DVD Slide Show Flickering

[Anonymous642]

I have Pinnacle Studio 8 and created a DVD slide show from my digital camera pictures.

Some of the slides seem to "flicker".
Especially if there are straight lines, like the gutter on a building - it seems to flicker up/down one pixel on the TV.

Do all slide show programs do this?

Is there an inexpensive, and extreeeemly easy to use product that will produce a very good quality slide show.
I don't need bells and whistles, just an easy to use product that produces good quality images.

Also, I just put the DVD in my PC and played it on the PC and I don't see the flicker.
Is it the DVD, the DVD player, or the TV that is the problem???

Thanks

[Safesurfer]

It's an interlacing problem. Try applying a slight gaussian blur to the photos, or deinterlace them in your editor before building the Mpeg file.

[Tommyknocker]

I noticed I got severe flickering when I uploaded the pictures from my camcorder directly into my editing program. If I uploaded them with PIXELA, from Sony, the flickering disappeared, I think it may have something to do with interlacing, but I don't know for sure.

[Garibaldi]

In my experience I have found that flickering to be caused by either a poor encoder (bad program) or a bad video codec. Here is what I would recommend that is easy, and produces great results. First, download slideshow movie maker. Extract the file to a directory. Then download audacity. Also, go to www.xvid.org and download the video codec if you don't have it already. Now you have a choice. If you want to make a vcd or dvd you could run the video through Studio 8 after you export it from slideshow movie maker (ssmm) or (for vcd) you could dowload avi2vcd, a free program that quickly converts the output file of ssmm to mpeg1 vcd format. If you want to make a dvd and don't want to encode the video with studio 8, download TMPGENC. Alright, so after you download ssmm, go to the folder where you extracted it and run it. Once it opens go to the Wizards menu, and then My First Video. This will bring up a screen for importing your pictures. Make sure all your pictures are in the same directory, select them all, and then import them. You can then set the time for each picture, I recommend just leaving it at 5 sec, the default. Set your output file, probably the desktop so its easy to find later. Then click finish. This imports all your images. Then you will see that all your images are high-lighted. If not, click select all. Then click on File Name at the somewhat top left of the screen, which will put your pictures in order. Then, with all the pictures still selected click Add Random Fadings. Also, erase the text in the Picture Text box and click update to the right of it. This eliminates the filename text from your pictures. Then click on your first picture, selecting only it. Then click on Text Settings, and choose the position you want the title of your slideshow to be. Click okay and then on Text Color, and select a color that contrasts with your background and shows up well. Click okay and then click on Choose Font and select your font. Then go back to Picture Text and type your title, and then click update to the right. You should see your text in the preview window, click the window to make it bigger and make sure that it looks okay. Then, click another one of your pictures to make sure that you don't have text on them unless you wan them. Then go to file, and save. Open up audacity. This is an audio editior. Look back at ssmm and see how long your slideshow is (upper right corner). Then in Audacity, go to Project, and Import Audio. Import enough songs to fill the time indicated in ssmm. Then , on the second song that you imported, drag and select all of it. Then hold down CTRL-X, and it should disappear. Then click at the end of the first song that you imported and hold CTRL-V, your second song should reappear. Close the second song window, which is now empty. Repeat this for all your songs. After you have all them on the top line and the time is at the time indicated in ssmm, select that point (ie 8:55). Drag and select about 10 secs before that. Then go to effect, and fade out. This will fade out your song incase it isn't finished at the time needed for the slideshow. Then go to file, and export as wav. Export the file to the desktop. Now install the Xvid Codec. After that, go back to ssmm, and go to Audio Settings. Go to browse and select your newly made wav file. Click okay and save your ssmm file again. Almost done. Go to start creation. It will take a minute and then bring up a window. By Quality, select Final Production instead of Production. In the video codec box, click Choose Video Codec, and select the Xvid codec. The reason we are doing that is that ssmm only supports a 2GB avi output. I didn't have my codec set right last night, and my video header file was corrupt and wouldn't play because it was over 2GB and ssmm couldn't export it correctly. This is important! Once you have that set, go to Choose Audio Codec, and select CD Quality from the dropdown menu. Your ready to go, just click Start Creation. This will take awhile so go take a break. Once its finished you can either import it into Studio 8 and make the vcd or dvd that way or: to make a vcd use avi2vcd that I mentioned before, its pretty self-explanatory. To make a dvd, Choose the dvd template and import the file exported by ssmm, and just choose to render it. Also can be self-explanatory if you ignore the more complex settings. I realize that this must sound like a nightmare of hassle and confusion with all these steps but please give it a try, its really alot easier than you think and it gets easier the more you do it. I hope this works out for you!

[andkiich]

Learn to create paragraphs, bra!!

[Tommyknocker]

Learn to create paragraphs, bra!!

I agree. I didn't want to read his post, because it had no paragraphs. Pity.

[Cornucopia]

It's an interlacing problem. Try applying a slight gaussian blur to the photos, or deinterlace them in your editor before building the Mpeg file.

If using something like Photoshop, instead of "Gaussian Blur" try "Motion Blur" and set the Angle=90° and Distance= 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 pixels, depending on you much "Anti-Flicker" you need. If you still get flicker through 4 vertical pixels something is seriously wrong with your setup.
Why do it this way? Well, it retains the sharp horizontal resolution, whereas Gausian Blur will blur both vertically and horizontally.

HTH,
Scott

[Garibaldi]

Sorry, I just got on a roll. Here is the paragraph edition for easy reading, enjoy:


In my experience I have found that flickering to be caused by either a poor encoder (bad program) or a bad video codec. Here is what I would recommend that is easy, and produces great results. First, download slideshow movie maker. Extract the file to a directory. Then download audacity. Also, go to www.xvid.org and download the video codec if you don't have it already. Now you have a choice. If you want to make a vcd or dvd you could run the video through Studio 8 after you export it from slideshow movie maker (ssmm) or (for vcd) you could dowload avi2vcd, a free program that quickly converts the output file of ssmm to mpeg1 vcd format. If you want to make a dvd and don't want to encode the video with studio 8, download TMPGENC.

Alright, so after you download ssmm, go to the folder where you extracted it and run it. Once it opens go to the Wizards menu, and then My First Video. This will bring up a screen for importing your pictures. Make sure all your pictures are in the same directory, select them all, and then import them. You can then set the time for each picture, I recommend just leaving it at 5 sec, the default. Set your output file, probably the desktop so its easy to find later. Then click finish. This imports all your images. Then you will see that all your images are high-lighted. If not, click select all. Then click on File Name at the somewhat top left of the screen, which will put your pictures in order. Then, with all the pictures still selected click Add Random Fadings. Also, erase the text in the Picture Text box and click update to the right of it. This eliminates the filename text from your pictures. Then click on your first picture, selecting only it. Then click on Text Settings, and choose the position you want the title of your slideshow to be. Click okay and then on Text Color, and select a color that contrasts with your background and shows up well. Click okay and then click on Choose Font and select your font. Then go back to Picture Text and type your title, and then click update to the right. You should see your text in the preview window, click the window to make it bigger and make sure that it looks okay. Then, click another one of your pictures to make sure that you don't have text on them unless you wan them. Then go to file, and save.

Open up audacity. This is an audio editior. Look back at ssmm and see how long your slideshow is (upper right corner). Then in Audacity, go to Project, and Import Audio. Import enough songs to fill the time indicated in ssmm. Then , on the second song that you imported, drag and select all of it. Then hold down CTRL-X, and it should disappear. Then click at the end of the first song that you imported and hold CTRL-V, your second song should reappear. Close the second song window, which is now empty. Repeat this for all your songs. After you have all them on the top line and the time is at the time indicated in ssmm, select that point (ie 8:55). Drag and select about 10 secs before that. Then go to effect, and fade out. This will fade out your song incase it isn't finished at the time needed for the slideshow. Then go to file, and export as wav. Export the file to the desktop. Now install the Xvid Codec.

After that, go back to ssmm, and go to Audio Settings. Go to browse and select your newly made wav file. Click okay and save your ssmm file again. Almost done. Go to start creation. It will take a minute and then bring up a window. By Quality, select Final Production instead of Production. In the video codec box, click Choose Video Codec, and select the Xvid codec. The reason we are doing that is that ssmm only supports a 2GB avi output. I didn't have my codec set right last night, and my video header file was corrupt and wouldn't play because it was over 2GB and ssmm couldn't export it correctly. This is important! Once you have that set, go to Choose Audio Codec, and select CD Quality from the dropdown menu. Your ready to go, just click Start Creation. This will take awhile so go take a break.

Once its finished you can either import it into Studio 8 and make the vcd or dvd that way or: to make a vcd use avi2vcd that I mentioned before, its pretty self-explanatory. To make a dvd, Choose the dvd template and import the file exported by ssmm, and just choose to render it. Also can be self-explanatory if you ignore the more complex settings.
I realize that this must sound like a nightmare of hassle and confusion with all these steps but please give it a try, its really alot easier than you think and it gets easier the more you do it. I hope this works out for you!

[Anonymous642]

Thanks all.
I downloaded Slide Show Movie Maker and will give that a try.
I'm also going to read up and find out what interlacing is.

[Anonymous642]

I found this page that says not to deinterlace the source material for a DVD.

http://www.inwards.com/~dbb/interlace_myths.html

Not that I understand most of what he wrote...
Any comments?[/url]

[DaveS]

you can also try a demo of memories on tv (www.picturetotv.com .. not that expensive and does really nice slide shows, w/ no flickering...get the mpeg plugin if you don't have tmpgenc mpeg license...

[proxyx99]

I noticed I got severe flickering when I uploaded the pictures from my camcorder directly into my editing program. If I uploaded them with PIXELA, from Sony, the flickering disappeared, I think it may have something to do with interlacing, but I don't know for sure.

Say more about PIXELA (never tried it b4) although I'm a Sony guy too. Capture good? Reliable? Any different then others?

[curlyween]

I tried a few programs for still image slideshows and had the same flickering problem (PAL system) with some of them - NeroVision Express and Ulead DVD Pictureshow had considerable flickering. Windows Movie Maker 2 does an OK job.
I trialled Photostory on CD & DVD 2004 by Magix and this produces an excellent flicker-free output (on PAL system) from tif and jpg files. It has loads of transitions and pan/zoom (Ken Burns style) effects and background audio and narration. It can also rescale the output to cater for TV overscan. It also converts directly to mpeg2.
I'm very satisfied with the results of this software.

[trock]

I had the exact same problem and found the solution in these forums. The solution was very easy - when encoding, choose "progressive" not interlaced. Result - crystal clear jitter-free images even on pause.

trock

[Anonymous642]

trock,

I am using Pinnacle Studio 8 and can't find any settings for "progressive" or "interlaced".

What software are you using?

[trock]

I'm using TMPGEnc for the encoding step.