Optimizing dvd playback quality (macroblocking problems)- HELP!

Nothing is quite so frustrating as spending countless hours editing, encoding, and authoring a DVD and then discovering that the video has playback issues (macroblocking, digital artifacting, sometimes so serious it halts playback altogether) at some point in the stream.
I feel sure others must have some idea what I'm talking about, and yet I haven't found a thread on this forum or any other that addresses what is really the root cause here. As I figure it, there are a number of factors (variables) at work:
1. the media itself
2. the software used to create the disc (in my case DVDSP 4.0/Compressor usually at the "Best" quality encoding)
3. the hardware used to burn the disc (in my case the MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-815 superdrive in my powerbook)
4. the DVD player used for playback
In my experience, a disc might do fine on one player but then have significant playback issues on another. On one occasion I even saw playback perfectly through an hour of video, and then the next day on the same player and the same DVD I got significant macroblocking through parts of it.
What gives!? Are there some DVD-R media that are way better than others? Or do I need to invest in a better drive to burn them? Or is this just the growing pains of emerging technology? Is there some other thread anywhere in cyberspace that addresses this issue?

Hi John
So you're saying that your mpegs are clean and clear of any macro blocking, and this is only introducted once you burn to DVD, and then only on some players, but also a disc that played fine one day on a deck, plays back bad the next day on the same deck.
Man, you've got some serious gremlins at work in your office. Before you pull your system apart, chack you mpegs again. If you're using Compressor 2 with any of the VBR presets you're going to get macro blocking because C2's VBR is not very good - I've not had one successful mpeg out of it. If your project is under 1hr try CBR at 7.5Mbps, that's been working fine for me.
Now, are you encoding your audio to .ac3, or .aiff. If you're using .aiff you might be hitting wall with your bitrate. Your .aiff will have a bitrate of 1.5Mbps, and if your using using a high max bitrate on your vision and you get a bitrate spike which Compressor is also known for then you could be blowing your bit budget (max of 9.8Mbps for vision and audio together), which could result in stuttered playback and freezes.
Next, are you burning out of DVDSP or are you using Toast. Some users report problems burning at higher than 2x speed (personally I burn at the limit of the media and haven't had a problem). As you can't control the burn speed out of DVDSP you might want to try just building in DVDSP and burning in toast at a low speed.
If you're burning from data on an external FW drive try moving it to the HD and try it again.
Try a few different brands of media. Keep it clean and out of the sun.
That's about all I can tell you at the moment - these are all the obvious things , maybe somone else can chime in with some more obscure causes.
Cheers
B

Similar Messages

DVD playback quality problems

I've made a few movie using photos from Iphoto to imovie to idvd.All seems to go smoothly. When I preview it in idvd it looks fine. After burning to a DVD the quality changes.Both on my mac & on my dvd player on the tv.
Let me explain what I mean when I say quality changes.
When a new photo comes out of it's transition it is crisp & clear.... for about 1/2 a second. Then it goes slightly out of focus or fuzzy.
This happens with every photo in the movie.
Is there something I can do to stop this from happening in future projects?
My computer skills are limited at best.
Is it something I'm doing wrong or my settings somewhere?
Any assistance or advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Mike

Hi Mike
Your observation is same as mine.
Two problems occures:
a. Your DVD disk is bad - so is mine
b. More problematic is that Your original iMovie movie project also is harmed.
You'll need to re-import Your photos and r-edit them.
NOW: Don't use the Share/Export to iDVD from within iMovie.
• Just close iMovie.
• Open iDVD
• Drop the movie icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD themw window
Now iDVD will do the rendering and so much better.
More: Quality of the DVD-disc depends on several things.
• I DON'T USE the function Share/Export to iDVD from within iMovie - IT IS DESTRUCTIVE !!
Just drop the movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window - then iDVD do the
rendering and so much better. Especially if there is photos in the movie.
• Free space on internal (start-up) hard disc - should be about 25Gb when all material is imported
and structured. This for iDVD to work with - iDVD can't use an extern hard disc as scratch.
(less than 5Gb - result is most probably of no use at all)
• Best Quality isn't Top - better is Best Performances (up to 60 min movie)
confused naming - in iDVD'08 there is Pro Quality AND I like it.
• Media brand - I use Verbatim
• Type: IF SL DVDs -> DVD-R my choise no DVD+R or +/-RW
• I save a Disc-Image and burn this at an as SLOW speed as possibly (eg x1) with Toast™
(Disc Util tool can also do this)
from Karsten:
• Keep to same standard NTSC or PAL trough all steps
from: Matti Haveri:
• Is it jerky (=maybe some part of the workflow deinterlaced the footage -- iMovie can do this behind the users's back quite well!)
• Or is it awfully jerky (=maybe the field dominance is wrong -- this happens very easily when importing upper field first stuff from MPEG).
This is what come's first to my mind.
Yours Bengt W

DVD Playback Quality

My DVD playback (made with DVDSP & Compressor) looks Good on a 27" TV monitor, but when I play it on my 15" Powerbook, many of the images look soft. Why is this? Is there anything that can be done? It seems to contradict the logic of "smaller image=better resolution."
Thanks.

A TV monitor is interlaced whereas a computer monitor is pixel based. A dvd is bound to look good on a TV monitor as the DVD is interlaced as well. NTSC resolution is 720x480. Your computer monitor may have a reolution way above that. Hence the image has to be scaled and hence the softness. Try viewing it without zooming in and you will be quite happy with what you see.

DVD Playback Quality G5 vs G4

I have a G4Dual and a G5Dual and two identical monitors. Playing back the same DVD of 3D animation on the G5 shows badly aliased lines (stair stepping) while playing back on the G4 looks perfect. I tested everything, swapping monitors, swapping cables, each computer on each monitor and I am certain that it is the G5 playback. What would cause this?

Check the "Displays" pane in "System Preferences" to make sure both monitors are set to the native resolution and "Millions" of colors.
In the "DVD Player" "Video" menu see if "Deinterlace" is set on both machines.
If that is no help, try the VLC player <http://www.videolan.org>
It has a lot more video settings, so may help in finding what is causing the problem.

Poor DVD playback quality

Hi, I have an iBook G3 500 MHz w/ 256 MB Ram and a DVD-Rom. The drive will accept a CD or DVD fine, but when the program DVD Player opens to play the DVD, I just get a large black window on the screen. If I stop the playback, it will go to the title menu and sit there. If I use VLC to view the DVD, it will play the movie, but seems to be a bit skitterish. The OS is a new install of 10.3.9 BTW. Also, the sound doesn't work properly on the iBook with any application (the built in speakers). I tried an external set of speakers and they work fine, and also swapped out the built in speakers with a known good set and still nothing. Perhaps the two are related? I searched the archives and couldn't find any related threads..
Thanks in advance to all those who offer advice.
...Tom

Does the iBook still have its OS 9 startup volume? Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and see if OS 9 is available. If it is, select it and start up in OS 9 and see if the speaker problem exists there, also. If so, it points to a hardware issue.
As for the DVD problems, try closing all other applications when trying to watch a DVD. Maximizing the RAM with a 512 MB RAM module may help. With the limited RAM, DVD's may play better in OS 9, as well.
How big is the hard drive and how much space remains available on it?

Appalling DVD playback quality

I posted this in the Intel-based iMac forum but was advised iot might be better here.
DVDs play back with loads of image noise and blocks, what handles the decompression as using VLC media player displays the same poor quality as Apple's DVD player. Is there a way of using a better decoder or is this a more serious problem? cheers...rob

Rob, I think you have another problem. I have DVD player 5.0.3 and the playback is great.
I'm not a DVD player expert and you might get better advice posting in the Leopard forums: http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235
There is also a iMac DVD category: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1113

DVD playback on a MAC - help!

Hello,
To be honest I'm not too sure if my post should be in here or in the Encore forum.
The problem I'm having is whislt a compiled encore DVD is being tested on a Mac. After each video is watched it is set up to return to main menu screen, but for 2 out of 7 videos - when the end of the 2 videos is reached, they are resetting the time counter back to 0 then continuing to play for a further 40 seconds on a freeze-framed image and then returns back to the main menu.
I've gone back to the video project itself in premiere to see if the problem lies there, but can't find anything obvious, all the fps for the videos within the project are 25 as is the project settings.
I've had a look in the timelines for the 2 videos in Encore, but can't see any markers that would indicate that it is to do something else before it returns back to the main menu.
Anyone had the same problem or know why it is doing this? Like I say it's fine on other players (PCs, DVD players, PS3, windows meida player, Cineplayer, etc), I'm only seeing this problem on a MAC and only 2 videos out the 7 on the DVD are doing this. The DVD player on the MAC is the standard DVD player which come pre-installed on the machines when bought with a DVD drive.
Many thanks for peoples help in advance! Mel.

Hello Hunt. How are you today?
I spent a bit of time yesterday looking into free players for the MAC that I test on, the OS its running is OSX 10.3.9. Though it may seem foolish to have an old machine, it's actually quite useful to test your developments on fast, capable computers and also the slow, older machines. It's tricky to know what age machines schools will have, as the LAs (Local Authorities) for schools all have different budgets and priorities.
Anyway, I couldn't find a free player to install for this version OS I'm running. Not one that would work anyway! I did download the VLC player, which I hear quite a few people rave about (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/). Once installed; it opened fine, but then as it tried to read and play the DVD - it quit the program! So, no luck there either.
My colleagues MAC which is less than 12 months old, I'll try and organise a time to test on that one with a different player. Unfortunately, we're now getting ready for a big annual show we're exhibiting at, at the start of January. So I'm not going to get time to do this until after the show now. Unless of course I buy my shiny new MAC this Friday! Then I'll be able to investigate sooner.
I've sent the DVD to the replicators today! It works perfectly in every way apart from this one thing on a MAC computer, and it been thoroughly tested on 8 machines (all with different set ups! PC & vista, PC & XP, powerDVD, Cineplayer, DVD player & TV, PS3, MAC & old OS, MAC & new OS etc.) by 4 people. We haven't anymore time to allow the development to set back the delivery date from the replicators It was a joint decision to send it; but I think at the back of my mind I'm going to die from the stress!! I will take no news as good news, if the technical support email address recieves no emails and the phone doesn't ring... I'm convinced by the time I turn 27 on the 11th, I'll have a grey hair!
Still, I am determined to find out why this happening and the fix for it. I'm going, in the next couple of days to try my luck in the Premiere forum and see if the problem lies within the video project. I find it coincidental that it's only happening on the two videos which end with titles and a filter. Perhaps the utility DVD player on MACs read titles in a way that such a thing is a result of how it reads it. Perhaps it's to do with how the title is being applied within the video project. Maybe there's a title setting that needs adjusting in the Encore project for the DVD. I don't know, but surely there has to be an answer somewhere and surely I can't be the only person having this issue.
I'll keep you posted with any new posts and send a link to the new post when I get round to it.
Thanks for sticking around and helping out - a very frustrated Mel.
PS, are you in the US or the UK? Either way hope you had a nice thanks giving, or equally, hope you have a nice Christmas!

MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J Problem, help appreciated

I have been trying to burn an I Movie through I DVD on the Matshita DVD-R UJ-85J. The program seems to work correctly until right at the last minute. The burning process gets to Multiplexing and burning and suddenly the disc ejects and says done. The disc when reinserted still is blank. I am fairly new at this and was wondering if I am doing something wrong or is their a problem with my drive? Any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I too am having a similar problem. Whenever I burn a Memorex DVD-R through my drive, SimplyBurns stops the operation immediately, saying "disc not writable." I read somewhere that resetting PRAM fixes some problems; that didn't work. Furthermore, here is what System Profiler reports:
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J:
Firmware Revision: FCQ5
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipping Drive)
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO
Media:
Type: DVD-R
ID: RITEKF1
Blank: No
Erasable: No
Overwritable: No
Appendable: Yes
Write Speeds: 2x, 4x, 8x
Message was edited by: andlabs

Problems with playback quality of animated DVD on television

I'm sending a ~20 minute (uncompressed, millions of colors) animation in QuickTime out of Final Cut Express HD in a format of HD-1080i and trying to get a very high resolution DVD for television (HD TV). Before taking the QuickTime video to any DVD writing software the aspect ratio (16:9) is correct and resolution is immaculate.
However, all my efforts to get a super-high resolution DVD of this animation, whether I go through iMovie or only to iDVD have gotten me a lot of written and wasted DVDs in my tests. The resolution is very poor.
QUESTION:
How do I get a very complex animation that requires very intense color and clarity to a DVD for playback on a HD TV using my software? In my arsenal is Final Cut Express-HD vers. 3, iLIfe '06 incl. iMovie and iDVD, Toast (if needed).
Please advise.

HHHMMM….. where to start. First, you can’t possibly
hold yourself to commercial quality unless you have a
commercial budget.
I don't expect commercial quality - just to be able to display the millions of colors and the extreme clarity on any TV and even better still on a HDTV. So far I only can get the quality I seek on a computer display. All my efforts to find a solution for television playback have resulted in a fuzzy and jerky animated feature. Here again I'm not looking for commercial quality - just clear, crisp and smooth.
Hollywood spends millions on
feature films. Compression hardware alone can run
several thousands if not hundreds of thousands of
dollars. Compared to iDVD included in a $79 software
suite? However, even the Hollywood produced DVDs must
rely on the DVD specification and as such, 1080i is
currently lost on them. So your answer to “isn’t iDVD
supposed to write anything I give it” is that if iDVD
takes your QT file (Which BTW, should be in the DV
format) it WILL compress it to a DVD MPEG 2 compliant
file. This means 720x480.
But I don't want any compression other than the final step MPEG2. And after reading this reply today - THANK YOU - THANK YOU - I at least understand now that I can't even use iDVD because it doesn't offer MPEG2 as a compressor.
I have located a mpeg2 encoder program that is shareware and will try to find a formule to use after iMovie HD additions of themes and chapters.
So the first step to take
is to recognize the limitations of equipment and
understand the standards. So now we should examine
the workflow to see if there is anything that can be
done. Other than knowing what Flash is, I don’t know
much about it. Can you select a frame size for doing
your animations? If so, guess what, use the 720x480
frame size. This is what iDVD is going to make it
(again, FCP may offer more options to you but that
isn’t listed in your arsenal).
Final Cut Pro isn't needed for what I'm doing, is it? I have already gotten exquisite playback quality for computers using FCE HD and I'm now trying to get the playback quality on a TV as good as I can get it.
Next, from within FCE,
do not change the settings when exporting via QT. You
want to export it as it is in FCE, you don’t want to
change it. iDVD is expecting a DV file. Any other
file and quality will likely take a hit. Finally, why
DVDs? Flash is typically web based. And computer
monitors have a much higher resolution than a TV.
Flash is generally web based but it can be used to produce a single QuickTime movie if the elements are primarily drawings as my animated feature is. Then on to Final Cut Express all of my imported clips are in QuickTime and thus are already compresssed by QuickTime's excellent compressor. I found that I do not get a good result if I allow any further compression - at least not on computer displays - as long as I export with QT conversion, compression none, millions of colors and specify the size I want it to maintain.
You
could output your Files and serve them up via a data
DVD to be played on a computer. Just curious.
I am already getting excellent playback quality on computers but now I need playback quality on any television because it is not intended only for computers.
Mike
Thanks Mike. You've already been a help in getting me away from iDVD for this project. iMovie may be OK still because its "HD". Got any more suggestions for my situation?

DVD Image Quality Problem

I just began using Final Cut Studio and elected to burn my DVD from IDVD as I am not yet comfortable with Sutdio Pro. When I play back my disc on any computer MAC or PC it plays fine. However, when I play it on a set-top DVD player two problems occur. 1) I get occasional brief pilelation in a scene. It doesn't always happen at the same place in the playback. 2). Some of the video scenes (especially those which I have extended by slowing the motion, even thogh I have applied frame blending) tend to flicker. Neither of these problems occur when the DVD is played on a computer/monitor or even when played on a tv monitor using the s-video output from a computer. But both happen on the three set-top players I have tried. Any thoughts. Thanks.
G-5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.2)
G-5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Welcome to the world of authoring DVDs. It is very difficult to troubleshoot the exact problem. For starters, iDVD did its job, it made a DVD compliant disc that plays on a DVD player. It plays better on your computer DVD player for a variety of reasons. Your computer has much more sophisticated hardware/software for DVD playback than does a tabletop unit. It could simply be that a progressive scan tabletop DVD player may give you better results. The point being that two different players can yield different results. Artifacts/ pixilation can be by-products of MPEG2 compression (which is what iDVD does to create a DVD). It is helpful to have a basic understanding of what makes a DVD a DVD. When you record on mini-DV you are recording to an already compressed format. Arguably a very good compressed format but compressed nonetheless. This means information is being tossed at the point you are using the camcorder. iDVD, or any DVD authoring app on any computer, Windoze or Mac, compresses this material even further into the MPEG 2 format for playback via a tabletop DVD player. Now mini-DV has about 30 frames per second (NTSC). MPEG (in a very basic nutshell) takes a picture about twice every 30 frames and uses this as a reference frame and then only records the motion difference between that reference frame and the next time it creates a reference frame. So you go from 30 frames/second to TWO, with motion difference! This is how one hour of DV which is 13 gigs, can be compressed to fit onto one DVD. Two hours would be 26 gigs of DV compressed to one DVD! Hence the general quality difference between one-hour and two. And keep in mind that is compression will show artifacts that may have always been there but you didn’t see until the other 28 frames where tossed out. Slow motion can also be very difficult to encode. I have found that going under 50% slow-motion is problematic. One work around is to create your slow-motion sequence and send it back to tape and then re-import from the tape. Now it is no longer a software effect but an actual 29.97 fps clip. Clips with a lot of motion, quick pans & zooms, hand held shots and so on, will also suffer more artifacts because the whole frame is in motion and thus difficult to encode. Which is why a tripod is recommended to keep the frame steady!
Just some thoughts… welcome to the Discussions!
Mike

Best quality for DVD playback!

I just finished a film i shot in HDV my sequence properties are:
Vid Rate: 29.97fps
Frame Size: 1440x1080
Compressor: HDV 1080i60
Field Dominance: Upper Odd
what is the best why to export this sequence onto a dvd for maximum playback quality?

Hi there,
1)make sure you export your movie in FCP as QT movie self-contained
2)Import it in Compressor
3)In the Settings tab (lower left window) Open Apple>DVD10 groups>choose DVD 90 minutes best quality and drop that folder on your video (upper left batch window). Compressor will encode your movie as Mpeg2 video an AC3 dolby stereo. In the inspector window you can change a number of settings if you wanted to but, if you are not familiar with Compressor, leave default settings to see if you are happy with the result (take sometime to read the very useful PDF manual that you can find in the main menu>help)
4)Choose destination
5)Submit
G.

Is the DVD playback of poor quality?

I'm still miffed by the quality of the dvd playback. We have dvd players both in a pc, xbox, ps2 and stand along units. Yet somehow the one on my imac looks really rough. Is this more down to the really new hardware? I still have have the same full screen dvd playback glitch on my replaced intel imac so dont know where to turn to.
Sarfraz

I don't think the problem is the dvd player, but the resolution of the monitor. When you stream hi def trailers, it looks awsome. The resolution of the mac monitor is higher than a hi def television. You are not seeing a limitation of the hardware, but the limitation of the source dvd itself. My cable company has some analog channels mixed in with the digital ones and a hi def tv will make a bad picture look worse. The highest settings on hi def tv's is 1080. If you look at the display settings on the mac, you are at 1440. That's a significant difference.

Quality Playback-.need a little help

Quality Playback….need a little help
I’ve posted in the Premiere forums too, because I’m not sure where my issue is in converting .MOD files, the export of edited footage from Preimere Pro CS4 or if it’s in Encore.
The quality just does not seem that good, I know it’s not HD quality, but it should be better than what I have. Seems over pixilated especially around objects.
Here’s my steps
Convert .MOD files using Mpeg Streamclip to a .DV file format
Settings Compression DV (DV25)
Standard NTSC 720 x 480 29.97 fps
Aspect 16:0
Everything else is default
Import to Premiere Pro CS5
Edit footage
Export to quicktime .mov file
NTSC DV Widescreen
720 x 480 quality 100%
codec is DV25 NTSC
Import .mov files to Encore CS5
Build menus and playlists
Export with default settings approximately 1hr 45min of edited video
Thanks
MAB

Bill
Thanks for your help and patience.
I posted a screen shot of the mov export settings I was using. I’m going to try Ann’s conversion method on the mod files to see if that improves things.
You asked about the Encore transcoding, what do you mean by that, are there other settings in Encore that I need to set?
I have an 1hour 45 min of video in my Encore project, burning to a 4.7 DVD. Encore says it’s using 3.3bg, which seems low.
MAB

DVD Playback problem with H/w accel on Ti4200

Hello folks,
I have a problem with DVD playback using WinDVD Platinum on my MSI 128Mb GF4 Ti4200 (MS-8700). When I play a DVD with hardware acceleration enabled I get a sort of ghosting or delayed flash photography effect similar to that which gives headlights trails. This doesn't occur with the Detonator 40.72 drivers
or MSI 41.07 drivers but occurs with
the NVidia 41.09s, 43.00s and now 43.45 drivers under WinXP SP1. The problem only occurs with hardware acceleration enabled and has happened with both DX8.1 and 9.0. I didn't have this problem with the 41.09s under Win2k SP3.
Does anyone else have this problem or know of a solution.
Thanks,
Morpheus
System Specs:
Athlon XP 2000+
512MB DDR Ram
Asus A7V333-R
Soundblaster Audigy Player
Realtek 8139 based NIC
Win XP SP1
DirectX 9.0

Sound is fine its just the picture that has the problem but I have narrowed it down further by downloading WinDVD Tweaker. If I disable DxVA but leave hardware decode and colour selected the problem isn't present. Therefore I suspect something has corrupted my DxVA drivers however as I originally had 8.1 installed and then installed 9.0 in an attempt to fix this I don't think a reinstall of DX will solve the problem.
Any ideas.
Cheers,
Morpheus

Annoying video/DVD playback problems on new Mac mini (2010)

I have a Mac mini at home right now, latest edition (2010).
I am very surprised to find that DVD playback exhibits signs of stutters here and there. Not huge stutters, but I can constantly see small "skips" and what seems like frame drops here and there. Playing back the same DVD on a $120 Blu-ray-player shows no sign of this behaviour.
I have tried this on two different TV sets (one 720p and one 1080p), and the mini is not able to play back a DVD without these stutters/skips. Two different blu-ray players play the disc just fine (I have been using Ghost Dog to test - check chapter to and the scenes containing panning, it's easier to notice that way).
It seems ordinary video files playback (files from HD, 720p, mkv) exhibit some of the same behaviour, though this seems more dependent on which app is used for playback. Quicktime seems worse (noticeable stutters/skips), VLC 1.1 a bit better (though both DVD playback and file playback show signs of stutter), while XBMC is the best of the three, with very little frame drop (if that is in fact what it is).
Any idea what's going on here? Why will such a expensive machine with HDMI output not play back video properly, while a cheap Blu-ray-player does it just fine?
Are there any known issues?
(sorry for posting this in the wrong from earlier!)

I have not used the dvd player app in my 2010 mini, but I've certainly played every media type under the sun since receiving it.
It plays them all without dropping frames, stuttering, pausing, etc.
Are you using dvd player with dvd disc images, video ts folders, or actual DVD discs in the drive?
If you're playing a disc image or video ts folder, are you accessing them over wireless networking? If so, try them on the internal drive, or over a wired network connection.
Try turning off the option is in energy saver that allows drive sleep (system sleep can stay where it is, just turn off *hard drive* sleep).
For best performance, make sure you aren't running other apps besides the media player app that you're using at the time.
Make sure you don't have software or utilities running background tasks (such as disk warrior, drive genius or tech tool pro).
If you have external devices connected (including printer and/or scanner), try the system without them connected. Does the video playback improve without them connected? If it does, then try reconnecting them one by one to figure out which one of them is related to the problem.

Optimizing dvd playback quality (macroblocking problems)- HELP!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for