Ulead VS10 Plus: Jumpy Motion DVD's Downconverting HDV to DVD Help Please

[Andy Wilkinson]

Hello to all,

I've been reading around in this excellent forum (and another dedicated Australian Ulead one) for a couple of months now and despite some serious searches have not found a solution to an issue I'm experiencing with Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus (with it's SP1 patch.)

I'm working (for nothing!....hard!!!) on a charity film (new tourist DVD) for my local cathedral and have been editing Sony HC1 & V1E PAL HDV files (1080i m2t I think they are) and can create really beautiful edited footage which I can view in high definition on my PC no problem, excellent definition and nice smooth action.

Whenever I downconvert the files to PAL 720x576 MPEG2 (typically 8000 kbps VBR, 2 pass encode, quality slider set to 100% with the VS10+ software) I always get a stepping/jittery movement in things like cars driving past, people walking or any kind of slow panning or zooming in the finished DVD when played in all the players/PC's in my house (and other's houses!) However, the downconverted file (i.e. standard definition) will play beautifully on my PC, no "stepping" or jerky movements (i.e. just as well as the "master" High Def one but obviously with less resolution...so I think my PC is up to the job.)

I've played around with different DVD encoding/burning quality settings (70 to 100%), tried 6000-9000 kbps VBR etc. but it seems (to me) that the conversion from the file on my computer (that plays just fine) to the file on my burnt DVD is where the problem is. Maybe this Ulead software is not up to the job or maybe my hardware is not???

I've read a lot about HDV GOP's being long and the possibility of increasing the number of I Frames from 12 to 6 etc. but I wondered if there is something much more simple that I'm missing.

I will add that when I downconvert Upper Field First m2t MPEG files to the lower quality standard definition I keep the same UFF (I've also tried Frame based - no improvement.) I've also been following the excellent info in the specific Ulead VS10+ tutorial at http://www.hd-video-editing.com/HDTutorial_Page1.html

If anyone can make any helpful suggestions I'd love to hear them. Right now I'm trying the silly way of solving it (well seems that way to me but hopefully it will work! ). I'm exporting my fully edited m2t HD file back from VS10+ to my HDV Camera and then I'll re-import it from camera with iLink conversion on (HDV to DV) and with that (AVI) file I'll then go through the steps to burn a DVD and hopefully get smooth motions/actions....it's just that it takes forever.

I should add that if I do camera iLink downconversion of any of our HDV work to DV I can edit and burn excellent DVD's ...(so my burner is OK I think!) but the thing is we want to ultimately produce a "stunning masterpiece" finished file in High Def for ultimate sale in the cathedral shop as a HD-DVD or BD-DVD and then simply convert that "masterpiece" to normal DVD (where I imagine the bulk of the sales/profit will come from.)

If I can help it, I don't want to go back and capture all the many hours of tape in downconverted DV and edit that to the finished product with Ulead VS10+ (even though I know that will work well) because I will then have to repeat the whole thing in High Def. again in the near future.

Seriously considering buying Sony Vegas 7 + DVD Architect 4 (or maybe Vegas 8 Pro) so any comments on whether or not that has a better encoder etc./might help me would also be welcome.

Many Thanks in advance.

Andy
_________________
My PC is as follows: Win XP, Dell Dimension 4600, 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 HT, 2.5 GB RAM, Crucial Radeon X1600 Pro Videocard, Numerous NTFS Drives (internal and external, all 7200 RPM)

[Chris Soucy]

If the file plays fine from your hard drive, have you tried using other DVD burning software (Nero?) to write the file to a DVD? Nero seems to be given away in Corn Flake packets these days so shouldn't be too hard to get a copy.

Worthwhile checking that DMA is set for your burner (s) as well, I just test ran Nero to see if it would do as I'm suggesting and it immediately popped up with a message saying one of my DVD drives had mysteriously un - DMA'ed itself.

Also worth checking that the DVD burner isn't a slave on a IDE pair with the master hogging the resources.

If you can't get Nero I'm sure there are heaps more el cheapo DVD writing apps that would be worth trying.

Best I can come up with for the moment.

Keep us posted.


CS

[Chris Soucy]

This info relates to DVD burning problems in Adobe PE4, but is still a pretty whiz bang troubleshooting sequence for general DVD writing problems. Give it a scrute and try some of the things suggested, it may just sort the problem.

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...2332&sliceId=2


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Thanks very much Chris for your helpful suggestions from both myself and my friend Warren Trotter who is working on this project with me. I see you're in NZ. Warren is in fact a native New Zealander from Invercargill...not too far away from you!...small world!

Will look into your suggestions.

[Chris Soucy]

You're right, I'm not far from his home town. You're actually not that far from one I called "home" for a good many years - London (well, in the cosmic sense, anyway - tho' my geography of the UK is on a par with same about NZ - where TF is Ely? I should know, really!).

Hope something I suggested actually works.

Keep me posted.


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Ely is in Cambridgeshire, about 70 miles directly north of Central London and 13 miles north of Cambridge. It's a bit flat round here (Ely is about the only hill - and then it's only 50 feet!) Mind you, the huge cathedral that stands on that hill can be seen for miles and miles on a clear day!

I checked DMA was enabled on both my internal hard drives. Did not know how to check it was on my DVD drive from Devices Manager. Made sure I still had disabled write behind caching on both hard drives and that my page file size was large (I set it to 4GB but I'm not sure really what I should set it to - my RAM is 2.5GB)

OK, I tried burning a short film (my mate filming the Cathedral from a microlight...lots of jumpy action!) using the Sonic MyDVD burning software that came bundled with my Dell (it's probably not good enough to put in a cornflakes packet for all I know...but wait!) This was an 8 minute PAL DVD file and the result was pretty smooth video!...much, much better than what I'd made the other day burning the exact same file with the Ulead burning software. Started to feel very happy...

Then loaded my Rough Cathedral Edits DVD file into Sonic MyDVD burning software (about a 20 minute 1GB file) and when I went to burn it, after a period of it doing stuff, I got this error message.

"Video Picture Size Larger Than Buffer" and "DVDErr, -1 Info name = [my file name] ref LApgc. time 99.36"

I Googled this and found some guy who had the exact same error a while back using Premier Pro editing software, can't remember details but he basically got round it by using Nero 7 for his burning stage.

I have no idea what this error message means.

Considering getting Nero 7 downloaded but before I do I decide to completely remove and re-install my all Ulead VS10+ Software and it's HD Plug-in and SP1 patch. Should have that done by morning then hopefully I'll have time to test it again.

Also, you also wrote something about the DVD burner being a slave with the master hogging shared resources...I was not sure what that really means/how to check. Can anyone help me understand this please...or any of the above? Many thanks again.

I'm a Mod on another technology site (Personal Media Player stuff) and I spend a lot of time helping people out so I know how time consuming it can be and appreciate any advice that comes my way!!!!

Andy

[Chris Soucy]

Most (all?) IDE ports can run two devices, with one declared the master, the other the slave. Which one is which depends on the type of device and where you want it in the resource pecking order.

The master get's the channel every time if it wants it, the slave has to wait. If you have a critical, buffer dependant device like a hard drive on the same IDE port as a CD player (say) you don't want the slowcoach CD player getting channel control over the hard drive, so the hard drive gets master status.

However, if the hard drive is master, a DVD writer slave may suffer a buffer under/ over run whilst waiting for the channel. Depending on your system build and drive types it is possible this has happened - if all you drives are IDE and you only have two IDE ports (for a total of 4 devices) things can get a bit tight if you have 2 hard drives and 2 DVD drives, for example.

Hope this makes sense.


Chris

PS. Ahah, yep, should have twigged, been there, done that many moons ago.


PPS. If you do find you have a hard drive on each of your two IDE ports, each sharing with a DVD writer or some such (this is most easilly done by physically checking what has been cabled to what in the PC), you may want to try:

1. Run a benchmark on something that requires a fair bit of hard drive thumping.

2. Re - configure you drives so that the two hard drives are on the same IDE port, the System disc master, data drive slave.

3. Re run the benchmark to see if you've taken a throughput hit. If you haven't or or have but it's acceptable, put the DVD burner on the other port all on it's lonesome and see if THAT solves the problem.

[Andy Wilkinson]

Hi Chris,

Just to let you know that removing and completely reloading the Ulead VS10 Plus software, it's SP1 patch and the HDV Plug-in got rid of about 80% of the jittery/stepping motion problems in my 1.9GB "Rough Edit" DVD video. I've been up most of the night on this so I'm pretty happy to have made some progress!!!

Thank you for helping me out Chris! - the idea that the burning software was an issue made me do the step of trying alternatives and then reloading it.

I now have some parts of the project with nice slow pans and slow zooms on the downconverted DVD! Cars drive smoothly past and people walk without making sudden sharp steps etc. etc. Even that microlight footage (which I'd slowed to 40% speed) now looks smooth and watchable!

However, there are still some parts of the "rough master edit file" that exhibit problems with motion when put on DVD and these seem to correspond to areas of the project where I've been doing a lot (A LOT) of edits in Ulead VS10 Plus over the last month or so. Any little or unedited material that I've downconverted and put on a DVD is absolutely fine so this is telling me something I think.

I've read on other Forums that Ulead has a problem with 'smartrendering'. I've used this feature a lot (as the files are quite large) as I've upgraded my master edit file to a "better and better one" and I'm now wondering if this has been the root cause of at least some of my problems.

I think I now have 2 solutions in front of me.

1. Go back to the master High Def m2t files (I have them all on one of my external hard drives for safe keeping) and do a completely fresh project edit in VS10+. At least I know roughly the scenes I need so it won't take too long to go back to "virgin" files.

2. As above, but using a more capable editing suite. I'm leaning heavily towards Vegas 7 now as I think I've taken Ulead as far as I can/have reached the limit of it's capabilities. I've had a lot of fun with it over the last 2 years (started with VS8, then 9 then 10....but would n't touch 11 as there have been so many issues with it being unstable/unworkable...just read the various Forums!)

Anyway, unsure if I should post this here or start a new thread.

My main question now is, anyone have experience of both Ulead and Vegas 7 has any comments about their comparative capabilities?

The online reviews for Vegas 7 sound superb (BTW, I don't need the additional features of the new Vegas 8 Pro just yet) - but then I guess they should as I'd be moving up from a 80 quid video editing suite (Ulead) to a 380 quid one (Vegas 7.)

Thanks again, Andy

[Chris Soucy]

Really glad to see progress being made.

I'll be interested to read how you're upgrade to whatever goes, yet another learning curve!

Good luck.


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Hi Chris and all,

just to let you know that I installed Sony Vegas 7 (and it's bundled DVD Architect 4) about a week ago and have just finished my 1st DVD with it (15 min Standard Def). Note: I deliberately avoided Vegas 8 Pro for now as it seems bug ridden/less stable from web pots (including on this site)....looks like it's been released a little too early. Maybe I'll upgrade later when it's sorted.

I'm VERY pleased with this first DVD project - plays superbly and was real fun to do. Played it to some friends in the pub last night (on a 7-inch portable DVD player) and got some very complimentary comments!!! I did all the editing in HD then downconverted it at the end to get it viewable off my PC/on TV etc.

Anyway, it's true! Vegas is fantastic software. A bit daunting in places for sure. With Ulead Videostudio 10 Plus and it's predecessors (I started with 8) I felt I'd more or less maxed out on it's capabilities recently. I now see with Vegas that I've only just started! So much potential - once I've figured out all the complex stuff and it seems to handle HD really well. The other thing I love is the two monitor support - works a treat for me.

I'm really enjoying the upgrade and my 2 years odd with Ulead has given me a good grounding to understand most of the basics in Vegas.

So to anyone reading this thinking about making the switch - well for me it was the right thing to do. I'll still use Ulead for "quick stuff" (in Std. Def) until I'm fully up to speed with Vegas but otherwise it's history.

Andy

My PC is as follows: Win XP, Dell Dimension 4600, 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 HT, 2.5 GB RAM, Crucial Radeon X1600 Pro Videocard, Numerous NTFS Drives (internal and external, all 7200 RPM)

[Chris Soucy]

Glad to hear you finally got it sorted.

It's really good to hear a "happy ending" with any of the problems that appear here on DVinfo, but there's even more satisfaction with the true "horror" stories (even if nothing you've contributed actually did the business!).

Keep us posted with the next triumph!


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Well you asked for news on the next triumph!......

Just finished a 30 minute DVD (downconverted from some HD footage) I took at Duxford Flying Legends Airshow (just down the road in Cambridge) this summer. Going to give it out to a load of mates in with their Xmas cards.

We go every year to this event but this year was the first time I took a camcorder (Sony HC1) and I sure learnt how difficult it is to shoot some of this stuff. However, I'm really please with the way the editing and DVD actually came out in Vegas 7/DVDA 4. Superb clarity even with high speed (and close in!) pans for passing Spitfires, Hurricanes, P51's etc. Got some great sound with the Rode Videomic I had on my HC1 too!

On one or two VERY fast action/horizontal panning shots I do seem to be pushing the m2t to MPEG2 downconverting to the limit. The HD final edit file plays perfectly well on my video editing PC but resulting DVD has the occassional "horizontal banding of lines" if I keep it as an UFF interlaced video which I can just see on PC's, HDTV and even on on my CRT widescreen TV.

In truth, I'm probably being really picky about an otherwise superb result but I'm currently trying to see if a progressive scan rendered version of the same Vegas project file on DVD will be better than the interlaced one I've just made.

However, I also see I'm pushing my own handholding capabilities over the edge (!!!)...it needed a lot of editing to get the best clips as it's really difficult staying true on some of the high speed & low level flying stuff. Next year I'll try and use a Fig Rig and see if that helps with more stability in hand holding/fast panning (I don't think tripod will be the answer but may take that as well to try.)

Anyhow, overall I'm feeling pretty pleased with how easy and well it came out with Vegas.

Andy

[Chris Soucy]

Thanks for the update, good to hear things progressing so well.

Kept meaning to get to Duxford for one of the air shows, but something cropped up to kybosh it every time. Got there with a mate (finally) just to have a look 'round anyway, and was most impressed.

Looks like the Christmas Card Arms Race just took another giant leap forward!

That's going to be a tough one to beat.


CS

[Andy Wilkinson]

Thanks Chris!

Just to let everyone know I studied both the UFF and Progressive versions of this DVD over and over (mostly with the sound turned up to get the great noises!) and as far as I can tell they are no different...and like I said before excellent (to me!) apart from the occassional shots with some horizontal banding.

By this I mean "slightly lighter and slightly darker alternate lines approx 5mm high" (a bit larger on my big HDTV) on things like peoples heads in the crowd (in lower part of frame) as I fast pan past them with plane above. Sometimes their heads have a jagged "sawtooth" edge type of appearance.

I also see this "banding" very occassionally on revolving plane turboprops (close up) or on clouds since it was a dramatic sky with sunshine and dark clouds as a backdrop to my fast panning shots!

Not sure if this a HDV to Std. Def. MPEG2 (i.e. DVD) conversion type artifact (regarding the long GOP) or something to do with "rolling shutter" type thing with my Sony HC1 HDV cam (???) I had read somewhere that conversion from HDV (.m2t) to a Progressive Std. Def. MPEG2 DVD file might be smoother for fast motion but with potentially LESS resolution than the Upper Field First Interleaved DVD file. Is this true??? However, as I said, I'm not convinced I can tell any difference between these 2 DVD's! They both look excellent when played on my various PC's and TV's and especially on my Sony PS3 which upsacles them to my Samsung HDTV!

I'm just curious to learn more so if anyone is reading this and has experience/expertise on this "banding thing" please comment.

Regardless, I'm sure my mates are just going to love getting those Xmas cards with my Duxford Flying Legends DVD's inside!!!!!

Andy