[Matt Stoddart]

The computer will only play a DVD with the default software which it has been asigned to play M2V or Mpeg files.
On a PC, right click on the DVD and chose to “Open with Windows Media Player”, Mac I don’t know what the procedure is.
I personally wouldn’t recommend Windows Media Player as a default player, I would tend to stick to dedicated DVD player software, the likes of WinDVD, PowerDVD etc, these are the “more” foolproof of software players, (VLC is good, but slightly techy for clients I have found).

[Matt Stoddart]

While we all strive for the “perfect” encode in SD, we have no control over how it viewed. I have had comments like “too much motion blur, artifacting…etc” only to find out they are watching it on their 50″ LCD TV played from a bargain basement DVD player stuggling to upscale an SD format to a HD screen. I wanted to see what a difference this varible could throw up so I tried 3 players
1) Bargain basement player
2) Mid range player (@£100 Sony player)
3) Latest PS3 player
onto
1) 36″ inch CRT Sony
2) 46″ inch LCD Sharp 1080p(default settings)
with a
1) 8crb encode (cs4 encoder)
2) 2 pass vbr 5.5min 6.5target 8.5 max (cs4 encoder)
3) Disney animated title/Disney live action

They were all sharp and acceptable on the CRT TV but a marked difference on the LCD screen, as expected the bargain basement player gave a soft, motion blurred, (much like a NTSC 525 to PAL 625 standards conversion).
All the results were no surprise and expected, with most households having ditched their CRT TVs for Flatscreens I feel we have no real control over the final viewing experience, so while I’m still searching for that perfect encoder with the perfect settings, I feel it is more for personal satifaction now a days.

Signed an SD hippie in an HD world.

[Matt Stoddart]

Thanks Daniel/Larry,

I knew one format was problematic, I just couldn’t remember which one and why.
Good thing I’ve being using +R as they are more widely available.

[Matt Stoddart]

I created 50 frames transistions between the menus, I encoded the transistions at 7CBR, 2M/12N frame setting.
When I built the project to a folder and viewed it all the transistions looked fine, when I burnt the project to a DVD+R9 things went pair shaped, playback on DVD players varied.
1) PS3: Full frame black flash before the transistion settled back into the menu on half of the transistion. (3 fine, 3 black flash)
2) Midrange Sony player, same as PS3
3) Bargain basement DVD player, played all transistion fine.
????????????
I bumped into this problem when I first started using CS4 and read somewhere on this forum that the length of your transistion has to be evenly divisible by your m-frame setting, which solved the problem then.
Any ideas why some worked and some didn’t? all exactly the same duration.

It must be a CS4 bug, this problem never reared it ugly head in CS3, I’ve given up with transistion apart from fade to black in CS4.

[Matt Stoddart]

Hi Tiffany,

You can’t argue with that price, the reviews seem good. My only concern is that it doesn’t include an internal hardrive to write your images onto before duplication and I can’t see what make the controller is, Wytron and Acard are two that I know and trust, saying that it has the burn and compare function so all should be fine.

Good luck

[Matt Stoddart]

Hi Tiffany,

[Matt Stoddart]

Thanks Jeff, 8.0 is what I stick to nowadays, with Adobe media encoder do you have any suggestions for GOP setting. I use 2M/12N for PAL and 3M/15N for NTSC, is there a better setting?

Thanks Rich, Episode 6 looks interesting, I would give Bitvice a try, but the only Macs I still have active are some old G3/G4 , any puter with any omph are PCs now.
Episode 6 looks interesting.
About a year ago I had the chance to do a quick (ie basic presets) comparision between CS4, CCE SP 2.7, Procoder 3, MC Reference 1.6, all looked more or less the same on a high bitrate CBR or VBR encode, so out of convienence and expense I have stuck with CS4 encoder to date, but always looking for a better encode as more and more producers complain at 8.0 CBR DVDs now, not surprising after they just finish editing their baby (sorry feature) in HD on HD monitors, shame they can’t afford Bluray.

[Matt Stoddart]

Just a few questions before pointing you in the right direction.
1) How many DVDs a month do you see your production company producing?
2) Have you already started producing Bluray discs yet?

Thanks

[Matt Stoddart]

I vaguely remember alot of capture problems with earlier versions of FCP and HV20 until version 6. The Canon HV20 and HV30 I’ve used with Premiere faultlessly for acouple of years now, great little cameras/vtrs.
It might be worth reposting your question in the FCP forums.
Good luck.

[Matt Stoddart]

As long as your DVD media and recorder is 8x or 16x then 8 time is fine, if your burning software allows you to verify after the burn then always do so, it takes longer but it does give you piece of mind the burn was fine.