Convert to MPEG2 using Mainconcept - strange video artifacts

[lchiu7]

This is a strange one that perhaps other might have experienced or can shed light on

I capture TV normally using a FlyTV Platinum (Phillips chipset) capture card with output from a cable box going into the composite input of the card. I use iuvcr and the PicVideo codec to save space.

I edit the resulting files in Virtualdub and frameserve to MC to create the MPEG2 files. These are subsequently authored to DVD using either DVD MF or sometimes tmpgenc author.

This is where the strange video artifacts manifest themselves

If I play the resultant DVD on a PC they look fine. But if I play them on a DVD player to a TV, when there is motion in the picture there is a horizontal tearing effect in the video. This occurs whether I encode the picture with top field or bottom field (I suspect the FlyTV captures in top field). I couldn't work out what the problem was so I tried deinterlacing the picture during encoding (using a deinterlace filter in Virtualdub). This gets rid of this tearing effect but you shouldn't have to deinterlace a video stream that is being authored to DVD.

Thinking that it might be a problem with interlace or progressive scan (since deinterlacing fixes it) I have tried playing the DVD's on another player that outputs a progressive scan picture to a projector that displays progressive. To my surprise the tearing effects still persists

What makes it even more puzzling is, if I record from the tuner in the card (I can tune into channels on the cable that are no scrambled) this problem doesn't exist! Also on another machine using a Hauppauge WinTV PCI card I have captured both via the tuner and using the s-video input and the problem doesn't occur.

The last thing I have tried is to use tmpgenc to do the conversion. Using tmpgenc the problem does not occur but this program is so much slower than mainconcept. So it points to a problem with MC?

Anybody with any ideas?

Thanks

Larry

[BJ_M]

can you post a screen shot -- just take a pic with a digital camera of the tv image and pc image of the same spot

[BJ_M]

and up load the settings file for mc you used

[lchiu7]

Yes I was thinking that this might explain the problem more clearly. The challenge is going to be

1. the tearing effect only occurs on a TV so I can't do a capture
2. If I freeze frame my DVD player the artifact doesn't show up clearly

I think I am going to have play the video, record with a camcorder (hopefully showing the problem), then capture the videotape output, encode as MPEG4 possibly and upload to some web site! This is going to take some time

Larry

[reboot]

Cap your output and run it through windows movie maker, save as .wmv
Choose the right output (for 56k dialup maybe?) and it'll be much smaller.

[BJ_M]

it will also remove the interlacing at that settings

[lchiu7]

I capture the TV input using iuvcr and MJPEG (Picvideo codec)

If I watch that raw video on my TV (I use my TV as the PVR display device) played with WMP it's fine

If I encode the video as MPEG2 for subsequent authoring and play that with WMP, BSPlayer or PowerDVD it's fine also

If I author a DVD and play that using PowerDVD on my TV (see above) or on another PC ouputting to a LCD display it's fine also

It's only when I play it on a DVD player connected to a TV via s-video or even component (interlace) that I see the problem

So you can why it's puzzling

So to show the artifacts I have to actually video the TV picture and you can see why that's going to take a bit of effort

Larry