Ulead is causing video to stutter

[dalecooper]

Quick question: I have an hour-and-45-minute mpeg I made in Womble's MPEG Video Wizard. It plays fine in a variety of apps on my computer. I took it into Ulead Movie Factory to author, made some fancy menus, and realized that I was going to have to shrink the file size somewhat... so I adjusted the project settings down to like 6000 variable, which got my total space needed down around 4.5 gig. Perfect, I thought. I fired it up to create the DVD files and do the burn as well, and went to sleep.

This morning it told me it had completed successfully, but the DVD video stutters horrendously. Basically it skips back and forth in the timeline - also it appears to speed through some sections as if it's trying to catch up to where it's supposed to be. I checked the .vob files it had created on my hard drive and the problem exists there, too.

What's the deal? Any insights? As I type this, I am running the original mpeg back through MPEG Video Wizard to make it into a smaller file there. Then I'm going to try authoring through Ulead again, hopefully skipping its built-in video conversion. But I would still like to know why it did such a crappy conversion job, and if I am going to have to always use another tool to get the file size down.

[Specialist]

1. What were the precise video/audio properties of the source MPEG?

For example, I sometimes use MPEG-2 files recorded by my Panasonic DVD disc camcorder in Ulead DVD MovieFactory.

These camcorder-generated MPEG-2 files have the following precise video/audio properties:

NTSC drop frame (29.97 fps)
MPEG files
24 Bits, 704 x 480, 29.97 fps
Field Order B
(DVD-NTSC), 4 : 3
Video data rate: Variable (8800 kbps)
Audio data rate: 256 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 KHz, Stereo

2. What were your precise re-encode settings (project settings) in Ulead DVD MovieFactory?

I usually try to avoid doing what you described - that is - I try to avoid *re-encoding* MPEG video.

Even if your video had been re-encoded successfully (and I have never encountered the problem you described), your video would have suffered quality degradation as a result of being re-rendered.

For this reason, I always suggest what you are now doing.

Get the size right - at the outset.

Then choose project settings that precisely *match* the specific video/audio properties of your source video so that re-encoding does not occur unnecessarily.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Quick question: I have an hour-and-45-minute mpeg I made in Womble's MPEG Video Wizard. It plays fine in a variety of apps on my computer. I took it into Ulead Movie Factory to author, made some fancy menus, and realized that I was going to have to shrink the file size somewhat... so I adjusted the project settings down to like 6000 variable, which got my total space needed down around 4.5 gig. Perfect, I thought. I fired it up to create the DVD files and do the burn as well, and went to sleep.

This morning it told me it had completed successfully, but the DVD video stutters horrendously. Basically it skips back and forth in the timeline - also it appears to speed through some sections as if it's trying to catch up to where it's supposed to be. I checked the .vob files it had created on my hard drive and the problem exists there, too.

What's the deal? Any insights? As I type this, I am running the original mpeg back through MPEG Video Wizard to make it into a smaller file there. Then I'm going to try authoring through Ulead again, hopefully skipping its built-in video conversion. But I would still like to know why it did such a crappy conversion job, and if I am going to have to always use another tool to get the file size down.

[dalecooper]

Unfortunately here at work I don't have access to all the specific settings, though I can get them later if need be. I know the original file was variable up to 9500, and that I set my project to be in the neighborhood of variable up to 6000. By the way, what I have running in MPEG Video Wizard is the same thing, so I believe I *am* re-encoding.

I'm somewhat of a newb at this, so help me out: is there a way to shrink the file size of a large mpeg *without* reencoding? The master mpeg is right at 4.7 gig, give or take. Throw a few menus in and some other content I want to add to the DVD, and the whole thing ends up about a third of a gig too large for my media. Complicating things somewhat: for some reason Ulead tells me that my drive only has 4.4 gig free (should be 4.7), so I'm afraid to bump up past 4.4 in case it starts doing a burn and then coughs up a coaster. (Of course it's already done that once, so I guess at this point I may as well take the gamble.)

What I need is some method to make the mpeg take up about .6 or .7 gigs less space. I'm open to any suggestions - reencoding so far has proven to be VERY tedious in terms of the time it takes to run, and results are mixed (Ulead generated a useless mess of a file, Womble seems to work better but will be chugging away all day today as far as I can tell).

[Specialist]

What I always recommend is that one should try to get the file size encoded properly at the very beginning of the video creation process.

To "SHRINK" an already-encoded MPEG-2 file, you can re-encode it.

But this results in quality loss.

So I try to get the file size to be correct at the very beginning - when the original video is being encoded.

Here are some benchmarks:

ONE HOUR PER DVD:

MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

1.5 HOURS PER DVD:

MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 4000 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

2.0 HOURS PER DVD:

MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 2500 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

3.0 HOURS PER DVD:

MPEG files
24 Bits, 352 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 2500 kbps)
Audio data rate: 224 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 48 KHz, Stereo

Hope this helps,

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Unfortunately here at work I don't have access to all the specific settings, though I can get them later if need be. I know the original file was variable up to 9500, and that I set my project to be in the neighborhood of variable up to 6000. By the way, what I have running in MPEG Video Wizard is the same thing, so I believe I *am* re-encoding.

I'm somewhat of a newb at this, so help me out: is there a way to shrink the file size of a large mpeg *without* reencoding? The master mpeg is right at 4.7 gig, give or take. Throw a few menus in and some other content I want to add to the DVD, and the whole thing ends up about a third of a gig too large for my media. Complicating things somewhat: for some reason Ulead tells me that my drive only has 4.4 gig free (should be 4.7), so I'm afraid to bump up past 4.4 in case it starts doing a burn and then coughs up a coaster. (Of course it's already done that once, so I guess at this point I may as well take the gamble.)

What I need is some method to make the mpeg take up about .6 or .7 gigs less space. I'm open to any suggestions - reencoding so far has proven to be VERY tedious in terms of the time it takes to run, and results are mixed (Ulead generated a useless mess of a file, Womble seems to work better but will be chugging away all day today as far as I can tell).