I've been having a weird problems and I'm trying to diagnose if it is a problem with my encoding or with my player. I'm seeing some strange things with the output from TMPEGenc Plus.

Specifics: DV (AVI) conversion to DVD-compliant low resolution (352x240) MPEG-2, NTSC, 29.97FPS. (below is my template)

When playing back The top of the screeen flickers even when playing the raw mpeg-2 file on the DVD player instead of the authored DVD-R. Files play fine in the computer. MPEG-1 files play just fine on the DVD player. But here's where it get's weird... When I load the file into PowerDVD and look at the properties, it shows PAL as the video method and the resolution at 352x288, even though I encoded at 352x240 and NTSC. Strange. But Windows media reports the proper resolution at 352x240, though it doesn't tell whether the file is NTSC or PAL. I wonder if the Cyberhome CH-402 drive is reading it as PAL also and trying to upconvert to NTSC, causing the flicker...? I've double checked my encoding parameters and they are set to NTSC. I tried setting them to "unspecified" and PowerDVD still showed them as PAL. VCD MPEG files show up as NTSC within PowerDVD.

My Samsung S221 plays these files just fine. Do you think I have a faulty player or is something screwy with my encoding?

object TMPEGConfigFile
MPEG.Text = ''
MPEG.WizardCategoryName = ''
MPEG.WizardSubFormatName = ''
MPEG.WizardCaption = ''
MPEG.WizardDescription = ''
MPEG.OutputStreamType = MPEG_OutputStreamType_System_VideoAudio
MPEG.OutputStreamType_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.StreamType = MPEGVideoEncoder_StreamType_MPEG2
MPEG.Video.StreamType_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.Width = 352
MPEG.Video.Width_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.Height = 240
MPEG.Video.Height_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.YUVFormat = 1
MPEG.Video.YUVFormat_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.DC_prec = 1
MPEG.Video.DC_prec_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.VideoEncodeMode = MPEGVideoEncoder_VideoEncodeMode_Interlace
MPEG.Video.VideoEncodeMode_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.FrameRate = 4
MPEG.Video.FrameRate_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.AspectRatio = 2
MPEG.Video.AspectRatio_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.RateControlMode = MPEGVideoEncoder_RateControlMode_VBR_2PASS
MPEG.Video.RateControlMode_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.MaxBitRate = 0
MPEG.Video.MaxBitRate_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.MinBitRate = 0
MPEG.Video.MinBitRate_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.CBR_BitRate = 3000000
MPEG.Video.VBR_MultipassVBRAlgorithm = MPEGVideoEncoder_MultipassVBRAlgorithm_MultipassCQ
MPEG.Video.VBR_AvgBitRate = 2000000
MPEG.Video.VBR_MaxBitRate = 6000000
MPEG.Video.VBR_MinBitRate = 192000
MPEG.Video.VBR_MaxPassCount = 2
MPEG.Video.VBR_Quality_P = 0
MPEG.Video.VBR_Quality_B = 20
MPEG.Video.VBR_EnablePadding = True
MPEG.Video.MVBR_MaxBitRate = 8000000
MPEG.Video.MVBR_MinBitRate = 2000000
MPEG.Video.MVBR_Quality_P = 0
MPEG.Video.MVBR_Quality_B = 20
MPEG.Video.MVBR_EnablePadding = True
MPEG.Video.AVBR_Quality = 50
MPEG.Video.AVBR_MaxBitRate = 8000000
MPEG.Video.AVBR_MinBitRate = 2000000
MPEG.Video.AVBR_EnablePadding = True
MPEG.Video.CQ_Quality = 65
MPEG.Video.CQ_Quality_P = 0
MPEG.Video.CQ_Quality_B = 20
MPEG.Video.CQ_MaxBitRate = 8000000
MPEG.Video.CQ_MinBitRate = 2000000
MPEG.Video.CQ_EnablePadding = True
MPEG.Video.VBVBufferSize = 229376
MPEG.Video.VBVBufferSize_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_SeqHeaderInterval = 1
MPEG.Video.GOP_SeqHeaderInterval_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_I_FrameCount = 1
MPEG.Video.GOP_I_FrameCount_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_P_FrameCount = 5
MPEG.Video.GOP_P_FrameCount_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_B_FrameCount = 2
MPEG.Video.GOP_B_FrameCount_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_BitStreamForEdit = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_BitStreamForEdit_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.GOP_MaxFrameCount = 18
MPEG.Video.GOP_MaxFrameCount_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.QuantizeMatrix_Intra_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.QuantizeMatrix_NonIntra_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.Profile = 4
MPEG.Video.Profile_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.Level = 8
MPEG.Video.Level_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.VideoFormat = 2
MPEG.Video.VideoFormat_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.DisplayWidth = 0
MPEG.Video.DisplayWidth_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.DisplayHeight = 0
MPEG.Video.DisplayHeight_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Video.MotionSearchSpeed = MPEGVideoEncoder_MotionSearchSpeed_Slow
MPEG.Video.MotionSearch_AlwaysHalfPel = False
MPEG.Video.UseFloatDCT = False
MPEG.Video.QuantizeMode = True
MPEG.Video.QuantizeModeVal_Intra = 35
MPEG.Video.QuantizeModeVal_NonIntra = 35
MPEG.Video.YUVBasicYCbCr = False
MPEG.Video.QuantizeMatrix_Intra = {
081013161A1B1D22101016181B1D222513161A1B1D22222616 161A1B1D222528
161A1B1D202328301A1B1D202328303A1A1B1D22262E38451B 1D23262E384553}
MPEG.Video.QuantizeMatrix_NonIntra = {
10111213141516171112131415161718121314151617181913 14151617181A1B
14151617191A1B1C151617181A1B1C1E1617181A1B1C1E1F17 18191B1C1E1F21}
MPEG.Audio.StreamType = MPEGAudioEncoder_StreamType_MPEG1_Layer2
MPEG.Audio.StreamType_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.SamplingFrequency = 48000
MPEG.Audio.SamplingFrequency_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.ChannelMode = 0
MPEG.Audio.ChannelMode_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.CantUseMono = False
MPEG.Audio.BitRate = 224000
MPEG.Audio.BitRate_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.CalcCRC = True
MPEG.Audio.CalcCRC_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.OriginalFlag = False
MPEG.Audio.OriginalFlag_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.CopyrightFlag = False
MPEG.Audio.CopyrightFlag_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.PrivateFlag = False
MPEG.Audio.PrivateFlag_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.Audio.EmphasisType = 0
MPEG.Audio.EmphasisType_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.System.StreamType = MPEGSystemEncoder_StreamType_MPEG2_Program
MPEG.System.StreamType_ReadOnly = False
MPEG.System.CommentText = ''
MPEG.System.EnableCommentText = False
end