I'm having all kinds of trouble making a DVD
 

I'm having all kinds of trouble making a DVD.

My compressed video looks good in QuickTime, it looks good in the DVD Studio Pro simulator, but bits and pieces of it have horrible interlacing artifacts during playback of the actual finished DVD. It's even sometimes different from one playback to the next. It seems to happen if I play through, but not if I jump to the spot where I saw the problem before.

This is in the OSX DVD player, so it's not like I'm trying it on some junky old set-top player or something, and I've used *only* Apple products for the entire workflow once I got it out of the camera. I need this thing to look good on computers as well as TV's, since I think many of our customers will watch it on their laptops (probly many Macs, with this exact player, too).

My friend played it back on his Mac and it did the same thing, so it's not my Mac or my copy of DVD Player or OSX. He was actually the one who alerted me to the problem.

I've tried dozens of different combinations of settings when compressing the files, single-pass, double-pass, different framerate conversions, and I always have to make the full DVD because it never shows up in a short sample.

My theory is that I have an edit in the middle of a frame which is throwing it out of sync, so that it's showing fields from adjacent frames together as a frame. Has anyone had this problem when reducing the framerate, and having an edit between two fields in the same frame? I think it may be the case that I have an edit like this, and it's throwing the fields out of sync with the frames. If I single-step through, it looks like this is what is happening.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've been working on this problem for almost 2 weeks now. I've never seen a commercial DVD do this, so there must be a way to fix it.

If anyone wants a copy of the DVD to see the problem for yourself on your Mac, I can send you one. I'm desperate to get this thing working right since I'm behind on this project already.

Also I think I'll call Apple about this, but I bet the DVD Player support blames it on Final Cut, and Final Cut support blames it on the player. I'll have to make them talk to each other, since I think it's caused by some kind of interaction between the two.

The encoded video looks so much better in QuickTime than it does after being burned onto a DVD, I don't get it.

John it sounds like from what I've read that you're simply using a compressed format QT movie and dumping that into DVD SP and then making your DVD burn. That's the wrong method; DVD SP will convert and non DVD-spec video into MPEG2 compliant files - which means DVD SP is actually re-compressing your video.

What you need to do is follow this guide I setup to get good-looking DVD's using Compressor to create your MPEG2/AAC files FIRST then create your DVD:

Grumpy Quail: Best Apple Compressor Settings for DVD Widescreen Downconversions

The problem is occurring using video compressed with the "DVD: Best Quality 120 Minutes" preset in Compressor.

I also tried the settings in that guide, and although the overall quality improved, the problem still occured.

Is there a specific setting that you recommend I change?

Also, is your guide for 720p or 1080i (input) video? I've found that they need significantly different settings.

I tried to convert the footage to 720/30p. I used the compressor setting "Apple ProRes 422 for Progressive Material", under the Encoder tab in the inspector I clicked on the Video Settings... button and changed the Frame Rate dropdown to 30 FPS. The file produced, however, was still 60FPS, so I'm not sure how to change a frame rate in compressor.

John,
I might have your solution if the footage was shot, edited & output as 1080i. If your DVD's are intended to be viewed on computers & flat screen TV's then I'd recommend you modify your 'DVD: Best Quality 120 Minutes' setting a little to account for deinterlacing.

1) open the 'frame controls' tab
2) click the gear button next to 'frame controls'
3) in the dialogue box turn frame controls on
4) under resizing control make output fields 'progressive'
5) under resizing control make deinterlace 'better (motion adaptive)'

If found in my testing that using Compressor to deinterlace my SD dvd footage resulted in better looking playback on computers & upconverting dvd players hooked to HDTV's. It take a little more time per encoding session, but I think it's worth the results.

If the problem continues to occur then I officially don't know.

A little more info from you might help.
- what camera was the footage shot on
- what framerate was the footage shot with
- what are your FCP sequence settings
- are you 100% sure the artifact you're seeing isn't on the source footage or on the Quicktime master?

Good luck.

converted from what? what's the source material shot at?

This info is extremely important if you want some help. It's also important to know if the interlacing problem is related to specific areas of your project, such as scenes with motion or a shot filmed with a different camera. Also, you must watch the DVD on a DVD player connected to a television set, not your computer. Computers do not play interlaced footage well and DVDs are interlaced.

All of the original was shot at 720/60p.

Cameras are all Sony NX5U.

I let FCP automatically set the sequence settings (it asks when you first import a clip).

I'm *only* seeing the problem using Apple DVD Player. It does not occur with other software players or with the set-top players I've tried. It also looks fine if I play the .VOB files directly off the DVD with VLC. I'm not sure how much farther I can get from the source footage.

Everything is Progressive (as much as is possible when writing to a DVD).

Also note that it only happens after about 10 minutes of continuous playback, if I jump to the time where I saw the problem, it doesn't occur again until it has again been playing for about 10 minutes continuously.

I tried it on my friend's (very high-spec'd) Mac, so it's not something specific to my machine.

I've also noticed that the video looks far better (even when the problem is not occurring) with VLC.

I haven't seen this problem in any commercial movies, so I think it's some kind of interaction between the Final Cut Suite, and the Apple DVD Player.

Not that it matters for what we're discussing, but do you really like the 60p look? I never have gotten into it. If so, care to tell me your age? See, I've got this theory I'm working on...

Well for the purposes of this discussion we'll assume FCP got it right & your sequence is actually 720/60p. Nothing can possibly go wrong when we assume right?

I'm tempted to say something smart-arsed here like 'well don't play it in Apple's DVD Player' but that wouldn't be very helpful.
Have you tried messing with the settings in Apple's DVD Player itself? I think I remember some type of interlacing setting there as well.
I'm stumped for now, but that William guy seems like he might know a thing or two, let's see what he says.

Progressive files are written as interlaced to DVDs. if it plays well on a set-top player you may rest peacefully.

I can't rest easily, because the majority of my customers will be playing this on a computer, so it's more important that it looks good on computers than on set-top boxes.

That would be fine for me, but this is a product my company will be selling, and I'd rather not say that to customers. :-)

for the heck of it, why not try turning on the frame controls in Compressor & running it through the way I said earlier. never know, might get lucky. I'm curious to see what'll happen.

I've been playing with the frame controls for about a week, I don't think there's a combination of settings I *haven't* tried.

I think it's a bug in the Apple DVD Player (or an interaction between the player and the Final Cut process, or maybe my video doesn't have enough motion for it to "lock on" to, or some subtle combination of these).

I'll be happy to send anyone a DVD who wants one, to see the problem for yourself.

William,
How does that work? If I have a progressive MPEG file that's authored to a DVD what happens to it?

Now you've got me curious.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that's probably not it.

I'm not William, but I'll answer your question...

The software takes a single frame and splits it into two fields. It's like if you were recording with a SD camera set to a shutter speed of 1/30.

Well, can you explain why it *only* occurs when playing back on the Apple DVD player?

cause *only* Apple's DVD Player sucks?

I've never had a problem using Apple's player to play commercial DVDs.

Don't know man I'm at a loss here. I'd say it's about time to go have a beer & figure out how you're gonna distribute through the web. I'm sorry Steve Jobs hates you.

Thank you very much for your help, I really appreciate it. :-)

I have a funny feeling I'll be dreaming about this one tonight. I can't seem to wrap my head around your problem. It's an odd one.

Have you tried contemplating it while wearing a tinfoil hat?

I think it may be because there's very little motion in my video, and the player is having trouble "locking on" to it.

If that were the case shouldn't it be happening across the board & not just with Apple's DVD Player? I'm starting to now wonder if it's something to do with 60p being turned into 60i on the DVD. Of course I've got no solution to offer at this point since you've already tried the 60p to 30p stuff & it didn't work.

Know what, I'd probably just better leave this to someone smarter. I can't solve it & am now typing to hear myself type.

Good luck to you. Tinfoil hat still recommended & thanks for giving me another reason to leave the 60p for overcrank only. Oh, and I'm still sorry Steve Jobs hates you.

Hehe, maybe I should write Steve a nasty email. I hear he actually replies sometimes. xD

It could be that the auto-detect in Apple's player sucks more than others. I still have some experiments to try (but not tonight).

60p would be theoretically optimal for DVD if the software supported it correctly. It's good for interlaced output (which I've found works quite well but looks awful on computers). I don't think 1080i would necessarily help this specific problem.

What's your theory about 60p? I'm 32 by the way. But I have a specific eye problem (nystagmus) which causes me to see flickering much more than most people. For example, those LED christmas tree lights drive me up the wall.

Please experiment with MpegStreamclip or VLC and see if the problem is repeated. Also experiment with playing the VideoTS file from the DVD directly from the hard drive with Apple DVD player. As I have said, it possibly a process in the computer that activates when the mouse hasn't been touched for 10 minutes that's causing a change in the playback.

Not everyone is going to play your DVD on a Mac, so consider testing on a PC and if the finished product is mainly meant for computer viewing you might also consider an h264 file which can retain the full HD quality of your work while taking up less space.

The DVD spec (which is old technology now) only allows 60i or 24p. 60p is beyond a DVD and must be converted to 60i which will create interlacing effects in motion. When shooting HD for DVD distribution, it pays to consider 30p as a shooting format. Many commercial movies are mastered to DVD in 24p and will never exhibit interlacing artifacts.

It's not actually the time of 10 minutes, it's how much of it has been played. I can pause/unpause during that time, and the problem starts at the same point at the DVD. I can pause and single-step through the DVD to see the interlacing clearly. This leads me to believe it's a software bug type thing.

So....

As we have asked before, is it at a specific point in the video (example: 10 minutes, 22 seconds and 12 frames in the program)?

Is there visual motion happening at this point in the program that hasn't occurred before in the program?

Apple DVD player doesn't deinterlace so when it plays interlaced footage on a progressive computer monitor, things can look ugly.

It is a specific point. If I just play the video, it happens at about 8:20. However, if I jump to, say, 7:30 (using the slider at the bottom in DVD Player) it doesn't occur, only if I've played the whole video to that point. If I've jumped ahead, it doesn't occur until another 5-10 minutes of playing later.

There isn't really any difference in the motion, it's a talking-head type of video, and the problem is very easy to spot, so I'm not just missing it because of lack of motion.

It's all progressive. I have de-interlacing turned off.

If I single-frame through it, I can see that it's displaying one field from one frame, and the other field from the *next* frame, I can see on the edges of a moving object that the even fields in one frame line up with the odd fields in the next.

The Apple DVD Player seems to be mixing fields from different frames together.

Yes, it is. What is happening is that each progressive 60p frame is being treated as a field in 60i. This is an issue that has come up in these forums before and if you do a search you might find a good solution. I have never dealt with this issue in 60p, so I don't have first hand experience and am reluctant to give you theoretical solutions.

For whatever reason the Apple DVD player accentuates the interlacing issues. What does it do with de-interlacing on? Have you tried VLC? It's free and one of the best media players around.

I can set compressor to treat each 60p frame as a field in 60i, and it looks good on an old TV, but not on a computer. However, I don't have it set that way, and that's not what it's doing.

The problem occurs exactly the same way whether deinterlacing is turned on or off in the player.

As I mentioned before, if I play the .VOB files directly off the DVD (with the VLC player, like you suggest), it plays flawlessly. It looks better than it does in the DVD player even when the player is not acting up. This is why I'm almost positive that it's an issue with the Apple DVD player.

The player isn't just accentuating an existing interlacing issue, it's incorrectly displaying fields together, from different frames, that shouldn't be displayed together.

In addition, the player seems to be incorrectly detecting reverse 3:2 pulldown and displays small portions of the video incorrectly because of this. However, it's not very noticeable, it's really only visible when single-stepping through the video. The bigger problem is the mixing of fields from different frames, which now that I think about it, may be caused when it switches back from this mode.

If you don't believe me, play a video until you see the "interlacing issues" and then single-step through the frames, and you'll see that moving objects align from one field in a displayed frame to the other field in the next.

I just had what sounds like the same issue with a DVD i was working on, but on PC, not Mac

The fix for me was to use a different encoder.