Dvd Playback Hesitation

[southside_glen]

Greetings,

 

First time post to this forum. I am technically fairly proficient in computers audeio engineering and video editing, but this is my first time with the Roxio software and DVD burning, the latter of which I am quickly coming to understand as a black art to some degree.

 

I have a 1hr33min video which I edited in Vegas 4 and rendered as an MPEG2 Using their Main Concept plugin. The render specifications for the MPEG file are as follows:

 

NTSC-DVD video with MPEG Layer2 audio

Variable bit rate (Max: 8Mbps, Avg: 6Mbps, Min: 192Kbps)

720x480 4:3 @ 29.97fps

 

I'm using this rendered file (which plays back fine in all players on the computer) as the base file to burning a DVD using the DVD Builder app with EMC7 Build 7.1.0.95 ENU. The burner is a Plextor PX-716UF external hooked up to my Toshiba Satellite (2GHz Celeron) via USB2.0 port. I'm using Verbatim 16x DVD-R media, recommended by Plextor and most other companies. Both the drive and the media spec out fine using both the Plextor Pro tools and the Nero benchmarking tools. The projected size of the rendered DVD Burner project is 4088.6MB, which should fit onto the Verbatims with little to no problem.

 

The DVD appears to burn fine from DVD Burner. And it does play back, and all menu and chapter functions work fine, etc. However the video playback itself is erratic; every so often (maybe an average of once a minute or so?) the video playback from the DVD "hiccups" in that it goes into slow motion for maybe 2 seconds or so then suddenly speeds up to fast motion to catch up to the audio again (which plays back normally without any audible errors through the whole DVD.) These "hiccups" occur thoughout the video from the begining through to the end of the video.

 

The test playback machine is a consumer-level, stand-alone Mintek DVD player which has shown no compatability trouble in the past with anything from commercial DVDs to MP3 discs and VCDs. And it has played back DVDs created from this same MPEG2 video but burnt from Cyberlink's PowerProducer 2 Gold without hiccup. The only reason I don't want to use the PPG-made DVDs is because PPG compresses the file down even further and the resulting video quality stinks.

 

Any idea of how I can get rid of these hiccups in playback without having to reduce video quality? I have to deliver this video to a client on Saturday and I am starting to pull my hair out over this whole DVD business.

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

G.

[southside_glen]

I'd recommend you burn it to an ISO (image) file, not direct to disc as a start. Then burn the image file to the disc using disc copier. This will separate any rendering & burning processes. I would also burn it a a lower rate, like 4x if you can. Less chance for 'glitches' that way.

 

Also, when burning the iso file, make sure you turn off/disable any unneccessarty processes like screen savers. It also can help to disconnect from the internet (if connected) and disabble any monitoring software, like a/v.

Larry, thanks for the quick reply.

 

I will try the ISO image burn first. I assume this will also give the the advantage in not having to re-render every time I want to make a copy (assuming there are no other changes to the project, of course)?

 

I am also very willing to step down the burn rate. 4x is in fact what I used with the PPG software. However, I have not found where in the DVD Burner software there is a control for burn speed. Is it a problem with my having only the Basic Edition that came with the burner or is it that I am so frazzled after making about a dozen hi-tech drink coasters that I am missing obvious menu selections?

 

G.

[southside_glen]

GOOD LUCK! I've got my fingers crossed that it'll turn out OK.

 

Please let us know how it turns out.

The flash update on the Plextor was no help, unfortunately.

 

I even tried re-rendering the source MPEG 2 at a steady bitrate, thinking that Roxio may have been having problems with the original variable-bitrate MPEG2. That was no help either.

 

And I didn't try burning at 2x because that was not offered me as an option in Roxio. 4x was the lowest option I had. But that should be fine anyway as the drive actually tests out as reliable beyond 12x on DVD-Rs in two different testing suites.

 

So I wound up having to deliver the defective burn with a heartfelt apology. Luckily we have a history already so he took it as a losing game in a winning season kind of way, but that didn't make it OK.

 

Well, I've learned two things from this process; 1.) have the same pro house that prints the artwork produce the written DVD and not just the blank, and 2.) keep single-layer DVD content to an hour in length; split longer projects into multiple volumes.

 

Oh, goodie; it's 2006. Now we get to start this wrestling match all over again with blue laser technology....

 

G.

[southside_glen]

Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same....

 

I got the AVIs into DVDB like advertised; that all worked fine. However, DVDB is telling me that even if I choose low resolution (3Mbps), that it still won't shrink the 1hr33min of AVIs to small enough to fit on a DVD.

 

This is the kind of crap I have been putting up with for about two weeks and about 15 drink coasters now. I've gone through two burners and four burner software titles and none of them tell me the same thing or act the same way.

 

4.7GB discs? Bulls**t. 2 hour discs? Bulls**t again...anything over an hour is pushing your luck. Two MPEG codecs that report equivalent - or even mathematically accurate - numbers? Not that I can find. Software that actually builds menu pages the way you want to lay them out? Not if you want one that will also actually use a standard codec. The ability to choose bitrates somewhere between "too large for single layer" and "fuzzier than a VHS rental tape from 1982"? Sure....until you actually want to burn it.

 

And this doesn't even take into account folks with bargain burners and mismatched disc brands. And god forbid if they don't know their pluses from their minuses.

 

Knock wood that the flash update didn't render my burner inpotent. I'm almost afraid to find out. I've had it with this voodoo technology; Tomorrow morning I'm burning the version that's been hiccuping. If the flash update didn't cure the hiccups, the client is going to have to live with that and the fact that if he wants his full video at full resolution, he's already got the tape prints which look 250% better than anything I have been able to get to stick to disc yet. If that is going to cost me some money, then I'll have to live with that and learn to send the tapes out to a pro publisher next time, because the prosumer technology is just a bunch of snake oil so far.

 

Thanks for the help anyway guys, you did a good job of steering me the right way even if the gear itself did wind up failing me.

 

G.

 

P.S. To the newbs: STICK WITH TAPE!

[Guest mlpasley]

Unfortunately, laptops frequently don't have the hardware necessary for the best DVD quality. The problem is usually the video card. My laptop is fine for burning and will edit and burn DVDs, but there are some feature of EMC7 that it cannot use. And my computer has a 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 which is more powerful than the Celeron. In the past, you seldom saw a computer with a Celeron chip with a DVD burner and I suspect that's because they could read DVDs but had difficulty encoding and burning a DVD.

 

With Easy Media Creator 7 Platinum, you can get one hour of BEST quality onto a DVD. Using DVD Builder, burning to an image file, and burning that file with Disk Copier, you can get 2 hours onto a DVD, but it won't be best quality.

 

If you got the update from your DVD burner manufacturer, you shouldn't have any problems with the drive.

 

As far as the hiccuping.... it could be anything from a program interferring with the burn, a problem encoding or the equipment you're using to play back the DVD.

 

Unfortunately, everyone's computer is slightly different and it takes time to get these things working properly. We usually recommend that you use a DVD RW until you get the problems ironed out in order to avoid coasters. (Although I have quite a few myself.)

 

This is still a fairly new use of computers in the personal computing market. If you're converting analog to digital, that presents it's own set of problems. For me, this is a hobby and I've learned much more than I ever wanted to about hardware and software problems. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to equal the quality of someone who's spent huge sums of money on hardware or software, but it beats having my tapes fade to black.

[southside_glen]

As far as the hiccuping.... it could be anything from a program interferring with the burn, a problem encoding or the equipment you're using to play back the DVD.

I can guarantee it's not any kind of TSR process interferring with the burn, unless it's it's a fault in the XP USB driver itself (I have the latest there.)

 

And as far as playback, I have only three machines in-house to check it on, my laptop's internal DVD-ROM drive (a TEAC OEM), The Plextor Burner itself, and the Mintek consumer player referenced earlier. The hiccups occur at the same timestamps on all three devices. The symptoms vary very slightly; on the TEAC the hiccup is a solid pause and then jump, whereas on the Mintek it's a slow-down/speed-up. But the locations and durations are identical, so it must be the burn itself that's flaked (I have not run the discs through Plextools yet, have not had the time for such forensics yet.)

 

I've been in the computer technology and the A/V fields independantly and in unison in one form or another for 27 years, and I'd be hard-pressed to think of a single technology during that time that was as unstable, unreliable and not-yet-ready for public release as computer-based DVD production is today.

 

I guess it was my stupidity for expeciting anything different and promising DVD delivery instead of just tape for the first time before dipping my toes in the acid first.

 

Sorry for the rant. This is not how I usually am on forums, I swear Just blowing off some steam at nobody in particular for letting myself be duped by computer marketing promises that I should have known couldn't be trusted.

 

G.

[Guest mlpasley]

Just blowing off some steam at nobody in particular for letting myself be duped by computer marketing promises that I should have known couldn't be trusted.

 

G.

 

I hear that.

 

I don't have trouble when I'm editing video from my DV camcorder, but analog to digital is not as good.

 

In any case, it's still not as good as tape. It's the same hype that you get with digital cameras.

[Larry]

Larry, thanks for the quick reply.

 

I will try the ISO image burn first. I assume this will also give the the advantage in not having to re-render every time I want to make a copy (assuming there are no other changes to the project, of course)?

 

I am also very willing to step down the burn rate. 4x is in fact what I used with the PPG software. However, I have not found where in the DVD Burner software there is a control for burn speed. Is it a problem with my having only the Basic Edition that came with the burner or is it that I am so frazzled after making about a dozen hi-tech drink coasters that I am missing obvious menu selections?

 

G.

Yes the ISO file will allow you to burn more copies wityhout having to re-render your project. It is basically just a single file of what is on (or will be on) the disc.

 

When you burn from within dvd builder, you are correct, there is no way to control the burn speed. However, when you go to burn the ISO file in Disc copier to the actual disc, there will be options in there where you can set the speed.

[Guest mlpasley]

Yes the ISO file will allow you to burn more copies wityhout having to re-render your project. It is basically just a single file of what is on (or will be on) the disc.

 

When you burn from within dvd builder, you are correct, there is no way to control the burn speed. However, when you go to burn the ISO file in Disc copier to the actual disc, there will be options in there where you can set the speed.

 

That is if you have the Disk Copier option in the BASIC EDITION. I don't have that version, so I don't know.

[southside_glen]

I hear that.

 

I don't have trouble when I'm editing video from my DV camcorder, but analog to digital is not as good.

 

In any case, it's still not as good as tape. It's the same hype that you get with digital cameras.

Agreed. I've been doing video editing between my PC and my camcorders (Digital8 and MiniDV) for several years now, and have never had a single issue outside of usual wear and tear stuff. It works beautifully! This project I'm currently trying to burn I've had mastered off to tape for a month already and the tape looks great. This was my first foray into DVD burning as well. My client has been extremely understanding and patient on this DVD issue, but tonight is the final deadline - I just can't make any more excuses.

 

I'm a relatively "old man" (46 isn't old...except when counted in digital years ), so I don't know who else may remember this, but as I was going over this DVD thing in my head last night, I kept flashing on "the old days" on the Trash-80 and trying to get my computer programs to actually store and load successfully to/from analog casette. It was a real crapshoot, especially if you accidentally bumped the volume control on your portable casette recorder.

 

There were three differences between that baloney and this DVD stuff; 1) back then it was just hobbyists messing around, 2) the programs were small enough where it was actually faster to re-write them than it was to get "CLOAD" to work properly, 3) you weren't forced to buy $200 worth of extra gear and media first before you found out it didn't work too well. Other than that, the reliability and frustration factor are no different.

 

That was 1979. In 27 years, nothing has changed except the wallpaper.

 

Well, I'm about to try one more test burn before I commit to the printed production disc (which hopefully won't pose it's own problems). I have updated the flash on the burner. I'm going to try a burn at 2x with the new flash. Wish me luck.

 

G.

[grandpabruce]

That is if you have the Disk Copier option in the BASIC EDITION. I don't have that version, so I don't know.

 

There is no Disc Copier in the Basic version.

[Larry]

There is no Disc Copier in the Basic version.

I didn't pick up on the version number being a basic one. hmmm

It's possible it may have disc copier in it. I had it in a v6 basic that I had once, altho it had limited options. We'll have to see what the OP has to say when they come back.

[Guest mlpasley]

We'll have to see what the OP has to say when they come back.

 

He's running out of time because the project is due tomorrow to the client and today is FRIDAY THE 13TH.

 

He edited it in Vegas Studio and I think that has a DVD burning capability. Since the glitch is probably being introduced when it's encoded from the mpeg2 from Vegas to the DVD Builder mpeg2........

 

I'd recommend that he burn the DVD with Vegas. I don't know what their menu capabilities are, but that might be the only solution to get it to the client on time.

[southside_glen]

He's running out of time because the project is due tomorrow to the client and today is FRIDAY THE 13TH.

 

He edited it in Vegas Studio and I think that has a DVD burning capability. Since the glitch is probably being introduced when it's encoded from the mpeg2 from Vegas to the DVD Builder mpeg2........

 

I'd recommend that he burn the DVD with Vegas. I don't know what their menu capabilities are, but that might be the only solution to get it to the client on time.

Not only is it Friday the 13th, but it's a full moon too!

 

Vegas4 does not have burning capability, it is an editor/renderer only...otherwise I'd be burning right from there.

 

[EDIT/CORRECTION: Vegas4 does have Print-to-tape capability via FW, and that works great. But it does not have disc burning capability.]

 

OK, I was able to create the ISO image and burn it from the "Creator Classic" app that is part of my version of EMC, via it's "Burn From Image" option. And I did burn to the Plextor at 4x with no other apps running in my task bar and no Internet connection. The system is clean from spyware/viruses/etc (I use it stand-alone only and have never even connected it to the Internet, and swept it with AdAware, SpySweeper and McAfee anyway, just to be sure.)

 

The MPEG2 created from Vegas plays cleanly in MP with no glitches or hiccups whatsoever. The burnt-to-disc ISO file still hiccups, however. What's particularly strange (to me, anyway) is that the hiccups happen in *exactly* the same locations in the video that they did yesterday when I burned on the fly.

 

This makes me wonder if there is some kind of issue with Roxio's re-rendering of the MPEG2, even though the MPEG2 appears to be perfectly clean and NTSC-DVD compliant?

 

And that leads me to the next question: Can I skip the step of rendering to MPEG2 from Vegas? In other words, can I import the AVIs directly into one of the Roxio apps and do just a single stage render from the multiple AVIs to the single ISO image?

 

Thanks again all for the assistance.

 

G.

[Guest mlpasley]

Not only is it Friday the 13th, but it's a full moon too!

 

This makes me wonder if there is some kind of issue with Roxio's re-rendering of the MPEG2, even though the MPEG2 appears to be perfectly clean and NTSC-DVD compliant?

 

Can I skip the step of rendering to MPEG2 from Vegas? In other words, can I import the AVIs directly into one of the Roxio apps and do just a single stage render from the multiple AVIs to the single ISO image?

 

Thanks again all for the assistance.

 

G.

 

Oh dear...... I could have lived without the knowledge that there is a full moon on Friday the 13th.

 

The hiccup is probably caused by the rerendering, but also make certain that you've checked the DVD burner manufacturer's website for updates. There might be a communication problem with the burner.

 

Can you render from Vegas to a DV AVI file? It's usually the output to camcorder setting. If you can do that, you can bring the movie directly into DVD Builder. That's what many people have to do to eliminate 'hiccups' and audio/video sync issues.

 

Please let us know what happens.

[Guest mlpasley]

. Wish me luck.

 

G.

 

GOOD LUCK! I've got my fingers crossed that it'll turn out OK.

 

Please let us know how it turns out.

[southside_glen]

4The hiccup is probably caused by the rerendering, but also make certain that you've checked the DVD burner manufacturer's website for updates. There might be a communication problem with the burner.

 

Can you render from Vegas to a DV AVI file? It's usually the output to camcorder setting. If you can do that, you can bring the movie directly into DVD Builder. That's what many people have to do to eliminate 'hiccups' and audio/video sync issues.

 

Please let us know what happens.

I don't believe it's a comm problem because I was able to write to the drive w/o hiccups from PPG. Though PPG did re-encode at a lower bitrate than Rox does, the burn speed was the same. Though you're right, it's a good idea to make sure I have the latest and greatest flash; thanks for that reminder.

 

I in fact just got through rendering the Vegas edit to DV AVI uncompressed in anticipation of this next step. Because I'm using FAT32 (I know, I know) I hhave file size limitations and Vegas rendered to 6 seperate AVIs. As these are just sequential files whose boundaries have no direct relation to chapter location or content, I want to be able to bring them in w/o having seperate title or chapter entries (I'll manuall create the chapters where they belong.) Can this be done in DVDB? I thought that it was a bit too "automatic" in that regard - that each file was considered a new "title" with it's own menu/entry.

 

Sorry for the newb operational questions. I'll continue along the current track and figure it all out, I'm sure. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thanks again.

 

G.

[james_hardin]

I don't believe it's a comm problem because I was able to write to the drive w/o hiccups from PPG. Though PPG did re-encode at a lower bitrate than Rox does, the burn speed was the same. Though you're right, it's a good idea to make sure I have the latest and greatest flash; thanks for that reminder.

 

I in fact just got through rendering the Vegas edit to DV AVI uncompressed in anticipation of this next step. Because I'm using FAT32 (I know, I know) I hhave file size limitations and Vegas rendered to 6 seperate AVIs. As these are just sequential files whose boundaries have no direct relation to chapter location or content, I want to be able to bring them in w/o having seperate title or chapter entries (I'll manuall create the chapters where they belong.) Can this be done in DVDB? I thought that it was a bit too "automatic" in that regard - that each file was considered a new "title" with it's own menu/entry.

 

Sorry for the newb operational questions. I'll continue along the current track and figure it all out, I'm sure. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thanks again.

 

G.

 

If you Add to Title then select all of the clips you have, they should all load into that Title with no chapter info.

[Guest mlpasley]

If you Add to Title then select all of the clips you have, they should all load into that Title with no chapter info.

 

To add to what James said......

 

Once you've put the first title on the DVD Builder menu, you'll have to click on the title on the menu. When you do that the 'Add to title' will become active.

 

Also, I'd suggest adding the files IN THE ORDER YOU WANT THEM TO PLAY. Technically, you could add them and then move them around on the storyline, but it's easier to add them in order.

[Larry]

I'd recommend you burn it to an ISO (image) file, not direct to disc as a start. Then burn the image file to the disc using disc copier. This will separate any rendering & burning processes. I would also burn it a a lower rate, like 4x if you can. Less chance for 'glitches' that way.

 

Also, when burning the iso file, make sure you turn off/disable any unneccessarty processes like screen savers. It also can help to disconnect from the internet (if connected) and disabble any monitoring software, like a/v.