Quality of DVD-R's on computer is terrible, while excellent on a TV

[BirdOPrey5]

I've been burning my own DVD's for a few years now, most recently with Vegas6+Dvd Architect3 (and now 7/4 respectfully) and I've always had the same issue-

I render a movie as a DVD compliant mpg2 file, it works fine as an mpg file and burns without issue to a DVD-R... If I take it to a stand alone player and watch it on a TV it is as clear as can be... but if I put it into a computer DVD player the quality is very bad- it has a sort of 'interlaced' look with lines/dots clearly visible and fuzzy edges on everything that moves. However if I watch a commercial DVD on the computer it is usually as clear or clearer than on a regular TV/stand alone player. I've had this problem across various machines, laptops, etc...

Is there something off-hand I'm doing wrong? I've used different brand DVD-Rs and have never had one work well on PC/Mac playback... Currently I am using TDK inkjet printable DVD-Rs.

Thanks for any ideas.

[guns1inger]

What software are you using to play it back with on the PC ? Not all playback software is equal, especially when it comes to interlaced footage. PowerDVD and WinDVD usually do a pretty good job, but other software may give lesser results. TVs also hide a lot of faults that a PC may expose, even with commercial discs.

[BirdOPrey5]

The software is usually windows media player - since I want to see how it would look if the average user just put it in the machine- they probably don't have PowerDVD and if they did, Windows Media Player probably took over for it.

[guns1inger]

Windows Media Player on it's own can't play DVDs. It has to have either PowerDVD/WinDVD installed as well, or a third party mpeg2 decoder (which your average pleb won't know where to get or how to install). Most people who have a DVD drive will have an OEM version of PowerDVD or WinDVD, as these ship pretty freely.

That said, WMP is one of the worst players when it comes to quality, and does no de-interlacing at all. Watch a DV avi in WMP and you will see the same fuzziness. The average user won't be using WMP if they have another DVD player installed - certainly PowerDVD and WinDVD default to be the system DVD player - , and if they choose to, there is nothing you can do to fix it. Software de-interlacing is possible, but the results are always second rate, and will make viewing on you TV much worse.

[BirdOPrey5]

I understamd that there needs to be another program pre-installed for Windows Media Player to play DVDs, but the first time WMP is started (be it for an MP3, avi, etc...) it tries to take control of DVD playback as well and in my experience most peope do not uncheck the DVD playerback box so most machines with Windows XP tend to play back on WMP.

I see DVD Architect 4 has a "Reduce Interlace Flick" option, I'm currentely encoding a file to see how it compares on TV/PC playback...

Otherwise though, I'm not crazy, it's probably just WMP poorly playingback any DVD.

[jagabo]

Commercial movie DVDs are usually encoded with progressive frames and 3:2 pulldown flags. A DVD player will use the pulldown flags to create an interlaced signal for TV but a software player on a computer will simply ignore them and display the progressive frames.

When creating your own material with a camcorder you will usually have fully interlaced video. Capturing broadcast TV will give either interlaced or telecined video. Those will need to be deinterlaced or inverse telecined to display progressive frames on the computer. Deinterlacing quality varies from program to program.

[jtoolman2000]

see DVD Architect 4 has a "Reduce Interlace Flick" option, I'm currentely encoding a file to see how it compares on TV/PC playback...

I think that option is for people who create picture shows using still images and use pan and scan to creatre motrion as with Ken Burns documentaries. Still images which sharp edges will produce a flicker as the images move pan and zoom when rendered to a video stream.

I know that what looks horribly interlaced ( comb effect on edges of objects while moving ) will look perfect when viewed on the TV through a DVD player.

Not sure which video player will eliminate that effect in the pc.

[edDV]

VLC is a free MPeg2 (DVD) player and includes simple deinterlace modes. You can recommend it to viewers who lack a deinterlacing player or are experiencing difficulty.

VLC defaults to "discard" deinetrlace mode. This mode tosses half the fields for a "poor man's" deinterlace that most people will accept on a PC display. Vertical resolution will drop by half and frame rate will drop to 30fps or 25fps. Motion will be somewhat jerky.

VLC offers other software deinterlace modes under video-deinterlace:

Disable - plays without deinterlace
Blend - applies a blur filter to smear line to line motion.
Bob - interpolates missing lines in each field to make 59.94p frame per second video
Linear - appears to be a half fieldrate bob
Mean - appears to be a weighted blend

Bob will use more CPU and may bog down the computer for HD sources. Slower computers may only handle HDTV with "discard" mode.

PowerDVD is more sophisticated using motion adaptive deinterlacing where the method of deinterlace is determined by the amount of motion in pixel blocks. It also adapts to CPU power available.
http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_1_ENU.html

Many advanced video display cards have hardware deinterlacing modes that can be called from within DirectShow by players. This can get better results and less CPU loading.

This link shows the results of various deinterlace tactics.
http://guru.multimedia.cx/deinterlacing-filters/