Is this a Media, Encoding, or DVDA2 problem?

musman wrote on 2/7/2005, 3:05 AM

I've been using Ritek Ridata G04 and G03 media with my A04 burner and haven't had one that wouldn't play yet. The strange thing is, I've noticed a weird stuttering motion along with some excessive aliasing on edges on my lastest disks. If I stop the disk then restart it, the motion seems to go back to normal for a while, but eventually returns. I was thinking it might be related to my material being shot on film, but it was made 29.97 when it was put on dvcam tape. Also the problem also happens, though not as badly or noticably, on another short film I made that was shot on DV.
I just read in the Vegas Video forum that Ritek disks have dropped in quality over the past 6 months. So, does this sound like a media problem, or might my encoding (done in Vegas) or DVDA2 be the culprit? Unfortunately I don't have any other media to check the problem out on currently, but I was just curious if anyone had an idea what may be happening or any experience before I spend the next couple days buying different disks and running tests.
Thanks ahead of time for any thoughts!

Comments

ScottW wrote on 2/7/2005, 4:59 AM

How did you encode the media in Vegas? Some of the symptoms you describe could be a result of pushing the bit rate too high.

musman wrote on 2/7/2005, 1:40 PM

Thanks for the help. I rendered (I believe) as DVDA NTSC Video Steam - "Project" set to best quality - "Video" video quality set at 31 ("High") - Variable bit rates set to: Max bps =8,000,000; Average bps= 6,000,000; Min= 192,000. I may have selected the 2 pass render and definitely had it set under "System" so it did not render as elementary streams (render as .m2v).
Also, I was able to get a hold of an "optodisk" 2x dvd-rw and burn onto it. The stuttering and aliasing was not present.
So, it's sounding like the problem may be with the media. I didn't think I was pushing the setting too high, but please tell me if I was. Is it possible that my encoding is too much for some disks but just right for others?

ScottW wrote on 2/7/2005, 2:58 PM

If you tried different media and the problems went away, then I think you found the issue. Some cheap media doesn't have the same reflectivity characteristics as decent media, so can cause more errors during playback.

The settings you have should be fine. I only asked because occasionally people post here that are recording >8,0000 which doesn't gain you much, of anything and creates playback problems as well.

musman wrote on 2/7/2005, 4:15 PM

Thank you for the help. It is greatly appreciated. The thing is I thought I was buying the best media available in Ritek Ridata. It was highly thought of by Ralph Debarge of the DV.com dvd forum, but that was more than 6 months ago and there was the report that Ritek has gone down hill over the past 6 months. Guess I'm going to return the Ritek I just bought and get Taiyo Yuden instead. It seems to be the highest rated disk now and isn't too much more expensive.
Thanks again!