Hi,

Just spent a couple of days trying to get a good looking DVD out of my HD Project.

I got a decent one with Procoder 3. Everything seemed OK after seeing it on a TV, a PC monitor and everything ,but when I put it on a Mac and the image seems to have some “strobing” problem.

The source comes form a progressive 1080p/25 project in  Avid. The encoding is being done in Procoder3 with a QT reference.

I’m a bit desperate since I’ve done a million tests . Someone told me to drop Procoder and do the DVD from an uncompressed Quicktime from Avid and TOAST.

It seems a bit risky to use Toast (which I have never used and look so basic compared to Procoder.!!!)

Can anybody help me out with this?

Thanks in advance.

Did You try a QT ref with Avid DVD?

No. I´ll try it.

thanks.

Are the monitors all the same type?  Are they CRTs or LCDs?  I get varying levels of quality (stuttering/flicker) on playback depending on the type of monitor and the software that is playing it back.

I never preview my discs on my computer, computers are meant to play files and not discs, i have two " worst case" dvd players and a PS3 for previewing my dvd discs and i use my PS3 for previewing my bd discs, this both on my fullscreen 46 inch Sony Bravia as well on an old Philips 28 inch 4:3 TV

No one is a normal Dell LCD screen on a PC. The other is the creen on a new MacBook..

If your created discs looks good when viewed on your television set using an external dvd player, this is just a setup / previewing prob with your computer, the most common thing is that you are having interlaced media on your dvd disc and are seeing the il upper and lower fields when looking at them on your progressive computer screen.

The method you are using when previewing your discs on your computer is of very big importance, for example, power dvd on a pc has the possibilities to use hardware deinterlacing when previewing, that might not be the fact with the app you are using on your mac.

Again, when previewing discs, always use an external player and a television screen.

On the external tv it looks good, but not on a mac..

I had to give up and switch to Squeeze.

What sucks is that Procoder gave me the best quality DVDS by far but I cant take the risk of sending dvds that wont play properly on a Mac.

thanks for all your replies!!

J.Skaf:

I cant take the risk of sending dvds that wont play properly on a Mac.

thanks for all your replies!!

You´re  welcome of course

 and about that question,  I think that I already have answered that

Since you can't predict what type of software someone will be using on a Mac (or PC) to view the DVD, you should check the final disc on a TV connected to a DVD player (I like to check it on both an LCD and a CRT).  If your video looks good on a TV monitor, then your job is done - that is as good as you can get it. 

If the video looks bad (in your example) on a Mac monitor, chances are all the DVDs they watch on that monitor look bad and it won't matter.  The people who actually care about video quality are either watching it on a tv monitor or have their computer systems setup for high-quality video playback.

I have just recently run into the same problem. I have a finished DVD I compressed from a HD 59.94 timeline using Sorrenson Squeeze, then burned using DVD Studio Pro.

Playing back on a DVD players on a CRT and LCD TV, it looked great! Using PC, great.  Using the default Mac DVD player, it looked all warped and artifacty. Opended it using VLC on a mac it looks great!

Then I clicked the "Deinterlace" button on my mac DVD player and the DVD looked great!

So in response to a computer only being a file reader and not a disc reader, that is simply not the case anymore. More and more people stick a DVD player in their compuer and expect it to work. Most of my friends don't own a TV anymore.

You disc should look good on a TV, CRT, LCD and a mac computer monitor. You have to account for the lowest common denominator and that's the un-educated viewer. They stick something in a DVD player on a compuer and they expect it to work.

Im frustrated with all this too, as much as you might be, but there is a solution, im just not there yet! Cause if I buy a DVD, it looks good on all players. So that's what your clients should ge too.

Peace.

maccorm:

Im frustrated with all this too, as much as you might be, but there is a solution, im just not there yet! Cause if I buy a DVD, it looks good on all players. So that's what your clients should ge too.

To understand all this, you have some studying to do, I would recommend start with learning the differences between interlaced and progressive media.

Those Dvd:s that you buy could as well be created by one of us on this forum.

Dvd discs with interlaced media will of course look interlaced when viewed on a progressive computer screen.

Dvd discs with progressive media will look good on progressive screens and maybe less good on interlaced television screens, especially if there is a lot of movement in it.

Thanks for the reply.

I understand the difference between interlaced and progressive media but I just don't quite understand how one should proceed. Just as many people now are watching DVD's on interlaced screens as they are progressive screens. 

Also, when you say "Dvd discs with interlaced media will of course look interlaced when viewed on a progressive computer screen." Why then on one computer does the DVD look perfect, the other not? Both are progressive monitors. On that very same computer where it didn't look good, simply opening the DVD in something like VLC makes it look great as well.

Im just trying to figure out how to proceed. My 59.94 HD material was compressed to MPEG2 using sorrenson squeeze, top field first. Then burned using DVD Studio Pro.  Am I missing something?

Why do those DVD's that were very well created by someone on this forum look good on all monitors?

Thanks.

If you read my other posts in this thread, you can see that I have described what different software players are doing, some ( most) of them have deinterlacing built into them. Obviously, as I also have written, the origin player for a mac ( and this IS a PC forum, I know very little about macs ) doesn´t have deinterlacing built in whilst your VLC player seems to have, good for you, use that one for playing dvd discs.

Discs with progressive media will look " quite allright " even when played on interlaced television screens, as I not is satisfied with " quite alright " all my discs created from standard DV that is interlaced by nature of course also has interlaced media.

The same goes for the Dvd discs that I create from interlaced hdv media.

I never use Sorensen for that, just a QT ref directly to Avid Dvd for fast works.

For special works, I use Adobe mediaencoder CS3 and an old version of Sonic Dvdit Pro HD, version 6,3, Sonic have destroyed version 6,4 I think, my very strong opinion of course.

But version 6,4 works very well for working directly with QT refs.