Hi Guys,

I've made some DVD:s as X-mas gifts and they look fairly good - but:

Some of the videoclips are shot with difficult lightning, as shade on 40% of the frame and full sun on the rest - resulting in overexposed areas. Those areas are "okey" when viewed from original DV and edited AVI - but when compressed to MPEG2 I loose all detail and get a "white square" over the area.

I've tried VBR/CBR multipass - long search, HQ..all options I can think of - but to no avail. Can you give me a hint of what to do? Or is editing the original AVI file the only way to go?

Currently using MC MPEG Encoder.

// Lazze \\

I've also had serious problems with overexposure after converting to MPEG-2. It looks fine as uncompressed AVI, but after the mpeg conversion it overexposes everything. I would also appreciate some suggestions.

It sounds like the IRE levels get banged around a bit. You also
might want to try some other encoders, the three best:

1. Canopus ProCoder (www.canopus.com) (medium price range)

2. CCE (www.cinemacraft.com) (expensive)

3. TMPGEnc (www.tmpgenc.net) (cheap / free)

Hi Lars,

Also, depending on your NLE capabilities, you may be able to fix IRE problems right on the timeline. Vegas is said to have this, and I know PPro does. I don't know about any of the less expensive editing programs, though.

For PPro, apply the Effects>>Video>>Broadcast Colors effect. It is probably easiest to make a new sequence, place onto it the sequence that originally had been ready-for-export, then apply the filter to it within the new sequence's timeline. This filter has both NTSC and PAL settings.

If the filter makes an area lose detail, the area is either too bright or too dark for "legal" broadcast. You may then want to undo the effect and work with luma and chroma effects a little to salvage some of the detail.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your input!

Ah, Broadcast colors - how could I forget, thanks!

Rob, just tried TMPG and it does a good job when right configured. The UI leave some things to be desired - but all in all it works good!

So pleased, just bought a Manfrotto 728B Digi-tripod with a 3-way panorama head for 140:- USD - it was so cheap that I bought a semi-pro cutter machine as well, for making nice frames on photos and stuff :-)

// Lazze \\