Problems with popcorn

[kevss]

I've only used Popcorn couple times, but I think I notice -- what is best terminology -- when the video starts breaking up?

 

Is this common with Popcorn, ie compressing a bit. I don't think I compressed too much if I remember correctly.

 

Is this commen problem, or do most get good results without noticing much degrgation of quality?

 

or should I cave in to dual layers DVDs?

[kevss]

thanks T. have your compared Popcorn to other alternatives? someone mentioned dvd2onex. could something do a better job than popcorn?

 

So you shouldn't see any distortion or flickering at all through the whole movie, done by popcorn then?

[tsantee]

thanks T. have your compared Popcorn to other alternatives? someone mentioned dvd2onex. could something do a better job than popcorn?

I don't have any experience with other applications that do this.

 

So you shouldn't see any distortion or flickering at all through the whole movie, done by popcorn then?

It depends on the source's existing quality and the amount of compression needed. Compression does increase the chance and presence of artifacts - typically blockiness - but in my opinion it shouldn't be seen using good-quality sources that receive compression Popcorn describes as very good or excellent. No guarantees, though. If you are seeing a lot of problems after using Popcorn try this:

 

Choose Save as Disc Image with Popcorn. When the disc image is finished, mount it and play it with DVD Player on your Mac. Choose Normal Size in DVD Player's Video menu. Do you see the problems? If not, burn the disc image to DVD using Popcorn's Image File setting. Play the DVD using the Normal Size setting in DVD Player. Does it look the same as the disc image? If not, the problem is the media. If it looks the same on the Mac but looks bad when playing on your standalone DVD player connected to your TV, then the problem is either that the player doesn't like the media or the player doesn't do a good job playing video that has a low bit rate.

[tsantee]

If the source video was good then Popcorn's additional compression should also be good. But if the source video is of low quality then additional compression will have "artifacts" like you've seen. Be sure to use good quality discs as that can also affect play back quality.