Pixled Image

[John Kaye]

I just finished applying the color correcter om few clips. then I proceeded to make a DVD test and I noticed that one clip (that was way oversaturated and was corrected) appears jerky and pixlated. I made another DVD copy of the same clip wihout the collor correction and it plays fine. Does the color corrector make certain clips pixalted? and if so, is there a way to correct that?

[John Kaye]

Please note that in order to make the DVD i had to make an "FCP quick time" but the actual project is still NOT rendered yet, do you think that's a contributing factor?
In case you're wondering, the color corrector changes are as follows:
Level Controls:
Highlights: 253
Mids: 70
Blacks -40
That's all :)

[John Kaye]

No one knows the answer? wow that's a first.

[Ken Tanaka]

John,
No I don't think anyone really does know the answer. But it's safe to surmise that FCP's color corrector is not the culprit. The resulting footage, when encountered by your MPEG-2 compressor, is where the problem lies.

First, make sure you're exporting the footage from FCP properly, normally as NTSC-DV 29.97fps.

Then take control of your MPEG-2 encoder by varying its data rate, etc. to see what settings avoid the break-up.

[Jeff Donald]

What software did you use iDVD or DVD SP? How long in minutes is your clip? What versions of software (inc. OS and QT) are you using?

[John Kaye]

Idvd, OSX it was a 12 min piece

[Ken Tanaka]

Unfortunately, iDVD doesn't enable you to manually manage the MPEG-2 compression process. So, if you want to continue with iDVD you'll have to work-around the problem from outside of that portion of the process.

What is the nature of the portion of the clip that breaks-up? Fast action? Camera pans?

[John Kaye]

it's a camera pan of trees and bright sky.

[Jeff Donald]

John,

First I would make sure your using the latest versions of QT 6.1.1, OS 10.2.4 and iDVD 3? I don't use iDVD and while it offers speed, ease of use and simplicity, it does have encoding limitations.

Things you can try:

Use DVD SP (I know $1,000), more flexible in encoding.

Are you watch actual DVD burns or using the software player? Sometimes the player can be misleading. Do an actual burn and check you DVD on a couple of different TV's (friends, neighbors).

Try less color correction and see if it encodes any better.

I have a feeling the detail in all the leaves and the pan movement is more information than iDVD can handle. The color correction might just be making the artifacts more noticeable.

Sorry I can't be of more help. These things are hard to accurately diagnose without seeing the images.

[Ken Tanaka]

One appendix to Jeff's suggestions.

If you have the latest QuickTime Pro you may be able to build an MPEG-2 directly from your clip. (I know that my QTPro features this as an export option.) This will give you some idea of what's going on before you plunk down $1K on DVD Studio Pro. (Note that DVD-SP does not do the MPEG-2 encoding itself anyway. You would be using something like Cleaner 6 for that.)

Unfortunately, you will not be able to bring the MPEG-2 clip into iDVD. You will still need DVD-SP to do the multiplexing, a preparatory step for creating the DVD that iDVD hides from you.

[Jeff Donald]

You would need Cleaner 5 or 6, or Toast to encode your DVD's if you move up to DVD SP. Sorry I left that out. I use toast to burn most of my DVD's. However, you can use the Apple Utility to burn also.