Problems with DVD Play back

[Cliff Elliott]

Hi all, I have a question about a small problem with DVD playing that has been bothering me for some time.

The problem, if I run a DVD I have produced, in a DVD player, any titles in the production that should fade in seem to hesitate at the beggining of the fade for a second or two, so you see there superimposed on the screen the very early part of the fade on a type of pause mode then the fade continues as it should.

The odd thing is when I play the disk in my computer using Power DVD the problem does not exist.

I have tried the a number of different disks in a number of different players including Sony, Panasonic and some obscure chinese makes with the same result.

As for how I produce the DVD's, I first edit aproduction in Premiere 6 including all titles, I then export a final DV file out to disk, then load the DV file into DVD Workshop version 1.3 for authoring.

After laying out the disk I want and setting all of my menus and chapters I then ask DVD Workshop to produce a disk image.

Every thing always works well except for this small problem.
I even thought it may have something to do with the high bit rates I was selecting, so I have experimented with a range of bit rates rangeing from 5000 up to 8000, but to no avail.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks for listening.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

[Rob Lohman]

Does this only happen at the very beginning or also futher down
in a movie?

[Cliff Elliott]

Anywhere there is a title Rob, for instance with the front titles and the end titles, also when the need arises in a video to have a name of a person or a description of a place, there is always this little pause.

The strange thing is all titling is done in Premiere and is out put as a finished rendered DV file before encoding begins in DVD Workshop.

Thanks, Cliff

[Dan Euritt]

are the titles the only place it's happening at?

how about doing the mpeg2 encoding in another app, then authoring it with dvd workshop?

[Cliff Elliott]

No only the titles, I have considered doing what you suggest but I have found in the past DVD workshop is very fussy with other MPEG2 files, the other thing is I like the way I set chapters to a specific frame because I am using a DV file unlike the GOP arrangment in MPEG files.

I am curious Dan, do you think the codec could be the culpprit here, and if so do you have any idea why?

I really would like to get to the bottom of this.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

[Cliff Elliott]

I was just trying some other DVD's I have produced and noticed any bitmapped pictures with fade in and outs also show the same problem, it just occured to me that all my titeling is done using tiff files, you see I use a program called Serif DrawPlus to create the titles then export them as tiffs with alpha chanels for use in both the video editing and desktop publishing to create the DVD covers.

I wonder if this is the root of my problem, but the question is why and how do I resolve it?

Thanks again to you all for trying to help, this really is a great community.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

[Dan Euritt]

since it's only on the titles, i can't imagine what it could be :-(

i can tell you that a basic step in any troubleshooting procedure is to isolate the cause of the problem... in this case, trying to decide if it's either the mpeg encoder or the dvd authoring program/muxer would be a good place to start.

if you are encoding dvd-legal mpeg2 files, there is no reason for dvd workshop to have a problem with 'em... i would encode a short mpeg test file with your graphics, create a dvd with dvd workshop that has the problem, then try encoding the original dv test file with another mpeg encoder... see if the problem stays or goes away.

you can also use another dvd authoring program to test your current mpeg encoder... there is a free 30-day trial on dvdlab, for instance... i wouldn't use dvdlab for final delivery on a large-scale project, but it might help for troubleshooting.

[Cliff Elliott]

Thanks Dan, I have just realised the problem seems to only happen when using bitmaps fading to or from black.

I still think you are right, I will have to set up a testing program and see what I can find.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

[Oscar Sanchez]

I have the same problem with my DVD's. I recently recorded a company party for Wells Fargo, but I can't seem to record to DVD without the opening scene freezing up on the DVD. Every other chapter works well, it's only the begining. I dont know what to do. I have recorded 2 copies successfully, have trashed about 8 copies because of the freezing and need 1 more good copy to deliver my product. I am using a program called Showbiz DVD made by Arcsoft and am creating the title menus with Nero. I have a Sony Double Layer DVD Burner. I was thinking it was the burner but found out that the burner was working fine. Any suggestions?

[Cliff Elliott]

Hi Oscar, as suggested by others I have been experimenting and have almost come to the conclusion the problem occurs when I use two streams of bitmaped material on the time line of my edits.

I was about to write back to the list this week and explain my findings when your post popped up.

If I use an alpha chanel tiff file over a DV file I ahve no problems at all, but if I use a tiff file over another tiff file, this is when the delay occurs.

So for the moment I try not to have this situation arise by not mixing bitmaps.

I don't know who is to blame for this, either the Canopus Raptor DV codec or the Ulead DVD Workshop codec I use to encode to Mpeg2.

I will pursue this further and let you know what I find.

Regards, Cliff Elliott