Poor image

[subsang]

Graduated to DV only recently. Recorded some home videos on mini DV on 16:9 aspect ratio and was searching for burning it to DVD when I came across DVD Flick. Here's how I proceeded. My old laptop has only a DVD ROM/CD Writer but has Firewire. My mom's PC has a DVD writer but no Firewire.

- Dowloaded and edited the movie to my laptop and saved as DV AVI file through Firewire.

- copied on to a portable harddisc through USB 2 and transferred to my mom's PC again through USB.

- installed DVD Flick in her PC and converted the .avi file to DVD and burnt it. Settings was BEST for Video with 16:9 aspect ratio.

While playing it back on a DVD player with Letter Box settings I have following problems:-

- all of us are stretched. Should I set it at 4:3 while converting?
- The scenes without movements are good but those with movements have sort of breaks in the picture. Say someone waves his hand the hand movement is not smooth and breaks up.

Please advise.

[locoeng]

Did the file play OK before you ran it through DVD Flick?

[Chewy]

could you elaborate on the first steps where you captured the video onto your laptop


mediainfo(google) is a good program to look at the properties of each file after each step of the process

I would have started with a 30 minute tape and taken it thru all the steps, checking along the way before loading on an external hard drive and burning a dvd

[subsang]

Thanks for the responses.

I downloaded the file from the camcorder to the laptop through the Firewire port. It was a 25 minute video. It played fine on the laptop with Windows Media Player.

In order to burn it to DVD I needed to use my mom's PC. The only way to transfer was using an external HD and USB. After tranfer, it opened normally on her PC with again Media Player. So far so good.

All these distortions came after I burnt the DVD and played on the PC (Power DVD) or DVD Player.

[Chewy]

use mediainfo/tree view and post the video/audio specs of the avi that you transfered and put into flick

[subsang]

My Source file

General #0
Complete name : G:\Home movies\Vol 1.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format/Family : RIFF
File size : 4.65 GiB
PlayTime : 23mn 2s
Bit rate : 29 Mbps

Video #0
Codec : Sony DV
Codec/Family : DV
Codec/Info : Sony Digital Video (DV) 525 lines at 29.97 Hz or 625 lines at 25.00 Hz
PlayTime : 23mn 2s
Bit rate : 29 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.784

Audio #0
Codec : Sony DV
Codec/Family : DV
Codec/Info : Sony Digital Video (DV), audio part

My DVD

General #0
Complete name : D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
Format : MPEG-2 Program
Format/Family : MPEG-2
File size : 1024 MiB
PlayTime : 17mn 4s
Bit rate : 8384 Kbps

Video #0
Codec : MPEG-2 Video
Codec profile : Main@Main
Codec settings/Matri : Standard
PlayTime : 17mn 4s
Bit rate : 8000 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.772

Audio #0
Codec : AC3
PlayTime : 17mn 4s
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48 KHz

[subsang]

From a previous thread I found the member Sunray16 had image shaking. My problem is similar but for AVI file.

I tried using FAVC now. Video encoder screen just stands blinking. QuEnc is showing a source file C:\My Documents\.... though the source file I fed to FAVC is G:\Home movies\Vol 1.avi.

Why so??!!!! Or is it normal??

[subsang]

I redid the DVD with FAVC using HC encoder. It came out fine.

The 'breaking up' of image is not there now.

The original was recorded in 16:9 format. When converting, FAVC automatically took 4:3 format. So when I play it back on our TV the image is stretched. The mode of the TV cannot be changed. Changing it on DVD Player also does not make any difference.

On the PC with Power DVD, I could view it as normal.

Anyway to control A/R during encoding with FAVC?

Veterans, this problem I had with DVD Flick is something to work on?

[paglamon]

The original was recorded in 16:9 format.

But Mediainfo says that original DV-AVI was 720 x 576 AR 4:3.

[Chewy]

But Mediainfo says that original DV-AVI was 720 x 576 AR 4:3.

That was my suspicion as well, regarding squishing

what program are you capturing with(thru firewire)?

Sony Digital Video

[subsang]

That's what is called experience.

I never bothered to check the A/R when you advised to check the file details with Mediainfo. I banked on the A/R setting of the camcorder and thought the A/R of the file transferred to laptop would be the same.

(When I played back the tape directly to the TV in my Abu Dhabi home with 16:9 setting on both TV and camcorder the picture was perfect. By the way now on hols at my parent's place.)

So does it mean the A/R changes with transfer?

But when I recorded the same AVI file to DVD with FAVC it took 4:3A/R automatically yet the picture is squished!!

I used just the Windows Movie Maker that was on the laptop to capture the video from cam through the Firewire. Does this convert the pic to 4:3??

[Chewy]

use movie maker 2 to recapture

pay attention to high lighted parts

Best quality for playback on my computer (recommended)

Specifies that you want to capture video at the recommended video setting. This video setting encodes the captured video at a higher quality setting. The specific capture profile that is detected and used by Windows Movie Maker for this video setting depends on the selected capture device and the audio and video it can output to the computer, as well as the processor speed of your computer.

This setting is well-suited for a majority of the video you capture in Windows Movie Maker and plan to edit in Windows Movie Maker, and then plan to save to your computer, to a recordable CD, as an attachment to an e-mail message, or to the Web using the Save Movie Wizard.

Show more choices

Click to see additional video settings. Therefore, if you do not choose to use the Best quality for playback on my computer (recommended) video setting, you can choose from a listing of other capture options.

Digital device format (DV-AVI)

Specifies that your captured video will be saved as DV-AVI file with an .avi file name extension. This capture option is only available if you are capturing from a DV device, such as a DV camera or DV VCR. This video setting is designed to be used if you want to edit the captured video on your computer and then later save it back to a tape in a DV camera or VCR using the Save Movie Wizard. The quality of the original video is retained when you choose this setting, so the movies you record retain their original video quality when recorded back to DV tape.

However, video files saved with this setting can be quite large. For example, each minute of video saved at this setting can consume as much as 178 MB of disk space. Therefore, verify that there is enough available disk space on your hard disk to accommodate the amount of video you want to capture.

Other settings

Provides a list of additional video settings you can choose to capture for your captured video. When choosing a setting from this list, consider how you plan to ultimately use and share the video in your final saved movies. This list ranges from settings suited for video on a Pocket PC to video for local playback.

Setting details

Displays additional information about the video captured at the current setting. The following details are provided:

File type. The type of file the captured video is saved as on your computer. Possible file types include Windows Media Video (WMV) or Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI).

Bit rate. The total bit rate of the captured video and audio. Typically, a higher bit rate will result in higher-quality video with smoother motion. However, as the bit rate increases, so does the size of the captured video file.

Display size. The dimensions of the captured video picture, in pixels. The first number indicates the width of the video, while the second number indicates the height of the video.

Frames per second. The number of frames that are displayed per second in the captured video. Typically, a higher number or frames per second will make the motion of objects or persons in your video appear smoother.

Video format. The video standard for the saved movie file. The two possible formats are NTSC and PAL. The specific video format depends on the selected video capture device and the video format it uses. This value is displayed when capturing video as a DV-AVI video file.

Video file size

Provides the estimated file size of the saved movie and disk space available to store the captured video file. The estimated amount of disk space consumed by one minute of video is displayed in this area for many video settings. For other video settings that are based on the quality of the captured video and audio, such as the recommended setting, a file size estimate is not available.

[subsang]

I noted those points while capturing the video.

Where could it have gone wrong to squish the video?

[Chewy]

It looks like you captured in raw format, try in the setting I mentioned and since it's 4/3 AR, leave it like that when you convert

[subsang]

The second conversion with FAVC was in 4:3 AR but the pic on the TV was still squished!!

The camcorder I believe has a native 16:9 CCD. It is Panasonic NV GS85. Before I bought I tried changing AR to 4:3 and found the scene's sides cropped as compared to 16:9 mode. Also as I mentioned earlier, the TV with 16:9 mode (Grundig Xentia) showed the pic from the camcorder without any distortion. So I conclude the recording is 16:9.

When I played the AVI file on Media Player the top and bottom bands were present. On Winamp it was squished.

Any conclusions?