some DVD issues - blacks, audio

[Richard Alvarez]

Josh,
Sounds like your Black levels are getting 'set up' twice. Instead of 7.5 its now 15? Somewhere in the process, you are adding settup, and then in the disc burning, it's getting added again? Just a thought. That would explain the milky looking blacks.

[Rob Lohman]

Josh: follow Richard's advice. Also, the main burning application will either
come up with a wizard where can select DVD or in advanced mode where
you can select DVD from the pulldown (CD is the default) to allow burning
of DVD data discs or DVD video discs (if you already have a VIDEO_TS
directory on your harddisk).

Good luck!

[Josh Bass]

Thanks Boyz. I'll mess with it. I also posted in the Roxio forums.

[Josh Bass]

Ok, so, I went and bought Nero. I'm still getting the same issue, with the blacks, and I wondered if anyone knew how to adjust setup? I looked in the manual, and in the help files, and got nothin'.


I looked at the original AVI of one movie, via Vegas 4 and my NTSC monitor, and, into the same monitor (different input), I plugged in my DVD player, and a burned DVD of the same movie, and did an A/B comparison. The blacks are way washed out on the burned DVD vs. the original AVI, both in the letterbox (I did 16:9 with a mask), and in the actual picture portion of the frame. I don't know if this helps anyone or means anything, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Dan Euritt]

if you used nero strictly for burning, it will not alter the picture in any way.

try outputting a short dv avi file to your hard drive, and see if you can get nero to encode it, and create a dvd... that way, you'll be bypassing a big part of your present workflow, in an attempt to isolate where the problem is happening.

[Josh Bass]

Here's a new twist.

Just for fun, instead of playing the DVD in my DVD player, I played in the computer's DVD-R drive, and compared the image to the MPEG-2 on my hard drive, that was burned to said DVD. On my computer monitor, they look the same. That is to say, when played on the computer's DVD drive, there's no issue with blacks.

So. . .

Is is the DVD player itself, or the Svideo or RCA cable that's screwing up the blacks?

I could understand if it was just one DVD player, but every one I try it in does the same thing, and I've tried both S-video and RCA cables, with the same results.

I saw some of my movies projected recently, and the funky black levels were present there to. Weird.

[Christopher Lefchik]

My guess would be the DVD player. All DVD players (at least in the U.S.) add 7.5 IRE setup when outputting the signal. Check the setup menu for your DVD player to see if it has a setting for the black level. If it does, try turning it off and see how the picture looks.

[Josh Bass]

Dude! Brilliant.

But let me ask you this: if I've seen other people's personal projects projected and they looked ok, how come mine looked jacked up? If it was on the same DVD player, that is.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Mmmm, you got me there. Maybe they crushed the blacks during editing? The only way to tell would be to run the video signal through a waveform scope.

I had a similar black level "problem" happen to me a couple years ago. After a good bit of head scratching and some tests, I finally concluded it was the DVD player adding the U.S. NTSC setup, which is correct for normal displaying on SD televisions. Now our family has an HDTV, so I set the black level menu setting to off on the DVD player.

See this other thread about black level problems with a DVD: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=41911

[Josh Bass]

Thanks, dudes.

[Christopher Lefchik]

I've been thinking about this some more. Besides the possibility of analog video being captured with setup added (see link to other post I provided above), there is also the possibility of the DV camera recording video with 7.5 setup. I know the Sony PD150/170 has a switch to do this, and it sounds like according to a post on another forum that the Canon XL-1s does as well. I don't know if any other camcorders have it.

If, whether during analog capture or during the shooting process 7.5 IRE setup is added, then when the final DVD is played back and the DVD player adds the 7.5 IRE setup, all your blacks end up at 15 IRE and you have an ugly mess.

I'd recommend checking your camcorder to see if it is set to record with or without setup.

[Josh Bass]

There is definitely not a switch to add/take away setup on the XL1s. You can adjust the pedestal, but I never do.

[Christopher Lefchik]

Well, that rules out that potential problem for your case.

[Rob Lohman]

The XL1S has a "setup" slider that control the black level. But not a fixed 7.5
IRE switch indeed.

[Sean McHenry]

I have to admit to not reading this entire thread but, DVD players themselves add setup on their output. Your master tape may have the correct 7.5 level on it but when you encode for DVD, you actually should start with the black levels at 0 IRE. You can substantiate this by playing a bit of one of your tapes and switching between the tape and a DVD of the same material.

I do believe this is a result of film, from which most DVDs were created in the begining, having no setup levels - basically 0 IRE. To display film on an NTSC television, they have to add setup so the blacks will display correctly on the screen. What better place to do this than in the DVD players themselves.

To keep this from happening, you will end up making 2 masters. One with 7.5 for analog tapes and one at 0 IRE for DVD encoding.

Some DVD Encoding software allows you to choose with or without setup. YMMV.

Good luck to all. For extensive information on balck levels and setup, do a forum search for those topics. We have had many heated discussions on the subject lately. Seek out Graeme Nattress web site also as he has finished a lengthy but detailed article on the issue.

Sean McHenry