Cinema Craft Encoder problem

[phinsman]

I wanted to try this software out since they have a cheaper version now, and it seems to be so much faster than TMPGenc.

It does the job quickly, and I have no problem viewing the output MPEG2 on my PC. However, when I author it to DVD, the resulting playback on my TV is "shaky." I don't know how to describe it other than that word. Any movement (I used a captured clip of a basketball game) is just not smooth.

When I go back and convert the same capture using TMPGenc, I have no problem viewing on the TV. Smooth as it should be. Nothing converted using TMPGenc gives me that problem.

One last bit of info...every CCE guide I see involves using an AVISynth script of some sort. I don't use those. Is it a requirement, or can you use just the captured AVI file? I use MJPEG compression.

I've tried other small clips using CCE and had the same problem. I'd like to use it because of its speed, but...

Thanks,
Dale

[David K]

This is the classic wrong field order problem in CCE. Go into the CCE setting and look for something like "upper field first." (This is the setting in CCE SP, it might be slightly different in your version) Then if it was checked before (when you got the problem) uncheck it, or if it was unchecked, check it. Now try your encoding.

However, the bad news is that you cannot just change this once and have everything work: you have to change this setting depending on your video source. TMPegnec does this automatically, but in CCE you have to manually set it. The good news is that generally there are just two classes of sources that take different settings. I find that for encoding DV from my Camcorder (BFF material), I check the upper field first, and that when encoding from a DVD source (TFF material) I uncheck the upper field first.

If you are really interested in going deeper into this, the technical question is what field of an interlaced video that the encoder starts first with, bottom field first (BFF) or Top Field first (TFF).

[phinsman]

David, I thank you. It worked perfectly, and the video quality is outstanding.

I do have a question though, if you or someone else can explain it. When I load the same video into TMPGenc, under the "Source Video" section it says "Top Field First". However, I unchecked this setting in CCE to make it work as you suggested. Just kind of confusing...

Ths only other problem I have to solve is audio sync problems.

Dale

[David K]

Yes it is very confusing. TMPGenc and CCE use "top field first" in different ways. One (TMPGenc I think) uses it to define what it is in the source video and the other uses it to define what kind of flag to put on the encoded mpeg. It's not worth trying to figure it all out. Just find out which setting works for each type of source video for CCE and make templates for each with the correct settings.