[Daniel Low]

All you need is provided with Episode, the online help is very good and explains what all of the functions, including the advanced filters, do.
I think you’ll find operating the application very simple. If you can find your way around FCP then Episode will be a ‘walk in the park’.

Of course if there’s something you can’t find any info on, then you’ve got us all here at the Cow!

[Daniel Low]

Try encoding your audio to AC3 rather than AIFF, that’ll save quite a bit of space.

Otherwise you done nothing wrong and there’s no point going for a fast encode, if anything that will produce files larger than the ones you have.

TDK should be OK – I swear by Verbatim

[Daniel Low]

There is no reason why the output of QuEnc wouldn’t play on a Mac, unless you used some ‘funky’ settings or something similar.

Can you play the file on a PC that doesn’t have ffmpeg or QuEnc installed?

[Daniel Low]

What frame size are you using for the MPEG?

[Daniel Low]

NTSC is 29.97. If you want to adhere to the NTSC specification then it has to be 29.97 and as such you need to put your material through a 3-2 pulldown process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine

[Daniel Low]

Sorry I assumed it was MPEG-2, It’s rare to see an MPEG-1 these days.

What I was trying to say was that if you can’t see the green line using Quicktime and you can see it with Windows media player, try and see if you can see it using VLC.
If you can’t see it using VLC then it’s a problem with that particular Windows Media Player and as such all the ‘normal’ people are unlikely to see the green line.

Are you using/testing both Mac and PC?

[Daniel Low]

Without hesitation I’d recommend Episode over Sorenson. It’s a far more fully featured, capable, advanced and higher quality application than Squeeze.

Both applications use the VP6 codec for Flash, obviously, but Episode will deliver higher quality due to its superior preprocessing filters.

[Daniel Low]

Sounds like an issue with whatever WMP is using to decode the MPEG-2. (As Windows relies on 3rd party software to do the job.)
If you can’t see it in Quicktime then I’d assume it’s not a problem with the video file itself.

Have you tried VLC?

[Daniel Low]

I’m not sure what you mean by digital delivery, DVD is digital after all.

If it has to be 4:3 then letterboxing it will retain the entire picture. Cropping the sides will obviously remove some of the picture, which could contain important or indeed vital elements.

[Daniel Low]

There is no way to be 100% sure that 100% of all DVD players and TVs made will handle your material correctly, especially given that some people will have already changed the default settings and it also depends on how the player is connected to the TV.

I think your biggest issue is that you are creating the letterbox rather than allowing the DVD player/TV do that automatically for you, from an anamorphic source.

Most 4:3 sets will correctly identify the anamorphinc source and letterbox it, all 16:9 sets will display the full picture with no letterboxing.

When you doing the letterboxing you scale down the active 16:9 picture by a large and unnecessary amount. Unless performed with a good quality scaler it is very likely to introduce all sorts of artefacts, possibly the ones you are seeing.

IMHO you should be delivering a progressive, full height anamorphic 16:9 picture in a 4:3 frame.

Have a read through these pages and all should become clear!:

https://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html?