Video Redo - Horrible MPEG transcode - how to fix?

ajdisse · **12th December 2007, 09:19 AM**

My brother in law is a mad geelong supporter, so one of the first things I recorded on my brand new VMC was the grand final.

Coming up to Christmas, I thought I'd burn him a nice little DVD with some nifty menus on it.

So I bumped the footy through Video Redo and removed the commercials, saving it as an MPEG.

I then loaded this into Nero and noted some really bad horiztonal line effects (no not Geelong jumpers

) - predominately around the jumpers, but also on the skin tones, advertising signs during quick movement, ground lines etc.

I checked the source DVR-MS - and it isn't in the source. I checked the MPEG which Video Redo chruned out - and the artifact is there - hence VideoRedo caused it (or the codec VideoRedo used!)

Is there a better format to save the output in? Is there a way to configure video redo (or the MPEG codec?) to use a different algorithm to remove the artifact from this type of recording?

Note - When I used VideoRedo, ffdshow would ask me "Did I want to use ffdshow? for this - just this once, forever, not at all, not this time". My memory was I avoided making a permanant setting - because I wanted to be able to change the setting if it wasn't any good. I'm not getting this option anymore. I'm also not getting the option to save in dvr-ms format either - which I did the first few times I used VideoRedo.

Hints/Ideas/Suggestions?

AdrianW · **12th December 2007, 09:36 AM**

Maybe it's your player software - because the only difference between the DVR-MS file input to VideoRedo and the MPEG file that come outs the other end - is that the metadata has been stripped. The DVR-MS is just a container for the MPEG file - no re-encoding is performed, that's the main reason videoRedo is so quick at what it does.

Try playing the mpeg file with a different player (perhaps VLC).

philzgr8 · **12th December 2007, 09:47 AM**

In fact it will depend on how big the file was before you used VideoRedo because if the file is too big to fit on a DVD VideoRedo will have to recode the entire video. Personally I had a HD recording of the footy which I tried to put on DVD but once VideoRedo had recoded it it was unwatchable and I haven't had any luck trying to retain the 5.1 surround sound when I convert to MPEG.

ajdisse · **12th December 2007, 10:03 AM**

The file itself came out at just over 3 hours long - but as one file (about 4Gb large).

I could split it - and did note that the problems seemed to occur later in the file, so maybe that's something I'll try.

If videoredo doesn't do any recoding - why does it mention how many passes it is making while saving the mpeg - and why does ffdshow want to get involved? (oh - and how do i uninvolve ffdshow!)

logifuse · **12th December 2007, 10:08 AM**

It's being re-encoded because it thinks you want a DVD compliant MPEG output. Are you doing a "save as" after editing?

Justin

ajdisse · **12th December 2007, 10:33 AM**

Yes, I'm doing a save as.

As far as Video Redo is concerned I'm not telling it anything about the fact the MPEG is going to end up on the DVD - which would all be done in Nero Vision. I'm just doing "save as" and note I can save in one of 4 formats. (VOB, MPEG, TS, + 1?). Note - DVR-Ms has disappeared form this menu which I find a little bizarre.

logifuse · **12th December 2007, 10:44 AM**

For DVR-MS output, click Tools & "shift"-options (hold the shift key while clicking options).

For the encoding, under stream parameters, is Encoder quality set to Auto?

Justin

logifuse · **12th December 2007, 10:49 AM**

Also, I'd do a fresh install of VRD (after a full uninstall). At what point did the FFDshow message pop up? If it pops up again after re-installing, tell it to f off.

Justin

seemac · **12th December 2007, 10:50 AM**

I've tried to do exactly the same thing, put the AFL grand final onto DVD using Video Redo and had two problems. I've spent many hours so far playing with different settings, and get the same result as you describe, although FFDShow doesn't get involved. Actually I get the effect in anything I edit with Video Redo, especially the brighter faster moving images. I intend to chase this up with Video Redo support, but it takes a while to prepare sample snippets and nobody else on the forums complains of the problem so I assume its something I just live with.

I believe the issue relates to the deinterlacing. If deinterlacing is off (in the menus somewhere) the result is unwatchable with the deinterlacing artifacts (like horizontal venitian blinds across the picture). With deinterlacing on, the result is improved but still noticeable and annoying. If I convert the output mpeg then to Divx or H264 the deinterlacing artifacts are removed and the result is ok. I actually get a better result if I leave deinterlacing off in Video Redo and then let the conversion to DivX deinterlace the video - appears to give a higher quality end result.

I don't understand the problem. Since Video Redo doesn't do any transcoding, why is interlacing even an issue when the original DVR-MS plays fine interlaced?

My second problem putting the grand final on DVD is that I had to break it into 2 halves, as it wouldn't fit on one single layer DVD - it only just fits on two. This is fair enough I guess since 3 hours is probably beyond the expected capacity of a DVD. If I lower the quality, the end result is nasty -pixelated, jerky etc. The main problem I'm finding is that I struggle to get anything longer than 1 hour 20 minutes onto a single layer DVD without lowering the quality to fit. Tried to put a movie on the other day that goes 1.5 hours and it doesn't fit. It comes out to 5GB. Lowering the quality doesn't give a good enough result. I would have thought a DVD should be able to hold 1.5 hours of high quality video?

So for now, for the grand final, I have two disks and on certain scenes you can notice the deinterlacing artifacts, but it is watchable.

Haven't tried watching on an interlaced display, such as 1080i. I run my TV at 720p.

The Brad · **12th December 2007, 10:55 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajdisse

I then loaded this into Nero and noted some really bad horiztonal line effects (no not Geelong jumpers

) - predominately around the jumpers, but also on the skin tones, advertising signs during quick movement, ground lines etc.

Don't panic, its just an interlaced file! I presume you didn't burn the DVD but I reckon if you did it would look just fine.

However Nero's transcoding I find quite ordinary, lip sync more or less optional. For a long disc it will look VERY ordinary.

When I need to make DVD's I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory on 2-pass mode, its an overnight job but results are great.

I tend to use Womble more than VRD, because Womble's editing is MUCH faster, but I use VRD when I want to top'n'tail something, because its export speed is about double the speed of Womble.