I have a project shot in AVCHD 30PF (30p recorded as interlaced from a Canon G30) and edited in VP 13 as an HD project. Everything looks great in the preview. I am delivering as a DVD, so I rendered with Mainconcept to mpeg2, and burned a DVD to get a final look. The DVD had a digital photo from a montage in a portion of the video pop up throughout in a seemingly random pattern-at least once every couple of minutes, sometimes twice in close succession. Since then, after deleting and replacing this photo, I just get a black field or entire frame (depending on settings) in the video. I have tried every applicable combination (I think) of project and render settings and rendered out 2-3 minute loops of this project, some of the same clips in a new project, or clips from another job, and the problem persists. I have tried HD interlaced & progressive, SD widescreen i & p, deinterlace off, blend, or interpolate, and adjust source media on & off in the project settings; render as interlaced upper, lower, or progressive, always best quality render. If I render to an HD file using Sony AVC or MC mpeg2, everything is fine. I don't see any rhyme or reason to the placement of the black frame (I am not sure if it is an inserted or a missing frame), as I can render twice in a row without changing anything, and the frames will show up in different spots.
Although I have learned a lot and have alternate workflows (frameserving or intermediate) after searching for this problem in the forums, using MC produces otherwise acceptable results and I would prefer to stay with the quickest and easiest workflow. Any ideas?