Suggestions to avoid glitched frames in rendered video from Sony Vegas?

[enzeru]

I'm trying to create MPEG2 files for a DVD, which I'm trying to do as "professional" as possible. I've managed to get an acceptable quality out of my custom settings, but at the same time,I'm getting some glitched frames which tend to be the same from render to render. The following is an internet picture that illustrates my problem (only the video frame).

https://hipnosia.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/avidemux.jpg?w=768&h=563

My source material is OK so that's not the problem. These are my settings in Vegas Pro 13:

MainConcept MPEG-2
(X) Include Video
Output Type: DVD
Height: 720
Width: 480
Frame Rate: 29.97
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
I-Frames: 18
B-Frames: 2
(X) Insert I-Frames at markers

Profile: Main
Level: Main
Field Order: Upper Field First
(X) Prioritise quality over Speed
Video Quality (bar): 31
(X) Insert sequence header before every GOP

Variable Bit Rate:
(X) Two Pass
Maximum (bps): 9,800,000
Average (bps): 4,350,000
Minimum (bps): 2,000,000

By the way. I'm including audio in these renders because I'm still testing the final result, but I don't think that should be causing glitched frames.

I hope you can guide me in this. If for some reason my settings are illegal for standard DVD, please tell me as my goal is to create a DVD playable in CRT TVs.

[poisondeathray]

Is the glitch in the preview before exporting in vegas ?

Did you rule out a playback problem ? Does glitch occur in different players ? eg VLC, or re-import back into vegas

If those aren't the issues, then common problem in vegas causing glitches is GPU acceleration, try disabling

[enzeru]

The glitch is not in the preview in the source files.
I checked it in Windows Media Player, MPC player, VLC Player and even in VirtualDub those frames are glitched. Also the same happens when the mpg file is played on a Smart TV so it is definitely the rendered file.

I've already disabled GPU acceleration and oddly enough it worked yesterday, however I changed the render settings since then and the problem came back. Also I read that MainConcept MPEG2 codec is "so old" it cannot use GPU acceleration, though as I said before, I have it disabled now. Partially that was the reason I posted my settings.

[poisondeathray]

To be clear, did you disable GPU acceleration in the preferences ?
options => preferences => video tab => GPU acceleration of video processing => OFF

Mainconcept MPEG2 doesn't use it for encoding (some other encoders have the option in the export dialog settings) - but other operations in vegas can use GPU acceleration, some filters, scaling etc.. that is a common cause of glitches in vegas

If the problem was Mainconcept MPEG2 encoding, a possible workaround might be to render out another format (e.g. lossless AVI) , and use another MPEG2 for DVD encoder . e.g HCEnc . But rendering to a different intermediate will rule out (or rule in) if mainconcept was the culprit

But I doubt it's a problem with Mainconcept MPEG2 - this is a very stable encoder for many years. It's more likely issues with the source, decoding or some other operation in vegas.

Glitch in the same spot every time is not random event. So this makes things like overheating, system issues etc... less likely .

[enzeru]

YEs, the GPU Acceleration is currently off.
I have some pngs and masks and text in the current project, but I wish I could just render the current thing directly to MPEG2.

I remember that when it worked, my settings had more B-Frames and less I-Frames. I would like to avoid having to export to uncompressed first because I have to edit 10x30 minute videos and that's just too much.

[poisondeathray]

There are ways to frameserve out (e.g. debugmode frameserver) , without large intermediate files , to another encoder

The point is you have to rule out if it's an encoding issue with Mainconcept MPEG2 specifically , or something else. You have to figure out what is causing the problem but running more tests (at least that's what I'd do)