[Arky]

Therein lies the problem – If Monty Python only ever released their sketches and filmscripts in text form (I think that method used to be referred to as ‘books’..), then they would surely have had their fans (as does Larson, another of my all-time favourites), but nothing like the millions who ‘grasp’ the decidedly-unorthodox Python humour by virtue of the vocal intonations and facial expressions given life by the medium of film. The Parrot sketch is a prime example of this – without Cleese’s outrageous gesticulation and outlandishly-indignant vocal performance, much of the hilarity would be lost.

Text is wonderful, and has stood the test of time, but when it comes to humour (particularly sarcasm), it’s often woefully inadequate unless one is a master wordsmith (which, incidentally, I would never, personally, claim to be).

“..and now for something comPLETEly different…” – isn’t this a DVD authoring forum?

John.

[Arky]

Ben, are these artifacts evident in the

DVD->DV footage

or only in the final

DVD->DV->ProcoderMPEG2

footage?

If it’s the latter, then my guess is that you will achieve significant improvements by forcing I-frames at the scene-change points (although I must admit, I would expect ProCoder to have automatically done a decent job of identifying the need for I-frames at these specific points in the ‘DV source’ footage). You may find the best way to force such I-frames is to cut your DV file into segments at the problem-boundaries, then encode these segments as a batch, in ProCoder, to equivalent MPEG 2 segments (do NOT rely on the ProCoder’s ‘stitch’ function, in this particular instance), and then concatenate these afterwards, preferably with MPEG Append, if you have a Mac to hand, or, alternatively, in your DVD authoring program’s timeline, if it caters for this function. In this way, you will produce robust I-frames at precisely the points you require them in your MPEG stream.

John.

[Arky]

David, as I said, no harm done, I was just rather peeved, even though I understood it was meant humourously…

Regards,

John.

[Arky]

David, I appreciate the point you made in your original post, and you are, of course, correct that M-A is widespread in the Adult Entertainment Industry (indeed, the Adult Entertainment Industry may, arguably, have been quite a driving force in home video technologies), but I assure you, categorically, that I was NOT referring to ‘Adult’ films, in my own post, whatsoever. Multi-Angle has been used in a whole host of legitimate (non-XXX-rated) mainstream films, for various creative purposes, not least in attempts to mimic that Holy Grail of DVD authoring, Seamless Multi-Story (AKA ‘Seamless-Branching’).

For example, one means of achieving such mimicry is to place a Multi-Angle Interleave Block near the beginning of a Title VOB, such that one story (the ‘longer-duration version’) begins with a segment of non-interleaved content, then, shortly afterwards, enters a M-A segment, playing Angle 0, then exits and playback continues to the conclusion of the film, with no more M-A segments being encountered. The second story version skips the first non-interleaved cell, used by Story 1, and instead begins at the beginning of the Multi-Angle Block, at Angle 1, playing the appropriate alternative scene and then exiting and playing back the rest of the non-interleaved material in the Title, that is common to both stories (upon exiting Angle 1 of the Interleave Block, the player will automaticaly default playback to the only remaining Angle – Angle 0, without a significant glitch, if authored correctly). The Angles contained within that Multi-Angle segment, near the beginning of the Title, contain entirely different material and thus switching between the two Angles, during playback of either story version, is disabled in UOPs. Broadly-speaking, it can be seen that this implementation of ‘interspersed’ (‘Mixed-Angle’, in Spruce/Apple Parlance) Multi-Angle would hold little or no interest for a DVD author working in the Adult Entertainment Industry. In my above post, I was referring to entirely ‘legitimate’ use of M-A, right from the outset, so, no harm done, but in future, please refrain from misappropriating my comments and speak for yourself!

John.

[Arky]

I neglected to add that, while Scenarist, as George W rightly stated, is capable of Mutli-Angle (both Seamless and Non-Seamless, if you have the Pro version), so is Minerva (Pinnacle) Impression (although Impression is only capable of a lowly 2 Angles, in total).

However, given that Scenarist is so stratospherically-priced, I would wholeheartedly agree with Alex’s suggestion to use DVD Studio Pro, even if it means buying a Mac Mini in order to use it. DVD SP 2/3 is, as most people are aware, by-and-large, a port of Spruce Technologies’ DVDMaestro. DVD SP 3 may not be perfect (what software IS?), but it is undoubtedly the most powerful piece of DVD Authoring software available for less than a thousand (or considerably more) dollars. It will, with a little coaxing(!) manage the full Spec limit of 8 Angles, along with a whole host of other capabilities which Encore is only beginning to scratch the surface of (note that DVD SP will do Buttons Over Video, which can be useful when undertaking Multi-Angle work).

John.
(‘Arky’)

[Arky]

Just to clarify a little, ‘Mixed-Angle’ is not a true DVD Spec’ term, but refers to the creation of Title VOBs with portions of conventional, non-interleaved, material interspersed with one or more Interleave Blocks, containing multiple Angle choices. A typical example of this approach is in films where the beginning and end credit sequences are comprised of multiple language versions, in the form of alternative Angles, so that the main feature is in the one language, but, depending on which Angle has been ‘set’, by a viewer’s language choice, the appropriate Angle, containing the chosen language, will be ‘honoured’ by the player any time an Angle Interleave Block is encountered during playback of the Title. Other Title designs are not language based, but simply allow the viewer to access Multi-Angle content manually, using the remote, at isolated portions during playback of an otherwise non-Multi-Angle feature.

John.
(‘Arky’)

P.S. I hope pastures-new are working out ok for you, Alex.