Pixellated DVD from FCP Project

[Steve Eisen]

Where did you monitor the DVD? TV or computer?

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Creative Pro Users Group

[Dean Longfield]

Both TV & Computer. After DVD was burned it did not play well on either a TV or a computer. However the .mov that was made by FCP Export to QT Movie played well on the computer.

[Chris Babbitt]

What were your DVDSP settings, i.e. Bit-rate, VBR or constant, Dolby or PCM audio?
How long is the program?

[Mark Suszko]

Are you watching this SD DVD on a TV set that is set to “scale-up” an Sd input to fill a 16×9 screen? I’m saying this may be a TV settings problem. What were your specific project and sequence settings?

[Dean Longfield]

I set up DVDSP a long time ago. I’ve used it a million times with good results. Not sure where to find the bit and VBR settings. I looked in prefs but could not find. I’m sure I set up for 8 bit if that’s what you mean. Thanks.

[Dean Longfield]

Mark – I have the TV display set up on FULL. That does not fill the wide screen with a 4:3 image.
my image was scaled up to 16:9 in FCP (anamorphic SEQUENCE SETTING).

My SEQUENCE SETTINGS are:
Frame Size: 720 x 480 NTSC DV (3:2)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: NTSC – CCIR 601 DV…
Anamorphic 16:9 box is checked
Field Dominance Lower – Even
Editing Time base: 29.97
QT Video Settings: Compressor DV/DVCPRO – NTSC
Audio: 48khz, 16 Bit, Channel grouped

Thanks.

[Mark Suszko]

Dean, I don’t know what that means about your TV setting, but if it is a wide screen modern HDTV and you feed it a 4×3 SD signal you should see black side bars and letterbox bars top and bottom, with your 4:3 picture centered in the middle of the black. If “full” means expanding the incoming SD signal to cover more of the screen in any way, the TV is up-scaling the incoming SD footage and that may certainly cause some visual artifacts like pixellation and image softness. If it looks “good” on your computer monitor but “pixellated” on the TV, either the output from your video card tot he TV is set wrong, or the TV itself is set wrong, is going to be my working theory. You could test that out by cycling the TV thru all it’s various display options.

I’m not sure you’re helping by setting non-anamorphic 4:3 SD footage in an anamorphic sequence: that is bound to cause image distortion as well, unless the original footage was shot anamorphic.

[Dean Longfield]

Mark, I made both a 4:3 version and an anamorphic version in FCP and exported both versions to QT.Movie and they both play fine on a computer. Then i convert the QT Movie file to DVD. I don’t have a set up that plays directly to my TV from the computer. I make a DVD on DVD Studio Pro 4 and then play the DVD’s on a DVD player and out to my 16:9 TV set. i made both 4:3 and 16:9 versions on DVD. They BOTH give me the same pixellation issues. BTW: The 4:3 DVD has black bars on the sides and plays back in 4:3 on my TV set.

Anyway, I’ve never had this issue before. Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks.

[Mark Suszko]

Is the DVD player up-scaling?

Can you post a still of the pictures?

Meanwhile, let’s see if your DVDSP prefs are set like this:

[Dean Longfield]

Mark – Thanks very much for your reply. My settings were on default in the General Tab:
16:9
Auto
One Pass VBR bit rate: 4.0
Max Bit rate: 7.0
Motion: Better

On the Encode Tab:
1280 720P resolution (i thought this setting was for HD projects only and so left it on 1280 720p)

That may have beeen the problem, (though I have burned many a DVD on those settings with no issues….)

Anyway, I’m burning a DVD now on your suggested settings.
Will let you know how it goes.

Thanks !