Quality issues with animation using Compressor in creation of SD DVD

[Linda Chirrey]

Hi Jeff,

I hope you’re well and have had some rest!!

[Jeff Greenberg] “Now here’s where it’s interesting. Have you tried playing back the DVD in the mac via this connection? Instead of your dvd player?”

I played the DVD from the Mac connected to the TV (via an HMI) and the results were indeed interesting. For all your MPEG2s that we got results equal to our best Compressor (Compressor basic & 2-pass, AE), plus our best Compressor, pretty much all the artifacts had disappeared and the image quality looked really very good. The ones that we had bad results for (BitVice, Adobe Media Encoder & AE downscaled) all still looked quite bad (albeit not AS bad).

So after all that, my feelings are that the MPEG2 transcoding is ok from Compressor and the DVD itself is also ok (so no issue with DSP). The problem is between the SD DVD player (a couple of years old consumer grade Pioneer) and the TV. A combination of the MPEG2 decoding by the DVD, subsequent interlacing, then deinterlacing and upscaling by the TV, maybe?

We shall have a look at it on a lower res 720 TV and an SD CRT to see what they do with it from the DVD player.

So after that, I guess it’s all about trying to find out what filters or settings might reduce the artifacts created when HD res computer generated animation is played on an SD DVD/HD TV set up (which is still pretty common these days).

As you say, the animation we checked on the DVDs would have been mastered on film, so maybe that it part of it…

Let me know if you think any differently and have any further suggestions.

Take it easy and many thanks again for all your great help.

All the best,

Linda

[Jeff Greenberg]

It feels like an episode of House, doesn’t it?

Glad it worked out and that I could be of help.

Best,

Jeff G

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[Eoghan Dunne]

Hey guys, I’m having the same problems with my animation film when i put it onto DVD, its not a HD format, its a simple MPEG2, i’m getting the same white ghost lines around the animation lines and characters, also i’m getting the panning shimmers on the animation, the backgrounds dont get it at all though,
i exported the original sequences from Toonboom as .mov files, then used Premiere Pro to put them together, exported premiere pro film as .avi file, i am compressing using Sorenson Squeeze to MPEG2, the film runs fine on my computer but on the dvd its quality is lost,
Linda did you fix the problem in the end and could you help me? I’m in a crisis and i need to get the film out next week to festivals,
Would really appreciate it,
Thanks Eoghan.

[Linda Chirrey]

Hi Eoghan,
The problem we had seemed to come from our DVD player which was old and not able to handle the playback of the encoding on the DVD. And also our TV was a brand new HD 1080, which made it look much worse.
Have you checked on another combination of DVD and TV?
If the DVD is fine on your computer it should be fine for anything else.
Let me know
Linda

[Eoghan Dunne]

Ok thanks Linda, i have tried on 3 dvd players on the same tv,

maybe i need to try other combo’s like you said,

i just wish it would play as simply as all the other DVDs we have play fine,

Probably most film festivals use the top high end equipment anyway so should be fine,
i have been trying to export in tiff sequences today and playing with other ideas too,
It seems to be the exact same problems as you film had,
thanks for replying,
All the best,
Eoghan 🙂

E Dunne