Interlace Flicker

vegasnewbie wrote on 2/13/2004, 8:21 PM

I have been preparing a slide show, and I noticed the result had a lot of flicker (after burning to DVD and watching on a SVHS TV).

I then found in Vegas 4 the "Edit" "Switches" "Reduce Interlace Flicker" command, and I redid the project after applying this command, and then burned a new DVD. The result was a little better than before, but with a picture of distant city buildings, for example, any white buildings still flickered a lot.

Is there any way to improve this situation? In addition, should this "reduce interlace flicker" switch be turned on only for still images, or can it be useful for normal video as well. A lot of my projects combine video and still images, so I want the still images to look as good as possible. In other words, with this switch on, could it have a harmful effect on normal video?

Thanks for your help.

Fred

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Comments

Erk wrote on 3/2/2004, 1:35 PM

Regarding the comment above speculating that as the resolution of our TVs increase, flaws in our video will become more noticeable:

I read a funny article the other day (can't remember where...) wherein the writer was saying that when he watched Charlie's Angels on a Hi Def TV or whatnot, he discovered that Cameron Diaz had acne......

Imagine being the currently-highest-paid actress in Hollywood, with the best dermatologists, makeup, cinematographers, and post-production that money can buy... and still being confronted by a blown-up high res image of yourself exposing every flaw? What's a superficial movie star to do?

Just goes to show, even movie stars pop one zit at a time, just like us....

Greg

XOG wrote on 3/2/2004, 2:07 PM

For resolution freaks:

When you've got flicker in only _part_ of the part of the picture -

Place same photo on top and bottom tracks.
Blur the bottom track
Apply cookie cutter to the top track, allowing bottom track to show through. Applying blur to edge as desired.

This can also look pretty cool with a _color_ rather than picture on the bottom track.

Cheers,

xog

SonyDennis wrote on 3/3/2004, 8:08 AM

Fred:

The single most important thing you can do when using 5 megapixel stills is to set your rendering quality to "Best" instead of "Good".

///d@

vegasnewbie wrote on 3/3/2004, 7:07 PM

Thanks very much Dennis and all who have given their views on this problem, I appreciate your help. I have consistently used the "best" rendering quality in Vegas 4.

I would emphasise that the interlace flicker does NOT occur when:

1. The .veg file is played back on my computer screen from Vegas 4.

2. The mpg file created by Vegas 4 is played back on my computer screen in the Windows Media Player.

3. The mpg file created by Vegas 4 is played back on my computer screen in DVD Architect as a "preview". The quality of the video, however, is not as good in DVDA as it is when the mpg file is played backed in the Windows Media Player.

4. The stills are played back direct from my Sony camera's memory stick through my normal Panasonic TV

It is the DVD created by DVD Architect that flickers noticeably on playback. This occurs BOTH on the computer screen (when the DVD is played back on InterVideoWinDVD) AND on an external Panasonic TV when a Sony DVD player is connected to the SVHS connection.

So it seems that there is nothing wrong with the mpg file created by Vegas 4, but it is the DVD creation process that introduces the interlace flicker.

I tried different bit rate settings, such as 8.000 Mbps and 9.800 Mbps in DVDA, but the video on the DVD still flickered noticeably on both the computer screen and my external Panasonic TV.

If there is anything that can be done on the DVD creation side of things, this might help to solve the problem. But the mpg file created by Vegas 4 seems to be perfectly OK to me as a newbie!

I am not too worried about the situation because I now put on slide shows by transferring all the images to the camera's memory stick and setting the camera to put on a slide show. In addition, I sometimes put on slide shows by playing the Vegas 4 mpg file on the Windows Media Player on my computer.

So I don't want to waste peoples' time if you can't avoid a certain amount of interlace flicker when you create a slide show DVD with DVD Architect, as farss said, this is something you just have to accept!

Regards, Fred

TeetimeNC wrote on 3/6/2004, 3:12 AM

Hi Fred.

In my situation I was able to see the flicker on the PC and on the TV. Changing my render to Best mode with a bit of Motion Blur yielded beautiful results for both PC and TV. Not sure if this could account for the difference but is your DVD player progressive scan? Mine is. If yours isn't, try your DVD on a progressive player and see if that corrects the problem.

Jerry

vegasnewbie wrote on 3/7/2004, 3:12 PM

Thanks for your reply Jerry. My DVD player does not have progressive scan, but I understand that you also need a progressive TV to get the benefit of this, preferably with component video input.

I have just tried a different method for making a slide show of still pictures on a DVD. I connected my digital still camera direct to my Philips DVDR75 DVD recorder and burnt a DVD of several images. The result was noticeably better than the DVDs of still pictures that I have made through the computer with Vegas 4 and DVD Architect and burning them on my computer's HP DVD writer DVD300e. There was very little flickering at all with the Philips DVD, unlike the DVDs I have prepared using DVD Architect.

So this shows that my Panasonic TV displays DVDs quite well really, using its SVHS setting. Therefore, I think the problem must be something to do with the way in which DVD Architect prepares DVDs. However, I would prefer to make my DVD slide shows with Vegas 4 and DVD Architect because you can easily add music, labels, and commentaries to the presentation. As I mentioned earlier, when I play .mpg files (rendered by Vegas 4) directly through the Windows media player, there is no flicker at all, so the problem seems to lie with the DVD preparation side of things.

Regards, Fred