DV + resize = errors

Question

Hi Folks,
Some colleagues and I have done a lot of encoding (for
capture only, not streaming) using FME2.5.0.2086 from DV (PAL) and
resizing to 640x480 (mostly to get correct 4:3 aspect ratio). All
seemed well for testing, but a some point later when watching the
files back, we noticed some sections intermittently just seemed to
drop frames or speed through a few frames (audio jumped or
"clicked" as well).
There were no dropped frames reported during capture, but it
was noted that the framerate dipped on occasions.
Examining metadata indicates two different framerates, 25fps
and approx 21.97fps.
CPU (Intel Core 2 T2700 @ 2GHz + 2GB RAM) sat at around 60%
for all captures.
The error was noticed when a random sample was played back in
a variety of players - in this sample there were significant
instances of the error. When we examined our test files, knowing
what to look for, we did see subtle instances of same error -
honestly all 4 of us didn't notice them during testing.
We've got about 30 hours of captured material which now
appears useless. While we must take responsibility for not
discovering it earlier, I am really @&*%! that there is no
indicator of any errors by the encoder. The framerate adption
looked like a function of the VP6 codec (as you can select of 5
quality settings). It appears that the whole lot has to be redone.
Does anyone know if the framerate adaption can be corrected,
or are the frames really dropped, even though the encoder said that
it dropped none?
I'd really appreciate any help on this as the redo will take
a very long time.
Thx in advance.

Answer 1

Whoops, sorry - stream is 800 kbps using VP6, quality good +
good, cpu dedicated...