Blocky motion in DVD-R playback

[asdv]

I have a problem with playback of a VIDEO_TS burnt to a DVD-R.

The clip plays back fine on my desktop system with PowerDVD off the disc and drive that burnt the disc, and also when using the VIDEO_TS folder on the hard drive.

But the same test disc does NOT play back ok in a laptop (using InterVideo
player) or in a Matsui standalone DVD player to TV - it shows a blocky
effect on any moving edges.

When I burnt the same mpeg2 file as a .mpg file to the same DVD-R disc
(ie. without authoring it in DVD-lab to a VIDEO_TS folder) it plays
back fine in the same laptop drive using same software player.

I have tried a lot of different VBR bitrate settings in CCE including
CBR, field order to O instead of 1, with the same result.

Oddly, the only way I have found to stop the blocky effect is to switch
on "Progressive" in CCE Basic, but instead I get horizontal combing
lines (in areas where the motion blur should be) when palyed back on
satndalone DVD player to TV - the same look as is normal when an
interlaced mpeg2 is played back in progressive display in Windows Media
Player or Quicktime.

I have spent a long time scouring forum posts and thinking it was a CCE
bitrate or field order issue but now it looks like the problem is
either in the DVD-lab authoring/muxing stage, the burning to disc
stage, or the disc media itself.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.



Source footage is Pal DV (high end 3chip JVC DV500)
Captured in Avid Free DV
Export Quicktime ref.

Encoding in CCE Basic v2.67
settings:
2 pass VBR elementary stream (no audio)
1000-9000 average 4900
DVD compliant ON
Field order 1
Other settings default

DVD-lab (30-day trial)
LG GSA 4040B DVD writer
B'sRecorderGold burning software (came with burner)
Mirror Platinum DVD-R media

WinXP Pro Sp1
Panrix Pentium dual800MHz

[SLK001]

One word - crappy DVD-R media.

[asdv]

Thanks. That was what I was going to try tonight.
I've just bought some Verbatim 4x, reccommended by a shop in Soho (London) but read a lot of posts about Ritek being good, so will look for somewhere to get those.

[asdv]

The Verbatim media test didn't change the results.

So I have copied a previous DV to DVD production, that Metro Broadcast (London) mastered/encoded for me (no menu, it just autoplays a single 12 minute programme) last year, onto a Nanya DVD-R disc and that plays back fine, so that makes it extremely unlikely the DVD media is the cause.

So if my un-authored .mpg clip plays ok off DVD-R but the same clip doesn't play properly in the authored environment it looks to be a combination of the encoded mpeg2 stream and something in the authoring. To test the authoring process I guess I could strip the mpeg2 stream out of the Metro-mastered job and then see if that can survive my authoring attempts.

Or any better ideas please ?

[bobbysox]

Defragment your drive! You'll be amazed the differance it makes. If I encode 1 movie I know that my drive will be fragged up! Try it and see.
Media quality is less of an issue than folks will want you to believe.

[gameguru1360]

always defrag before you burn, especially video files. I always defrag before I burn anything so that I don't get buffer underrun errors even with burnproof enabled.

[kenshin himura]

download dvd2svcd. under misc. click dvb for input, dvd for output with cce as encoder and see what happens.

[asdv]

bobbysox, gameguru1360
Fragmented drives I hadn't considered a possible issue, as I thought that was largely an access/speed issue. I understood that de-fragging is generally not needed for video setups running under WXP I thought. Are you saying this can affect the intergrity of the data burned to disc ? The most recent burn test I did on the Verbatim I made sure the burning software did a comparison and verify check after the burn.

kenshin himura
DVD2SVCD sounds really good. Thanks for the tip off - I will try it.