[Ruby Gold]

Thanks Eric. I don’t really want to use a “low quality” setting though because this DVD needs to be the best quality it can be without making most players choke or stutter. So far I’ve only tested it on the two players, and am one for one, so I’m not so sure that my settings are too high. I’ve always only used the CBR setting, so maybe I can find out if there’s a VBR setting that would be appropriate for this production.

It’s a half-hour long, has a mixture of video clips and jpgs with motion effects on them. The video is predominantly talking heads, but has a handful of clips with larger movement in them. I need the video and audio to be high quality.

Any recommendations on CBR vs. VBR settings given these needs, particularly since I’m not very well versed on the VBR side?

thanks!

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks for the response Dave. I actually did burn it at 1x, so I don’t think that’s it. But your comment about the Toshiba makes me wonder…
The folks whose set-top it was said that it has no problems playing anythign generally, and I’ve tested other DVDs I’ve made (all DVD-Rs) on this same set-top and not had this problem. Hmmmm…

I’m wondering if anyone has any other thoughts on this…

thanks-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

I just recently used auto color and auto contrast, individually and in combination, to correct changing light conditions in some footage and they worked really well. The auto contrast introduced a little bit of flickering in some cases, but not all, and after playing with the two a bit, I found a combination that worked.

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks a lot–did the trick!

Another question–I exported with CBR 6.8 and PCM audio which I converted in U Lead DVDWS2 to Dolby 224 kb/s. The production looks/sounds great on a tv with a set-top DVD player, but when played on the same desktop PC that I created it with, viewed in Power DVD, there’s lots of artifacts on the movement, looks bad, particularly on stills that have motion effects. Tried viewing it on Windows Media Player, and it’s better than Power DVD, but still nowhere near as good as the set top DVD player.

Is there a way to mess with export settings, or other things so that it looks good when played on both computer and set top player? Thanks again-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks to both of you for your feedback, and, thankfully, I haven’t experienced any crashing issues.

In the end, I applied the auto color and color correction filters to the worst offenders and then took the suggestion of someone on another forum of applying the auto contrast filter to those clips that were already okay, but to really make them “pop,” which it did, without the potential instability across frames of the auto color filter.

Ironically, on the clips with the auto color and color correction, there are no discernible ill effects after rendering them in preview, but a couple of the clips with the auto contrast do have the background flickering in some places, so I’m going to need to take it off, after all. Auto levels, which I’m a big fan of in Photoshop, didn’t give me the right look.

Thanks again for the feedback guys–
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks for the reponse Mike. Yeah, I rendered before previewing within PPro 1.5–still looked the same. I exported out as both avi and mpg–same problem–not even a “classic” looking moire–more like waves, rather than a flickering/vibrating look. Anyway, I tried reducing the size/resolution of the original image–still same problem.

I’ve done these kinds of motion effects on jpgs many times before and have always been able to resolve any resulting moire with either a reduction in size of the original image, Gaussian blur, changing the field options, or combinations of these things. So far–no luck at all. Any other ideas?

Thanks-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks Matte. I’d never heard negative stuff about Fujifilm before. I’ve been using their DVD media and mini-DV tape for several years now. I guess I won’t know if “clogged heads” is what’s causing the artifacting until I hear from the Canon facility, but if so, and if Fuji is known for that, seems that it wd be a good time to switch tape brands. Know anything about Sony Premium tapes?

Two more questions:

1. Have other folks had similar issues with Fuji Film, and does anyone know any websites where users compare mini-dv tape brands for performance/problems (such as the site at https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia where users compare/rate DVD media)?

2. I use a Sony clamshell (GV-D1000) firewired to my PC to do all my capture so as to avoid wear and tear on my camera. If I switch tape brands–do you think that wd cause problems on the clamshell (similar to switching tape brands in your camera?).

All responses appreciated. Thanks-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks–yeah, I came to the same conclusion and sent it to Canon to have it serviced. I figure even if cleaning isn’t the issue causing the artifacting, it couldn’t hurt to have it serviced (I’ve had it about 15 months).

I use Fujifilm–any opinions on that tape?

thanks-
Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

This sounds great, though over my head (experience-wise). I’ve not tracked anything before and the whole null/parent thing is something I’ll have to spend some time with–but thanks for the directions to follow once I get there.

Ruby

[Ruby Gold]

Thanks you guys!! Really useful suggestions. This forum rocks.
Ruby