Problems with image quality

[armandontg]

I´m trying to use four different equipments to make DVDs.

On a Matrox RT2500 Pentium III 700 MHz, using DVD Lab or DVD Architect under Windows 2000 SP4, exporting from Premiere6.5 timeline in MPEG2 IBP format, all´s OK and the final quality is great;

On a MiroDC30/Generic Firewire AMD K6II 500 MHz, using DVD Lab under Windows 98 MIllenium Edition, exporting from Premiere6.5 timeline using Adobe MPEG Encoder, all´s OK and the final quality is great;

But, on other two equipments, one AMD K6II 500 MHZ and one PIII 550MHZ, both running the same Windows 98 ME, DVD Lab and Adobe MPEG Encoder to export from Premiere 6.5 timeline, the final image on DVD is jerky, with little jumps on scenes with movements.

Why the differences?

Someone can help me, please ? Any ideas?

Armando Martins.

[akbor75]

are you sure you use the same encoder settings on each computer?

[armandontg]

Yes, I´ve been using only the default settings and its exactly why I´m going crazy. I have done some experiments with upper and lower fields first with no changes in the results.

Thanks.

Armando Martins

[akbor75]

i'm wondering: why are you using so many systems for this task?

[armandontg]

I work with what here in Brasil we call "social videos", that is. wedding videos, kids parties videos, and so on. I need to edit two, maybe three or four events a day (mostly kids birthdays parties) and make DVDs from each one of them. It´s a growing market and, as I left six to eight hours to edit one event, that´s why I need so much equipments to do the job.

[akbor75]

i see. so you are a real multitasker...
i'm sorry i can't help you out.

[bugster]

But, on other two equipments, one AMD K6II 500 MHZ and one PIII 550MHZ, both running the same Windows 98 ME, DVD Lab and Adobe MPEG Encoder to export from Premiere 6.5 timeline, the final image on DVD is jerky, with little jumps on scenes with movements.

Why the differences?

Someone can help me, please ? Any ideas?

Armando Martins.

When you say the DVD plays back jerky, is that when played on the PC used to create it, another PC, or a standalone DVD player. I ask this because I am think maybe it is simply system speed/performance that is the issue here. This should not effect encoding (except how long it takes!) but will have an effect on playback.

[armandontg]

I say the playback is jerky when playing on a desktop dvd player, always the same desktop dvd player.
I really can´t understand why this problem happens because only the hardware is different. The three systems are running WindowsME, Adobe Premiere 6.5, Adobe MPEG Encoder 1.3 with exactly the same settings.
Also the dvd recorder is the same, which I lead from a system to another one.
Maybe if I try another encoder.
Somebody could indicate me some other encoder that was so good and faster than Adobe MPEG Encoder. I already tried the TMPGEnc using the video frame server but I found it very slow.
Thanks.

Armando Martins

[trhouse]

How many icons are located in the System Tray of the systems which create the jerky video? I had a problem with capture when using a system that had a lot of items in the System Tray which ran in the background but caused the captures to freeze after an hour. One was Norton Anti-Virus. I used the System Configuration Utililty in Windows Me to turn off most of those background items and the problems all went away. Also, you might want to check under System Information, Software Environment, Running Tasks to see what is running that does not show in the System Tray.

[akbor75]

i don't think it's a capturing issue, cos if that fails you already see that when you edit the movie, not only by play back.

but the situation is still not totally clear for me yet.
to create a good test environment, you should do exactly the same on all the systems. i.e. play the same movie on all computers. if it plays correctly on at least one, the movie is ok, so it might the software dvd player.
even better is to test the final movie on a standalone dvd player, cos that's the environment the movie will be used in (i guess).

if different movies on the same dvd player have different quality, it's hard so say: this or that is the problem. try the 'blurry' movie on another system, and watch the result.
this may seem lot of work, but ofcourse you can make a short test movie.

btw: do you capture analogue (composite/svideo) or digital (dv)?

[armandontg]

Thanks trhouse and akbor75 for your time.

I do not think it´s a capturing issue once on the edited movie the image quality is great.
I´m talking about a DVD burned and playing on a desktop dvd player not software on a PC.
All four systems always functions exactly the same:
in two of them the final result (dvd burned and playing on a desktop player) is always good while in the other two the final result is always bad.
It seems to be an encoding issue but I don´t know what may be wrong once the settings are exactly the same on all systems.

Thanks again.

Armando Martins

[bugster]

Before a movie can be encoded by the encoder (if that makes sense) it has to be decoded into raw avi. (this is not saved to disc, just each frame decoded into memory). To do this a suitable codec for the source format is used. It is possible to install several codecs for the same format and by default the last one installed is the one chosen/used by the PC. Is it possible you have more than one codec for the source material installed on any of these systems and that the 'good' ones are using a different codec, or version, than the 'bad' ones? Just a thought.

[mazinz]

hmmm, do both of your systems have a dvd-burner?? If so it could very well be a burner issue

[MysticE]

There is also the chance it could be a blank issue, you may want to try another brand.