[Dave Friend]

Sounds like you are seeing the effects of viewing interlaced video on a progressive scan device – the computer monitor. What does the DVD look like on a TV set?

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[fischtale] “I should be able to put the tape back in and make the master of the correct project which will write over the existing project on the tape.”

Yes, that is the case.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[FischTale] “Is there any other way to see what’s on the tape and be able to access it to erase the contents?”

A couple of the high-end DVD authoring systems allow you to read as well as write DLT. For the most part, there are few reasons to read the data of a DVD project from the tape. The whole DLT writing process is about as bullet-proof as can be. Most authoring packages are verifying that the data written to the tape matches the data on the harddrive. Of the many hundreds of DLTs I have sent to be replicated only one has ever come back as bad. (It is the only one for which I ever skipped the verification process. I’ll never do that again! Murphy was an optimist.) That’s an additional beauty of this data transfer technology. The replicator will know if the data read from the tape is correct due to built in error detection/correction.

As far as erasing the contents of a DVD project DLT I have two comments. The first is, Don’t Do It! Why? Because the DLT should be thought of as the archival master of the DVD. Most replicators do not save the glass master after the run is complete. They would prefer to create a new one for each run from a DLT.

My second comment is that all the DVD authoring applications rewind and over-write the contents of the DLT. There is no such thing as a multsession DLT when it comes to DVD images. IOW, there is no need to erase DLT tapes.

If you really think you want/need to access a DVD image on a DLT tape the only third party software that I know of is Gear Pro Mastering Edition. Retrospect is designed for reading/writing drive backup data – not for DDP data images of DVD discs.

[FischTale] “Is there anything else I should be aware of with making DLT masters?”

If you let your authoring software do all the work and didn’t have any error messages during the process you should be good to go. Stop worrying so much.

[FischTale] ” do the settings on the front of the drive relating to the density have any bearing on making a master?”
Not really. The are mostly used to cram more data on the tape when backing up hard drives and servers and such. Since you will never write more than 4.7GB to a DLT used for DVD images there is no need to use the hgher density settings. I suggest you use the default density setting.

Hope this helps.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Pretty much the same but with some improvements/refinements. In particular, the ability to lasso a specific range (time and frequency) to use as a noise sample. Just this week I used it to remove the persistent squeak, squeak, squeak from a fan in an air handling system without mucking up the speakers voice. Very cool.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Daniel,

You might want to consider picking up a copy Adobe Audition. It has some great noise reduction, hiss, click and pop filters that are reasonably easy to use.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[FischTale] “about software that analyzes MPEG files to check for spikes,”

There is one that I know of available at https://www.tecoltd.com/bitratev.htm
I have the commercial version which comes in handy once in a great while. However, having checked hundreds of files created by the CinemaCraft Basic encoder I have never seen a spike that was outside the DVD max bitrate. Guess I am trying to say, Don’t worry about it.

What authoring software are you using?

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[FischTale] “It probably sounds ridiculous to spend that money on an encoder”
You don’t need a hardware encoder to make ac3 files. It’s unfortunate that the CinemaCraft encoder doesn’t have dolby ac3 built in. There are software options available to use in conjucntion with CCE.

The tool I use to turn the wav output of CinemaCraft into ac3 files is the TMPGEnc MPEG Editor. (https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tme20.html) This handy utility has lots of other useful functions too. Well worth the $60.00 they want for it.

It’s easy to use and makes the wav files into ac3 very quickly.

Hope this is helpful.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Vince,

Perhaps it would be easier to resize and “matte” the images using PhotoShop. This process could easily be automated using PhotoShop actions and batch processing. Once you define the actions to be performed, whole folders of images can be modified very easily.

You will need to figure out what size safe area you want to use and resize the images to that dimension. Then use the Canvas Size function to add a border that fills the image to the raster size you are using, e.g. 720×480.

Hope this helps.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

It is part of the QuickTime Pro player. Once the movie is loaded in the player press ctrl+J to open the movie’s property dialog. In the upper left drop-down select “Video Track” the, in the upper right drop-down, select “Quality”. On the Quality page you will find the checkbox for High Quality Enabled.

You will have to save the move for this setting to persist for this mov file.

AFAIK, this Quality setting is only used by the QuickTime player. If you import the quicktime to some other player (or an NLE) is seems to come in as High Quality. Or maybe not. I haven’t tested this premise extensively.

Hope this helps.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Kirby,

Try selecting the “High Quality Enabled” option for the video track of the movie properties. (I wish this option were on by default.)

Dave