I've searched these forums for horizontal smear, streaking, etcand haven't found an answer that works.  Here's what I don't understand.  I can't seem to get AXP to give me an output that I'm willing to accept money for.  It all looks like absolute crap.  I must be doing something wrong because this software is obviously capable of the best quality available.  I plug the camera directly into a TV and it looks goregeous.  If I use Digital Cut back to a Mini DV tape on my GL2, it looks goregeous on the TV, but no matter what I do to create a file I can use to author a DVD, it looks horrible.  I've tried QT reference, QT files, AVI output and DV stream.  I've tried separate audio from video and I've tried combined.  I've tried lower first, upper first, progressive, native dimensions, 16:9 square, avid codec selected and not selected.  I don't get it.  I get one of two outcomes.  1: I see streaking with horizontal motion where it looks like the first and second field of the interlace video are not meshing properly or 2: the output is so pixelated I wouldn't give it away much less sell it.  I'm doing audio and video mixdown before I export and I've tried both "Send to DVD" and the "Export" functions.  Can anyone help?  If you need more info please let me know and I'll gladly provide whatever I can tell you.  Thanks.

Rob

You are having a problem with pixel stretching. This happens when you attempt to squeeze a 720 x 486 frame into a 720 x 480 output.

So, there are a couple of ways to fix this that will work right away and, when yo uget used to knowing when o use the different codecs, this will get easier.

First, DVDs do not like mixed raster sizes in a QT movie. So, if you have DV and Standard raster sizes like SD Beta or digibeta in the same timeline, then doing a video mixdown is your best bet. Same goes for different sized of HD like HDV and HDCam in the same timeline. Basically, if you have different size sources in the timeline, do a mixdown.

Another ting you can do is output a DV stream from the Avid. This automatically makes your timeline 720 x 480 and your DVD authoring program will like it better.

Try that and see if it helps.

Hey Rob-

You might have the wrong version of QuickTime too- when I fixed that my DVD's looked a lot better.

 BLKDOG, I tried the DV stream before and the output was unacceptable both with and without a mixdown. 

I will check my version of quicktime.  What version should I be using?  If I'm using the wrong one, how do I get the correct one?  Thanks for all your suggestions!

 Just to make sure... have you actually authored a DVD, and viewed it on an interlaced monitor?  Looking at the output from Avid (interlaced) on the computer (non-interlaced) monitor can give you what appear to be horizontal streaking, but the end product is fine.

I've burned 2 discs but to be honest, I don't know which settings I used when I did it.  I believe the discs I burned looked horribly pixelated which would lead me to believe I did not attempt to do it in situations when I observed the streaking.  I guess my question at that point is, if a customer views the video on their LCD television, won't they see the same thing I see on my LCD video monitor?

Just taking a shot in the dark but are you expanding the DVD Playback to full screen on your computer monitor?

RUD ONE:

Just taking a shot in the dark but are you expanding the DVD Playback to full screen on your computer monitor?

I can, but it's very obvious even with a scaled window. 

The video doesn't look anywhere near as bad now.  Still not the quality of the miniDv tape, but pretty acceptable.

So, next question: is there an advantage to processing the video through Sorenson Squeeze as opposed to simply bringing the qt ref into DVDit and letting the authoring software transcode the video into a useable format?  Sorenson takes a heck of a long time for a hour and a half video at which point DVDit will still have to transcode the Mpeg2 to author the dvd.  Why bother with Sorenson?

Adding my own shot in the dark - but have you only looked at the DVD on the computer or have you watched it via a consumer DVD player and television? 

I ask this as, reading through the thread, it seems like you have been QCing the DVD on the computer only.

Yes, I burned a disc and put it in my dvd player on a regular TV.  At first I was just using the computer monitor but decided to check it out for just that reason. 

Another friend mentioned to me that having other software like Roxio installed can screw with your codecs.  Might this be causing my plight?  Are there any other specific codecs or drivers that I should be looking at to make sure they are correct?  I found out that I have QT 7.1.5 installed and my Avid Xpress Pro is 5.2.3.  Any compatibility issues there?  Thanks again for all the help.

I can almost bet that this is pixel stretching, as I explained. Can you post a screen shot for us?

 Here's a screenshot.  On the left you can see the streaking I get with a QT ref file.  On the right is the output as a dv stream.

This is a common thing in PAL, but not in NTSC, but what I saw was interlace errors. Maybe You will change the field order in the compressor.

B.t.w, do You use Sorenson as compressor, or ?

berga:

This is a common thing in PAL, but not in NTSC, but what I saw was interlace errors. Maybe You will change the field order in the compressor.

B.t.w, do You use Sorenson as compressor, or ?

Yes, I've been using Sorenson as a compression tool.  If there's a better way to do things I'd love to hear it because this is driving me nuts. 

I've tried all of the field options in Sorenson, it doesn't get any better.  It looks like that with upper first, lower first, even progressive.

 Sorenson has not be good at DVD. The last version 5 looks like they have fixed some of the problems. I use Cinema Craft Basic, it costs less then USD1000 and there is a trail version also. If it is the codec which is the problem. But, it will only cost time to test the trail version.