I need help with DVD-R playback problems.

[rghogue]

Hi.
I have a project I shot on miniDV and edited in Premiere and want to put on DVD. I used Ulead Movie Factory 2 to author it. I let Movie Factory do the encoding and write it to the disc. It worked on my DVD player, but didn't look so good.
I decided to encode it using TMPGEnc. I used a bitrate of 8000 with CBR. I'm only putting 40 minutes of stuff on the DVD, so I want to use the highest settings possible...I also am not concerned with it taking a long time, just with quality. Anyway, I brought the encoded files into Movie Factory and authored and burned the DVD, this time with a DVD-RW, so I wouldn't waste a disc. My JVC DVD player said "reading disc", but just kept saying that and did nothing else.
I then re-encoded using TMPGEnc again, but also leaving out the B frames and adding an extra I frame, hoping that could help the quality.
I used Movie Factory again, to burn it to a DVD-R. This time, the "first play" clip played in the JVC player (but with no audio), then the menu came up with audio, BUT when I started the main movie, it started but when the first image faded in, it froze. It locked up the player and I couldn't access the menu or anything.
It works fine in my computer, though (except for the audio on the first play clip -- maybe I did something wrong on that part in the authoring).
Sorry this post is so long.
To anyone still reading: Thanks and do you have any ideas why the first DVD-R would play, but the DVD-RW would not, and the second DVD-R would freeze in my player (but work on the computer)? They were all burned using Movie Factory 2. The difference in the two DVD-Rs would only be in the fact that one was an AVI file encoded in Movie Factory while the other had been converted with TMPGEnc (with only I and P frames, if that matters) and was made up of separate audio and video files combined in Movie Factory.

[TeeeRex]

You don't mention which JVC DVD player you have, but I suspect that this is the culprit.

DVD-RW compatibility is much less than DVD-R, have you tried the DVD-RW in another DVD player ?

[mkelley]

There are other considerations.

8000 CBR is pushing the limits of the DVD spec -- so if your sound isn't compressed you may be trying to play too much data at the same time. Note that playing on your computer is not much of an indicator whether a DVD meets the specs or not, as computers are much more forgiving (which is why a computer based player like the Apex series can play so many more kinds of things than a "normal" standalone).

As the previous poster says, it may well be your player can't handle the RW format -- I have this problem myself.

If you encode at 6000 CBR (or even VBR) you shouldn't be able to tell any difference between the source material and the encoded material, IMHO. I do a lot of fairly critical work with DV and have found this to be the case. So that would be the first place I'd start in terms of changing my parameters. Also, I wouldn't mess with any of the defaults (I use MainConcept and the defaults are just fine for 95% of all work).

[rghogue]

Thanks for those replies. My player is the JVC XV-SA70.
Actually, whether it could play the DVD-RW wasn't that much of a concern to me, except that I hate to waste DVD-R's trying to find what works well. I was wondering why the first DVD-R plays, but the second DVD-R freezes. When I encoded the first one in Movie Factory, I just set it at "Best". When I encoded the second one in TMPGEnc, I set it at 8000 CBR. My project contains lots of movement...kids running, jumping, etc...and a lot of camera movement and edits. I figured I needed to set it as high as possible to keep the image as sharp and clean as possible. There are slow-mo parts and closee-ups without much movement, but I figured the high bit-rate would make them look that much better and since it's only 40 minutes total, I didn't think I'd need to use VBR to save pixels. I tried encoding a sample with the Cinemacraft Trial, just to playback on the computer to compare image quality. It lets you see the bit rate as it encodes and I noticed that even with it set at 8000 CBR, it was changing -- sometimes slightly above 8000, sometimes slightly below. Do you think the "best" setting in Movie Factory is actually less than 8000, and that's why my DVD player could play it (and why it looked worse)? I remember when I went into settings in TMPGEnc, the bit rate was at something like 7995, and I changed it to 8000.

[chazzie]

8000 kbit/sec is quite overkill if you ask me... Most commercial DVD's are at around 4000-6000 VBR, usually. The problem is that miniDV does have a bit of unclear video, not much, but it might take another 200 kbit/sec just to compensate if the encoder feels there's too much difference between two frames.

My suggestion for a movie around 1h 20m, Video: 5000 kbit/sec Audio: 224 kbit/sec Stereo AC-3

[rghogue]

Okay, thanks.
Well, now I've burned a DVD with the project encoded again in TMPGEnc with 8000 CBR, but with the audio being converted to "MPEG-1 Layer II Audio (MP2)", which is the option TMPGEnc gives me other than PCM.
This time the DVD plays fine in the computer (like last time) and better on the DVD player than last time...but...
The audio now runs through the analog channel of my player, not the digital output.
If I convert the audio to AC3, will that be compatible with other people's players (whether they hook up analog or digital)?
Also... When it gets to a part where there is white text on a black background, or it fades to black and back up, or there's a white background with some black text, it gets jerky...like it's a little slow and stuttering through that segment...then when it's back to full video, it's smooth again. What could cause its problems in those parts?