Resulting DVD jumpy after encoding

[dadrab]

I’ve an interesting (read frustrating as Hell) thing going on here. I’ve encoded an .AVI file to MPEG2 and authored to DVD. The resulting disc plays extremely jumpy on the set-top player. The file plays fine on the computer.

I’m using VirtualDubMod to frameserve to TMPGEnc. VirtualDub gives me an error message saying the sound file was originally encoded as “variable rate” and that “full processing” mode is recommended. So, that’s what I did.

Before trying any of this, I opened up the file in Gspot to make sure I have all the correct codecs loaded. According to that tool, I do. The file shows to be BFF. The only thing I find odd about it in Gspot is that the frame rate is said to be 23.xxx fps instead of 29. I’m encoding to NTSC standard.

I’m real new to this and am sort of feeling my way around, but have done a good amount of reading here as I built my system. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I’ll be happy to answer any questions along the way.

Thanks in advance.

[SLK001]

Probably a field order issue. Is the jumpiness worse during high-movement times?

It plays fine on the computer because the player plays whole "frames" instead of individual "fields".

You might be able to fix this by using RESTREAM and changing the field order to TFF.

Never trust what something says is the correct field order - always check it for yourself.

[dadrab]

Is the jumpiness worse during high-movement times?

To tell you the truth, I got so pissed when the third disc I burned jumped around that I threw them all away. Between each burn, I'd re-encode or tweak something thinking I'd found the issue. There's not much action (fast movement) in the piece of video anyway.

My final thoughts were that the fps were off, or that there was a field order issue.

Thanks for the help. I'll give that a try.

Any further replies are welcome.

[mltwitz]

I've had the same problems, but I'm not sure if mine is related to yours, anyway, here is what solved mine:

When I rendered to mpeg2 I used field order "bottom field first" which caused motion in scenes to be very jittery. When I changed the filed order to "top field first" (TFF), everything looked perfect. Try it!

[guns1inger]

If you have already rendered/encoded your mpeg video, you can use ReStream to reverse the field order without the need to re-encode again.

[spls]

Hey Dadrab, regarding your first post: heres my advise based on my experience.......perhaps it solves the problem.

Firstly, in virtual dub, the 'error' message refers to the audio bitrate problem. Not the video bitrate. This can be easily fixed in virtual dub to make it CBR audio. Personally I suggest 224 bit AC3 audio. (assuming you originally had 2 channel MP3 audio) Theres a nice guide on how to do this on this site. In a nutshell: Always keep the video in 'Direct stream copy'! Then choose Full processing mode for the Audio. Then Click Audio - Compression and choose no compression. Then File - Save WAV and save it somewhere. Then Choose Audio - WAV Audio and select the file you just made. Then Audio - Compression and choose 224 AC3 audio for example. Make sure video is still on Direct Stream copy and choose File - Save as AVI...
This will correct the VBR audio.

Secondly, I would suggest a better DVD encoder. For example, if you use NERO on poor quality, the video is really jerky. Very irritating! I would suggest The filmmachine with CCE since thats what I use, but there are many good ones to choose from actually. You decide.

Lastly, if you want NTSC, keep it 23.976. If you try convert this to 29 FPS, its too much of a difference and can cause a 'jerky slow motion output'.

Thats my answer based on my own personal experiences. Hope it helps.

[dadrab]

Thanks folks. I really appreciate all the suggestions.

I'm busy working on Christmas presents now, so the system is pretty tied up, but as soon as I finish these rather large projects, I'll be back on this problem child.

I'll report back with the result.