Bad quality DVD?

[lenl1]

I use a Compro videomate card along with its pvr software to record shows in which it does a pretty decent job. I have it set to: NTSC MPEG - II, Dimension : 720 * 480, Video Bitrate : 6400 kbps Audio Bitrate : 224 kbps, Audio Frequency : 48 KHzrd.
When I play the video back on the computer all looks fine, but when I burn it to disc the playback on my dvd player is bad. The motion of people in the video is poor, almost makes your eyes sore watching it. I pretty much took the Mpeg II dvd file and pulled out the comercials using Studio 9 and burnt the disk, I also tried again using Ulead DVD MF2 and it came out a little better but still to bad to watch. It did not seem to have to render, It made the disc prety fast, 15 min. 22 minute show. I have usually made dvds from my home movies- hi8 & DV and they turn out fine.
Ulead MF2 shows the clip properties as..

File format: MPEG –2
Files size: 1,408,424 KB
Duration: 1709.476 secs
Video type: Mpeg – 2 Video, Field A
Total frames: 51,233 Frames(s)
Attributes: 24 Bits, 720x480
Frame rate: 6400 kbps
Audio Type: Mpeg Audio Layer 2 Files
Total samples: 82,054,855 samples
Attributes: 48000Hz, 16 Bit, Dual channel
Layer: 2
Bit rate: 224 kbps

My system:
Asrock K7S8XE+ Bios, American megatrends inc – P1.07
Built in sound, C-Media AC97 Audio device ( recently deactivated)
Now have cheap soundblaster PCI 128 card( soon to be replaced by Turtle beach)
VideoMate Ultra TV
Front side bus – 2x 200 (400 MHz data rate)
Memory bus speed – 2x 200 MHz (400MHz data rate)
AMD Athlon XP 3200+,
Speed -2.2 GH
512 MB DDR-SDRAM
ASUS Radeon 9600XT
SIS Raid 0 (2 Seagate- 80 gig)
IO Magic DVD +- R / +- RW 4X
ADS Pyro Firewire card
Windows XP Pro. ( sp1)

Any help would be appreciated

[mits]

Hi,
since your video looks ok on pc but not on tv makes me think of wrong field order. Usually dvds require upper field firsrt to look ok on tv (at least here in pal land).

[lenl1]

Yes The DVDs play fine on the computer. How would I go about changing the field order? I see it comes up as "A", I have checked thru the Compro pvr software and it does not give me the option in recording. Only I can change format, dimention, video birate, audio birate, audio frequency, and have an unchecked box for Variable bit rates.

Thank you,

[Brian Ellis]

As a general rule, DV requires lower field first and analogue captures upper. The DVD should be the same. In the old Ulead parlance, these were A and B respectively, although they have recently changed to the full unequivocal designation.

If the results look fine on a 'puter, then it is possible that your capture card is putting it into frame mode, rather than one or the other field modes. Do you have no control over this? If not you will have to try the different field orders when authoring. If it does capture only in frames, then conversion to a field order would be essential.

Frankly, I avoid MPEG capturing, as it usually means a number of compromises. If possible, capture to AVI and convert to MPEG later. However, you don't say what your source video is. You would possibly do better with a video bitrate of 6000 kbit/s and an audio bitrate of 192 kbit/s AC-3. It is unlikely you would see any quality difference but your DVD player might like it better.

[Dr Mordrid]

Editing and exporting captured MPEG at the very least will reduce quality absent an MPEG "smart-render" feature like MediaStudio Pro has. This kind of feature limits recompression losses to just those frames containing effects, transitions etc.

Because there is still a quality loss going from the edit to the burn I'd be very suspicious that the already DVD compliant MPEG video is getting recompressed by DVDMF, thereby introducing another whole generation of compression artifacts. Not good.

In the DVDMF Project Settings is the box titled "Do not convert compliant MPEG files" checked? If not then recompression is likely contributing to the quality loss.

Dr. Mordrid

[lenl1]

Thank you for your replys,
I am capturing thru my Compro videoMate TV PCI card. It gives a pretty decent picture and has the ability to capture with its PVR. I have a few choices here, (NTSC) MPEG1, MPEG II or MPEG 4 ( no AVI). I go with the MPEG II because I want to burn it on dvd and thought by capturing in this format it would save time. There is not much to set in the setup box, only Format, Dimension, Video birate, Audio birate, Audio Frequency, Frame rate, and a check box for Variable bit rates( unchecked), and audio frequency. I can also pick a custom encoder (InterVideo Video Encode) which gives me the following choces - Aspect ratio, Video format, Mpeg option, Sequence Header, N(GOPsize), M(ref distance), VBV buffer size, under bit rate I can choose CBR, AVBR, or VBR, It also has two settable boxes- average Kb/s set to 6400 and Peak Kb/s set to 9570. There is also Interlacing Sequence which has 3 choices Auto, progressive, and interlaced, and last there is Motion Vectors, horizontal set to-4 and vertical set to – 4.
There is also an area called Muxer, under Mux there are formats, Mpeg 1,2.DVD etc.
Bitstream options, - Fixed Pack, - Add pad Packet, - Real-time Encode, Packet size is set to 2048 and Pkts/Pack is set to –1. Under Audio Encoder there are a ton of choices 30 in total, and there are Audio formats set to 16Kbits/s, 16000Hz, Mono. I also have a choice of Microsoft Mpeg – 4 Video Codec V1 and V2.
box for variable bit rate. I have not seen anything giving me the option to choose field A or B.
I have been a frequent reader of this site for a long time but profess to still being an amateur at understanding a lot of the video jargon , I do find it very interesing though.
As i had said before, I can capture home movies in DV with my Sony D8 and make a nice dvd with Studio 9.
The DVD, from the Compro capture that I made in Ulead MF2 do play much better on the computer, watchable, than on my DVD player which is a 4 month old JVC XV-N3125 capable of playing many formats, even Mpeg4, havent tried it yet! This is whats puzzling? And Yes DR. M. The"Do not convert compliant MPEG files"
box is checked. I dont think Ulead MF2 is re rendering this as it seems to go pretty fast, 25 Mins. All I do is remove the commercials. I am going to try capturing thru my old vcr, thru my Sony and in firevire as an avi and burn a dvd like that and see if my problem dissapears. Dr. M I noticed you had commented that the capture might be rerendered using Ulead MF? Is it not a good idea to take an Mpeg II dvd file and edit it like this?
Thank you
lenl1

[Debbie]

Are you playing the clip again on the comp. after editing (removing comercials) or burning it rightaway ? If so, watch the movie just after editing, then you will get to know if the fault is in the editing or in the preparation and burning stages.

If after editing the specs. are correct and the movie looks OK than try to burn in Nero or other "external" software.

Debbie

[lenl1]

I capture using the Compro tv card to Mpeg II DVD then I edited it ( removed comercials only) in Ulead MF2 the burnt it to DVD with Ulead MF2. When I play the burn dvd in my comp. it looks Ok but in the dvd player (JVC) it looks terrible, the motion of the people looks a tad slow hard to watch! I captured a tv program yesterday night, The O.C. going thru my vcr player, then thru my Sony out firewire then captured it DV avi with Ulead MF2 then I tried to render it to dvd and the program kept crashing I even tried Ulead Workshop trial version and it still kept crashing, like it could not complete the render, it gets up to 66% then crashes, Then i downloaded TPNGEnc and rendered in there to a vob file which it worked and then burnt the file to dvd using Ulead MF2, Go figure? I seem to be having a lot of problems here. The dvd did burn ok and looks ok to. I just dont know why Ulead keeps crashing? I still have 80 gigs free on my raid drives ( 2 80 gig sata seagates raid 0) and I thing I have enough HP 3200+ amd, 512 MB ddr 400. I also recently defraged my drives.
Thank you for your response.
lenl1