Problem with iDVD

[Scott Hamilton]

Hey guys I am having trouble with iDVD and was wondering if anyone could help. Whenever I burn a movie and watch it back on my TV there is a small green line across the bottom of the screen and stays there for about half the movie. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? My movie is in a AVI format. Let me know if anyone has an idea how to fix this. Thanks.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Scott Hamilton

Hey guys I am having trouble with iDVD and was wondering if anyone could help. Whenever I burn a movie and watch it back on my TV there is a small green line across the bottom of the screen and stays there for about half the movie. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? My movie is in a AVI format. Let me know if anyone has an idea how to fix this. Thanks.

Green line at the bottom, eh? Sounds to me like you burned an AVI that is from a PAL source, would that be correct?

[Jonathan Levin]

Hi Scott,

I notice the same thing happen on one of my projects. I hope someone has an answer. My source was NTSC.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Jones]

This is a potential can of worms that would first have me wanting to know more about the specifics of your source content. Just like .mov, the .avi format only indicates the wrapper for the content, but doesn't offer any insight as to the underlying details that make up the content (ie: file size, subcodecs, compression formats, ratios, frame size, etc.)

As a consumer level application, iDVD is a very capable program that provides very decent results, but is initially intended to work with a narrow range of source content to provide optimal results. While it is technically compatible with a range of content formats, some of which are VERY lossy, it will still insist upon applying its own flavor of compression, and sometimes, the results can be disastrous.

Tell us more about the details of your source content and hopefully we can narrow down the problem for you.

-Jon

[Scott Hamilton]

Sorry, I have been out of town, but here are some more specifics. The original files were captured from NTSC DV tapes onto a PC with Pinnacle studio. They captured into AVI format. The movie was edited, rendered into 4 sections (all AVI) and put onto a harddrive, and put onto the mac. I put the sections together with FCE and rendered it out into a high quality quicktime file, and put that into iDVD. We did try first going right back to AVI first but that didn't work... if anyone thinks that sounds kinda funny I can give the specifics on that too and hopefully someone will be able to help, because going from AVI to Quicktime did produce some loss of quality... and I'm wondering if thats where the green line came from.

Scott

[Robert Lane]

Can you post a screen-shot of a scene with the green line?

The other question is whether or not you see that line in FCE?

[Jonathan Jones]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Jones

Just like .mov, the .avi format only indicates the wrapper for the content, but doesn't offer any insight as to the underlying details that make up the content (ie: file size, subcodecs, compression formats, ratios, frame size, etc.)

-Jon

Your loss of quality moving from AVI to Quicktime sounds odd. If both formats conform to the NTSC DV standard, any difference between them should be extremely negligible. As I noted above, indicating that the file is AVI doesn't specify any usable info about the clips. If you noted a loss of quality when rendering your AVIs into NTSC Quicktime, I am guessing that your AVIs were formatted into a highly compressed format such as Cinepak or smaller frame size or something that blowing them back up to NTSC DV 720x480 introduced image noise and pixelation.

If you are unable to get into the file info of your AVI files, can you at least offer some info on clip file comparison in terms of video length and file bit size. This will also help determine the degree of 'lossiness' that might be introduced in your file conversion processes.

(ie: If you are taking a 5 minute AVI file that weighs in 140 MB and render it through Final Cut into a Quicktime NTSC (full quality file) weighing it around 1 Gigabyte, then your source AVI content is a highly compressed video file that is considerably lower quality than the end format quality you are trying to achieve.- I only used these specific stats to illustrate my point - not as a determination of the specifics of your particular content/format.)

-Jon

[Mike Bisom]

You are rendering out of FCE as a "high quality QuickTime file"...

... why?

You should be able to export a non-self contained file at your project settings and drag that to iDVD.

Mike

[Scott Hamilton]

Hey guys, I have a bit more information that I hope will help... here is a better, more detailed outline of our problem:

We edited the film on a PC using Pinnacle, exported it into 4 AVI files (the original capture source), and compiled the 4 AVI's on Final Cut Express (our PC couldn't handle exporting a 50 minute video file of that size, which is why we went to FCE). We did try first exporting those AVI's in FCE using the standard "export non self contained quicktime movie" option, but there was some definite loss of quality as well as dropped frames (we could tell because there is a shootout scene, and there were noticeable amounts of muzzle flashes missing). My guess for the loss of quality is because the footage was not captured in FCE. May or may not be why. After that, we also tried using Quicktime conversion>Quicktime file with these specs:

Video
Compression: H.264
Quality: Best
Frame Rate: 29.97
Key Frame Rate: 24
Frame Reordering: Yes
Encoding mode: Multi-pass
Dimensions: 557x417 (Current)

Sound
Format: Integer (Little Endian)
Sample rate: 48.000 kHz
Sample size: 16-bit
Channels: Stereo (L R)

The only things I changed was quality, and frame rate (to match that of the AVI). But I must admit after typing that out, I wonder if I've just answered my own question, specifically regarding the video dimensions... I know that the Quicktime dimensions of 557x417 are different than our AVI's. But I'll be the first to admit I know little on this subject, so I'll keep going because there is probably more to it than dimension size.

The Quicktime conversion file looked better than the Quicktime movie, but still dropped frames. Now, we think our original idea of going back to AVI with FCE and putting that into iDVD is the best option... if it would just work. Here are some specifics on those 4 AVI files from Pinnacle (which I now realize are easily different than the Quicktime specs stated above):

Video
Compression: DV
Quality: 100%
Resolution: Standard
Frame rate: 29.97 fps
Dimensions: 720x480

Audio
Compression: PCM
Channels: mono
Sample rate: 48khz
Data Rate: 1536

This information is straight from the exporting screen in Pinnacle. Also it should be noted that in Pinnacle, these specs cannot be changed.

(Also if it matters, the only thing different from the exported AVI files in Pinnacle, as opposed to the unedited captured clips in Pinnacle is that the clip properties of the unedited AVI's include this: Video Data Rate: 807 kbps, and Audio sample size: 16 bit. This may be the same for the AVI's that Pinnacle exports but it just doesn't say. AND as I said, when exporting, they cannot be changed, so I guess it doesn't matter...)

Now in FCE, after lining up the 4 AVI's from Pinnacle, we tried exporting them into one big AVI using these specifications:

Video
Compression: DV/DVCPRO - NTSC
Quality: Best
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Scan mode: Interlaced
Aspect Ratio: 4:3

Audio
Format: Uncompressed
Sample Rate: 22.05 kHz
Sample Size: 16
Channels: 1

The only difference I see there is the difference in Audio Sample rate (48 kHz vs 22.05 kHz, respectively). Could that be the problem? The weird thing is that FCE DID let us export just 1 of those 4 AVI's (back to AVI) just fine, and even went into iDVD with no problem. It just doesn't work when they are all 4 together (using the same settings). It goes through the process fine, but when you go to open the AVI file (which is a 10 gig file, so something is there), it opens a mini version of quicktime (just like a rectangle) with no audio or video. When you hit play, nothing happens. Is this a problem with Quicktime or with the AVI? We tried putting that AVI into iDVD but it wouldn't take it. Also, it won't let us transfer this 10 gig AVI onto a harddrive with plenty of space (it says there is an error). I did download a VLC player to try playing it, and when it opened it said this AVI is broken would you like to fix? I tried that... it worked and attempted to play it, but was poor quality.

For our movie premier (last week), we had to just export it as a high quality Quicktime file (using the stated specs above), and put it in iDVD, because we ran out of time. It played fine, but there was still a loss in quality. It may not have been noticeable to most viewers, but its something we need to fix before we copy the DVD's.

Please help! Sorry this is so long, but I didn't want to leave anything out. I guess it comes down to figuring out if we can get FCE to render the long AVI file, or figuring out if Quicktime conversion will look better if I match the specifications exactly. I can go ahead and try that now, but I will need some help figuring out why the first option isn't working. And of course, if you have another method or format to try, let me know!

Scott