I'm really sorry that I can't be more specific. The lines are not bars that run through the entire screen (left to right). I'd say there is some pixilation. I say "break up" because, for example, someone's shoulder as they are walking by, splits up into lines (every other line is black). Another example are the different colored lights reflecting from the disco-mirror which flash and spin on the walls and on people. They are like spot lights, and they are also broken into visible lines (every other line is black, like is is splitting up.) Weird indeed. I will burn they newly rendered Mpeg and see if therre is an improvement. I am also going to render an Mpeg right off the time line from the original .veg file (not from the DV AVI) in case there is something wrong with the DV AVI.

Can you post a sample of the footage ? This might help everyone better understand what your seeing.

- Ray

www.undergroundplanet.com

Yes, I can try to do that sometime tomorrow. In the mean time, perhaps one last bit of information. I'll have to backtrack slightly.

I shot the footage in 16:9. (My first experience with this). When I first rendered out the Mpeg2, in addition to setting Vegas's project properties to 16:9, when I encoded I also used the widescreen template, AND changed the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. However, after burning the DVD, the 16:9 shown on the TV was stretched to the right and left (everything looked fat). I'm not sure what I did wrong, or why this happened.

I re-encoded the 16:9 footage again, using the widescreen template but this time I KEPT the default 4:3 aspect ratio set. When I did that the widescreen view on the TV was much higher but still widescreen -- narrower letter boxing, and all seemed to be in the proper proportion. This may sound weird, but I think the best way to describe what I am seeing, is an improperly "stretched" picture, hence the harizontal lines.

Perhaps if I could figure out wht my original 16:9 encode stretched out of proportion, fix that, then this problem may be resolved.

I would *really* appreciate it if I could get some comments on why my first attempt stretched like it did. Did I forget to check something? I left everything at default except for changing the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9, which I thought was the right thing to do.

I will try to figure out how to post some small portion of footage as soon as I can. In the meantime, maybe I screwed this up in the original encode?

Thank you very much!

I could be wrong, but I believe the TRV-33 shoots simulated 16:9, or what some call cinema mode. It is not actual 16:9 nor a stretched 4:3 picture, but a normal 4:3 picture with black bars superimposed over the picture in-camera. If you are not sure, this is how to tell. When you play back the original video on a 4:3 television, do you see a full screen scrunched picture, or do you see black bars on the top and bottom. I am guessing the latter. You should open your project in 4:3 and encode in 4:3. Try it and let me know how it went.

Corey

I'm trying to digest the whole story here. While I do I'd suggest a few things.

First, could you tell us if your camera is a real 16:9 camera or just a regular 4:3 camera that crops top and bottom to get 16:9? If it's the latter, then you need to stay in 4:3 throughout your workflow. It would also be helpful to understand how you created your DVD.

As for your problem with the horizontal lines, it almost sounds like the MPEG-2 encoder is somehow missing one of the fields in those regions for some reason. First things first - try rendering a small section that you're having a problem with out to DV AVI (I'm assuming that's what you're using) at "Best" render quality and playing back either through your camera or over a DV bridge if you have one. See if the lines are still missing. I'm betting they won't be, but this is mainly to rule out the obvious problems in the rendering engine itself. I'm also assuming that you're sticking with lower-field first interlaced.

The next step I'd take is to tweak the MPEG-2 encoder settings. Try rendering that same section of the footage you're having problems with multiple times, cumulatively (i.e. the 4th render should have 1-4 below) by changing the following:

1. Choose a high CBR bitrate - say, 9,000,000 bps.
2. Set the MPEG quality slider to 31 (if it wasn't already).
3. Set your DC coefficient to 10 bits.
4. Set Field Based Motion Compensation to checked.

Make sure you've also set the render quality to the "Best" setting again for all of these renders. Render the MPEG-2s, then build and burn the DVD; hopefully, you have a DVD-RW for this. View each scene and see if you have any change.

If you don't see any improvement after all of that, I would recommend you try another MPEG renderer. Download the free trial of TMPEG (www.pegasys-inc.com) and render a DV or HuffYUV file of the section that you chose with the maximum quality settings. As I said at the outset, I have a funny feeling this is possibly a deficiency of the Mainconcept encoder.

I know this is quite a lot to try, and I know I'll probably draw the ire of some of the folks on here, but I'm trying to accurately narrow down your problem. If none of this works, at least we'll have a better idea exactly where to look.

Thank you,

I will do the rendering tonight when I get back from work.

The TRV-33 does not have real 16:9 as far as I know. I hope that Sony can answer here. In this model, the widescreen mode is supposed to be better than just cropping top/bottom. I read somewhere that there is an actual repositioning or in some way a process by which most pixel information is not lost, hence a more “true” 16:9 when compared to other cameras. In the reviews of the camera, people seemed to be impressed with this feature. Sony, can you help? Do I encode with 4:3 settings or 16:9 settings?

Yes, I am sticking with ‘lower field first’.

TVCmike, I don’t see where I can set “3. Set your DC coefficient to 10 bits”

I am authoring with DVD Architect.

Further info:

As I view the footage from within Vegas from the original .veg file, there are no lines or any distortion in the video (reading from source clips). When I pull an Mpeg into DVDA, the lines are very pronounced, so it seems the problem IS occurring somewhere during the mpeg encode.

I will try all of the above and report back. Thanks again for the help!

Hi all,

After many renders of small test files, I think I have found the problem. My TRV-33 requires I work in Widescreen mode with widescreen footage, and render as same. I believe I have been using a combination of wrong settings -- there are four different places I need to set aspect-ratio, including Project settings.

My DV AVI must be rendered as 16:9, and my Mpeg (off of that) needs to have the 16:9 Template chosen, plus, I need to dig back further in the Custom settings to change the default aspect-ratio from 4:3 to 16:9 (after choosing the widescreen template, the aspect ratio is still set to 4:3 – why this is I don’t know). In any event, the lines seem to have disappeared during preview and playback on DVD.

I’ve really made a mess of this and I apologize.

During my testing/rendering time I posted another thread to Sony looking for an answer to exactly what my particular camera needed to be rendered to when working with widescreen footage. After working out the above, I received this reply:

Subject: RE: Sony: TRV-33 footage in widescreen, how encode (4:3 or 16:9)?
Posted by: StrongDotGuy (Ignore This User)
Date: 2/17/2004 3:12:08 PM

When you bring raw widescreen clips onto the timeline to edit them, open File/Properties and set the Pixel Aspect Ratio to "1.2121 (DV Widescreen)". This sets your project up the way it was shot. When you render as, click the Custom button next to Template and then select the Video tab. On the Video tab, select 16:9 in the Aspect Ratio dropdown box. When you bring this rendered file into DVDA, it will automatically set it up correctly.

-=-=-=-

Again, I am sorry I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, and I appreciate everyone’s help very much. At least perhaps someone else can learn from my mistake when working in widescreen footage.