Newbie question on video stutter . . .

[wyldberi]

I just came across this site last night. It looks like a really great resource. I get the frustration more experienced members feel when less knowledgeable people ask what may seem to be dumb questions. And I look forward to spending time exploring the information located here.

Having said that, I'm going to ask what may appear to be a dumb question. If it offends your sensibilities, I'm sorry, but don't know I'd go so far as to blather about with profuse apologies. I'm new to this, and am interested in listening to whatever wisdom may apply to what I've come across.

A couple of months ago I decided to rip and store my DVD collection as files on a set of hard drives, and use those drives to playback the video/audio files. I started gathering parts to assemble a new HTPC, and began experimenting with the tools I located on the internet.

That meant using an older computer I put together maybe 5 years ago to rip the content of commercial disks to hard drives using DVD43, DVD Shrink, and in some cases DVD Decryptor. I understand these may be dated programs, but they seemed to work. The computer I used:

An ASUS motherboard running a 3.0 GHz Pentium D processor and Windows XP SP-3. SATA hard drives, 4 GB of PC-6400 DDR2 RAM, and a Radeon X-1800 XT video card with 256 MB of RAM. Data was ripped to new Samsung HD103UJ drives - 7200 RPM, 1 TB, 32 MB buffers. Samsung SyncMaster display.

Using DVD Shrink, I ripped quite a few titles to single, large, non-segmented .vob files. I stripped out all the extras including menus, leaving just the main feature, primary audio track, and English subtitles. I did read on this forum that this isn't the best way to do things, but at the time it appealed to me.

I also downloaded a copy of MPEG Video Wizard, which does provide some basic editing functions. I've used this to playback the .vob files, since the other video players already installed on the computer regurgitate the raw .vob files when I tried to play them, but VW handled the task acceptably.

For now, I'm willing to swap stoage space for the time it will take to learn to convert files to the size I find acceptable for the playback I want to have. Until I get to that place, I want to store the files in an uncompressed format.

HERE'S THE STICKING POINT:

When I play these 3-GB to 5-GB .vob's back, they frequently contain video artifacts, a sort of stutter in motion as a character moves across the movie set, or maybe interacts with another character in the film. I've puzzled over what may have caused this; passed it off as a poorly ripped file, or maybe the program I was using to replay the file. Last night I spent some time playing around with this. I did a new rip, and played through a portion of that ripped file until this artifact appeared; I paused the playback and went back to the original commercial disk and viewed that up to the same point. The artifact did not appear as the DVD played in the computer DVD drive. When I went back to the ripped version, reversed the video to the scene just before the artifact appeared, and played it back, the artifact was not there.

So it appears my artifacts may be related more to hardware memory capacity or an inadequate data buss. Would this assessment seem reasonable?

If anyone can enlighten me, it would be appreciated.

Right now, I'm going to go home and rip the same disk and set DVD Shrink to segment the .vob file into a standard DVD format, and see what effect that has.

[louv68]

Your setup is more than enough to playback without stutters.
I'd try a different player like VLC or KMPlayer.

[MysticE]

I also downloaded a copy of MPEG Video Wizard, which does provide some basic editing functions. I've used this to playback the .vob files,

VOB's should play in almost any software player. The problem with your one VOB conversions is that playing it you will usually have no chapter stops or subtitles etc.

That said, it appears that WMP11 has the ability to load the entire DVD and play it as such by loading any of the VOBs (you can simply drop it onto the icon).

Although VLC is often recommended I find it cumbersome to use and navigate DVD files.

With Nero ShowTime, MPC (Media Player Classic), JetAudio (a very versaltile media player) and WMP 11 you can simply drop the VIDEO_TS.IFO onto your desktop icon and the DVD files will play normally.

Use Shrink and create normal multiple VOB files and try it.

[Nelson37]

First, one of my PC is quite similar to yours, you should not have any problems with playback whatsoever.

I never rip to single VOB files, no idea if this could be your issue. More testing will reveal if the artifacts appear at the same place on a regular basis, it would appear from your replay test that they do not. Possibly just a playback software glitch.

Which brings me to playback software. They shold be quite similar in output quality, but they are not. There is quite a bit of variation among players, you need to try several before concluding there is a problem with the video.

Just tested on a rebuilt rig, using hi-res WMV clips, one player gave me a stuttering slideshow, another plays smooth as silk. Nothing wrong with the file or the PC.

[lordsmurf]

You seem to describe interlace-related problems here. What have you done to the video, exactly?

[wyldberi]

Thanks for the responses.

It's tax time and I've got Employment tax and Sales Tax returns due for 2 different businesses. This will have to be quick for now.

As I mentioned, I'm haven't quite got the HTPC running yet. That includes a Thermaltake case with their version of Media Center hardware/software built in. I've delayed experimenting with different video players until I give that a try and see what it does.

Same thing about a video card. I bought the Intel board specifically to try out and see how well their G45 integrated A/V system works. If it performs I'd just as soon avoid dealing with the heat/noise from an unneeded video card.

I did re-rip the same disk (Final Countdown) last night as more of a normal copy. 0% compression using DVD Shrink. It played pretty well in an outdated Windows Media Player. And in the Video Wizard program, the artifacts were much less noticeable. (I fell asleep . . . can't really report how the new copy compares.)

I'm not interested in re-burning movies to store on plastic disks. One aspect of this project is to get away from the clutter and housekeeping associated with the collection of disks I'm currently putting up with. But I don't want to sacrifice playback quality, either. So I'm trying to go for uncompressed versions -- at least until I get things sorted out and decide which items are deserving of conversion into Xvid or whatever.

So I haven't done anything to process the files. DVD43 should be completely transparent. DVD Decryptor and DVD Shrink should leave a pretty clean copy on the hard drive as long as you don't fiddle with the settings and target the file to be saved in its native state once it gets ripped and saved, shouldn't they?

If it's an interlace problem I'm having, it's a hardware issue and not something incorporated as part of the video file.

Off for food, then back to the EDD.

[wyldberi]

I don't know if anyone is intending on following this thread. Since I started it, I'll continue to document what takes place.

I spent some time Satuday evening and a good part of Sunday ripping Season One & Season Two of the Star Trek Next Generation television series into individual folders for each eisode, thinking I'd probably not be able to use the single vob files I had originally desired.

Sunday evening I downloaded copies of Windows Media Player 11 and VLC and installed them on my computer at home. For the heck of it I renamed one of my 5 GB .vob files ".mpeg" and loaded it into each of the players. Both players were able to play the contents, and in both instances, the stuttering artifacts that got me started on this subject were either absent or greatly reduced as to be nearly unnoticeable.

WMP-11 provided the clearest picture, with a sharp contrast and brilliant colors. But it either cannot, or simply do not yet know how, to stretch the image to the full width of the monitor I was using. And during playback, I noticed two instances where the program simply jumped over maybe 2 minutes of the show -- it just arbitrarily jumped over a scene or two. When I saw that happen, I backed up, and it did skip again, but instead of skipping an entire scene, it skipped to the last 30 seconds of the scene. Other than that . . . it worked pretty good.

VLC handled the playback better -- it seemed to NOT skip over any scenes. VLC seems to have more options about playback resolution/size; I was able to play the film full screen. But the quality of the video display on my system lacked the vividness WMP-11 provided.

Both systems lacked the control over linear playback that Video Wizard provides. But then, Video Wizard fails to match the quality of display the other two players gave. The colors were washed (milky) out in comparison.

So now I've got the taxes done. I have more time available and no real excuses to continue avoiding loading Windows 7 onto the new computer. Will come back with another update when that's done.

[manono]

For the heck of it I renamed one of my 5 GB .vob files ".mpeg"

Not such a good idea. If you really want to play them as MPGs, use Vob2Mpeg on them instead. I haven't read the entire thread, but don't understand why you don't just play them as DVDs.

But it either cannot, or simply do not yet know how, to stretch the image to the full width of the monitor

If you're using a widescreen computer monitor, then it's supposed to have pillar bars (black bars to the right and left of the pictuture) since it's a 1.33:1 TV show. Some players can zoom the picture to cut off the top and bottom, but fill the screen right to left. Some can stretch it to fill the screen right to left making everyone look short and fat. Both are stupid ideas.

The stuttering during pans and certain kinds of motion is almost certainly due to the series being hard telecined for DVD. It was shot on film (except for the CG parts) but edited on video. It's encoded as interlaced 29.97fps. About all most software DVD or MPG players can do is deinterlace the video. Depending on the deinterlacer used, this will result in a kind of "strobing" effect as 2 of every 5 frames is blend deinterlaced, or a real stutter as every 5th frame is a duplicate frame. If you can find one such passage where the "artifacts" are noticeable, pause the picture and then advance a frame at a time to see what's going on.

And this is exactly why most (not all) computers being used as HTPCs for playback to HDTVs suck in comparison to playing the DVD in a decent DVD player.

[pcspeak]

I'm following. Keep talking.

[manono]

Eh? I've shot my wad already. If you'd like more informed advice then cut out a piece of the VOB and upload it somewhere for us to have a look - a 10 second or so piece that shows the problem you mentioned.

Open the VOB in DGIndex, use the [ and ] buttons to isolate a small section, then File->Save Project and Demux Video. Upload the resulting M2V to some 3rd party file hosting site - one such as MediaFire - and post the link.

Remember, 10 seconds is plenty. No one wants or needs a 100 MB M2V.

And what you really need is a software DVD player that can IVTC a hard telecined video - one that supports the NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder, for example.

[wyldberi]

For the heck of it I renamed one of my 5 GB .vob files ".mpeg"

Not such a good idea. If you really want to play them as MPGs, use Vob2Mpeg on them instead. I haven't read the entire thread, but don't understand why you don't just play them as DVDs.

I'd read that it was possible to change the file name extention of vob's to mpeg and enable some players to play the file using the DVD codecs available to the player. Yesterday I came across a posting somewhere that mentioned vob's contain additional information that the player will not be able to access. I suspect that it why WMP skipped over portions of the track from time to time. It really doesn't matter what is happening; it's unacceptable. Particularly when VLC appears to read the vob code properly.

When I first began laying this project out, I searched around on the web looking for programs/tools that would help me rip DVD files. I came across a link to Womble's Video Wizard DVD program and figured the ability to do basic edits to the actual files would be a good thing. I downloaded a trial version of that program in the middle of November 2008 and thought it was decent enough for what I had in mind. The company e-mailed a coupon offering a discount for the registration and I paid something like $35.00 for that. (Last night I came across a link that indicated a new build had been issued in December. I downloaded that and updated my without any hassles.)

While I was experimenting with Video Wizard I came across a note in the documentation that said by ripping the main title as a single, long file it was possible to avoid some problems that arise when working with segmented files. That sounded good to me. Later on, since I was trying to create an archival system that could playback movies in standard DVD quality directly from a computer hard drive onto a large screen monitor, the idea of having just one file per film instead of 4 seemed to contribute to the concept of the organization I was looking to create.

But it either cannot, or I simply do not yet know how, to stretch the image to the full width of the monitor

If you're using a widescreen computer monitor, then it's supposed to have pillar bars (black bars to the right and left of the pictuture) since it's a 1.33:1 TV show. Some players can zoom the picture to cut off the top and bottom, but fill the screen right to left. Some can stretch it to fill the screen right to left making everyone look short and fat. Both are stupid ideas.

I agree with your opinion on altering the inherent ratios that contain the recorded information. Looking back at my last post I see how I misled you. The Star Trek shows were/are in standard TV format. The vob files for most hour long TV shows are around 1.8 to 1.95 GB. But the file I was talking about in regards to WMP was from a film recorded on the DVD in a 16:9 format.

The computer monitor is a Samsung 214T 21" widescreen format. The 16:9 video was displayed with the normal letterbox bars at the top & bottom. But Windows Media Player 11 also had pillars on the sides of the picture display as well. This left me with a 15" postage stamp display in the center of the screen. The application controls were set for "full screen" display. The other applications I have access to at this time stretch the video the full width of the screen as long as they do not have to crop the top and/or bottom in order to do so.

The stuttering during pans and certain kinds of motion is almost certainly due to the series being hard telecined for DVD. It was shot on film (except for the CG parts) but edited on video. It's encoded as interlaced 29.97fps. About all most software DVD or MPG players can do is deinterlace the video. Depending on the deinterlacer used, this will result in a kind of "strobing" effect as 2 of every 5 frames is blend deinterlaced, or a real stutter as every 5th frame is a duplicate frame. If you can find one such passage where the "artifacts" are noticeable, pause the picture and then advance a frame at a time to see what's going on.

And this is exactly why most (not all) computers being used as HTPCs for playback to HDTVs suck in comparison to playing the DVD in a decent DVD player.

Your description of the strobing fits in with what I was trying to describe pretty well. But earlier in the thread I talked about pausing playback when one of those cropped up; backing up the player; and playing the same segment back at normal speed. The strobing artifact was not present. So I was pretty sure it was caused by a buffer under/overrun, or a problem with the player I was using at the time (Womble).

Over the last few days I've tried out a few different players, that work pretty good and seem to have made the problem go away.

And since I'm here, I'll tell what happened last night. I downloaded a trial version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD 8 and installed that. I ran the mpeg renamed vob through that player, and it worked fine. I renamed the file extension back to vob and it still worked fine after I clicked a program setting to recognize vob files.

The one thing that was missing was the ability to use the missing chapters to skip to a scene, and it also did not handle fast scanning through the vob file using the scroll bar that tracks the film's progression. Cyberlink PD gets jammed up when you try to do that with just the vob file; guess it gets lost and can't figure out where to go to resume playback. If you use the fast play mode (2x - 4x - 10x standard playback speed) Cyberlink handles that.

I thought I read somewhere that Cyberlink can load a bookmark file. I'm assuming that's what Womble DVD Video Wizard creates as you create an editing project. It's very easy to set a bookmark in VW. For that matter, it's not that difficult to create an entire menu system for a film and export that as a non-standard DVD file containing the appropriate .ifo / .bup / .vob files without re-encoding the ripped files.

[manono]

Geez, but you use a lot of words. It makes my eyes glaze over and not want to read it. Be short and to the point. And either all those words by themselves confuse the reader, or you really are confusing the reader with incomplete or misleading information, because I thought I was answering about ST:TNG not filling your screen, and not some movie.

But the file I was talking about in regards to WMP was from a film recorded on the DVD in a 16:9 format.

The computer monitor is a Samsung 214T 21" widescreen format. The 16:9 video was displayed with the normal letterbox bars at the top & bottom. But Windows Media Player 11 also had pillars on the sides of the picture display as well.

If I'm understanding you correctly, it's not a 16:9 DVD at all, but a 4:3 DVD with a widescreen movie inside of it. They'll play in the middle of a widescreen computer monitor or TV set with black bars all the way around. These widescreen 4:3 DVDs are sometimes referred to as being non-anamorphic. An important piece of information needed to confirm (or disprove) this hypothesis would be the name and region of this DVD, or a link to it at Amazon.com or some place like that.

[MysticE]

And since I'm here, I'll tell what happened last night. I downloaded a trial version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD 8 and installed that. I ran the mpeg renamed vob through that player, and it worked fine. I renamed the file extension back to vob and it still worked fine after I clicked a program setting to recognize vob files.

What a surprise.

VOB's should play in almost any software player. The problem with your one VOB conversions is that playing it you will usually have no chapter stops or subtitles etc.

That said, it appears that WMP11 has the ability to load the entire DVD and play it as such by loading any of the VOBs (you can simply drop it onto the icon)....


With Nero ShowTime, MPC (Media Player Classic), JetAudio (a very versaltile media player) and WMP 11 you can simply drop the VIDEO_TS.IFO onto your desktop icon and the DVD files will play normally.

The one thing that was missing was the ability to use the missing chapters to skip to a scene,

Methinks you spend too much time writing rather than reading.