This occurs on sky digital boxes in the UK.

[petec]

I capture from Satellite via S-Video out to a setup which includes:

1 - Canopus DV Raptor
2 - Canopus ADVC-100
3 - I still use TMPGe for converting DV to Mpeg2
4 - Use TMPGe external audio encoder to get WAV file
5 - Sonic SoftEncode (not sold anymore) to convert WAV to AC3
6 - Infoedit to author DVD
7 - Nero to burn DVD. (works perfect on my Panasonic, Pioneer, Apex, Sony and Raite DVD Players)

Get no jitters and perfect picture. One thing though since it's inception there is a Macrovision chip in ALL Direct TV boxes but to date DTV has not turned it on. If it was you would just get a black picture.

Hardware:
P4-2.6Ghz-1Gig Mem - 2X120 Gig HD - Pioneer DVD burner.

[txpharoah]

I capture from Satellite via S-Video out to a setup which includes:

1 - Canopus DV Raptor
2 - Canopus ADVC-100
3 - I still use TMPGe for converting DV to Mpeg2
4 - Use TMPGe external audio encoder to get WAV file
5 - Sonic SoftEncode (not sold anymore) to convert WAV to AC3
6 - Infoedit to author DVD
7 - Nero to burn DVD. (works perfect on my Panasonic, Pioneer, Apex, Sony and Raite DVD Players)

Get no jitters and perfect picture. One thing though since it's inception there is a Macrovision chip in ALL Direct TV boxes but to date DTV has not turned it on. If it was you would just get a black picture.

Hardware:
P4-2.6Ghz-1Gig Mem - 2X120 Gig HD - Pioneer DVD burner.

That's great, but your method still involves a re-encode to final MPEG2. The original poster was trying to NOT re-encode.

[unloopme]

Hey folks, I'm back

Now, I'm still in the dark about the following 2 issues...
1. Transcoding doesn't zip by in real time. I guess because it splits audio & video. Is there any way to transcode and keep the mpeg2 file the same(audio & video together)?
2. Also, when the source file is split, I try and play the .wav file and there is no audio.