MPEG2 to AVI Authored to DVD=some video jumpy. What's wrong

[Spotnik]

Hello,

I recorded two MPEG2s, which I then used Premiere Pro 1.0 to convert to AVI for editing. When I burned them to DVD using Encore 1.0 I noticed that scenes with a lot of motion in them seemed a bit on the jumpy side, whereas static scenes looked every bit as clear as the original MPEG2s. What is causing this and how can it be corrected.

I'm using the default DV codec in Premiere for now--there didn't seem to be any reason to do otherwise.

I've seen a number of posts discussing "jumpiness" in DVD playback and it's hard to tell if we're all talking about the same thing, but it seems that something must be happening to the AVI during the transcode process back down to DVD. The AVI looks fine while editing it in Premiere.

Any advice or referrals to relevent threads would be appreciated.

[thegeeman]

why convert to avi to edit? Could you not edit in mp2 format? save you alot of time and can be done at authoring stage. The 'jumpiness' can be down to several reasons: media type, dirty disc, smudge etc. If only occuring on fast action scenes, then i would suggest a multiple VBR pass as opposed to CBR to resolve.

[jagabo]

The field order got reversed somewhere along the line. In all likelyhood you started with TFF MPEG2 and lost the field order information when converting to AVI (DV maybe?). Then when Premiere opened the AVI it assumed BFF, but the file is really TFF. I don't know Premiere but there is probably some way you can override the field order.

[Spotnik]

TheGeeMan--mpeg2 is theoretically not intended for editing--it's a playback format. And,
my version of Premiere Pro (1.0)will not edit MPEG2 anyway. PPro 2.0 apparently does, but I don't have that version and I'm not laying out for the MainConcept MPEG2 plugin.

[Spotnik]

The field order got reversed somewhere along the line. In all likelyhood you started with TFF MPEG2 and lost the field order information when converting to AVI (DV maybe?). Then when Premiere opened the AVI it assumed BFF, but the file is really TFF. I don't know Premiere but there is probably some way you can override the field order.

Yep, that was the problem all right. Here's what I did:

1.) Instead of converting the MPEG2 outright, I used DGIndex and VFAPI to create the "fake AVI" and frameserve it to Premiere Pro. Editing problem solved. No conversion needed (why doesn't Adobe just build this functionality into it in the first place! Obviously people are willing to write this kind of code for free!)

2.) Without changing any settings in Premeiere, I figured the "Correct Field Order" option in DGIndex would solve the jerky movement, but it didn't--at least not by itself.

3.) After some digging around I found that there is in fact a way to override the field order in Premiere as well--by right clicking the clip(s) in the timeline. THAT solved the problem.
Resulting DVD no longer displayed jerkiness (particularly when there was movement in the scene.) Now, whether that in itself was the solution, or whether the combination of the two corrections was necessary remains to be seen with further testing. But at least I know one combo that works.

Thanks for the tip!

[greymalkin]

for future reference, theres a quick and easy way to fix field order using a program called restream.

[Spotnik]

for future reference, theres a quick and easy way to fix field order using a program called restream.

Thanks! That helps. But one question remains. Is there any way to tell if a file's field order is incorrect without first
burning a DVD of it and playing it back on a TV? It would be nice to avoid having to test every single MPEG on TV before trying to work with it further. None of the files that have given me this problem had any other playback problems--only on TV. Seems like it might almost be more efficient just to automatically reencode everything before you edit it (I'm reading Lord Smurf's article on Restream as we speak.) At least then you always know what you've got. If it's that unpredictable, that is.