Thanks for the response. I just did a test that proves my complaint. I should note that when using a motion menu of just video it will not be as noticable as when using a menu that has text elements built in to it. I'm seeing the worst of the problem show up as jagged text that should be clear and smooth.

Here was my test:

I took the same AVI file and used it twice in the same project (compression was set at 8000 in the optimize menu). I used the same file once as the motion menu and second as a video link from the motion menu. The motion menu looks bad the video link looks great. Same video file both compressed by DVD architect. Definate problem with DVD architect. Hopefully Sony will fix this soon or I'll have to switch program again. What a shame... I really like DVD Architect.

Marc

I am sorry but I did the same thing with my DVD. Same video was used as an intro and the motion menu..and the result was perfect. Stop using AVIS, please. Frameserve your project from Vegas to TMPGENc or encode it in Vegas with Main Concept to MPEG2. Try it and I'm sure you will notice the difference.
BTW, you wrote this:
"Note: My other MPEG files (non motion menus)were compressed at 4200-8000 VBR in Vegas and look great."
- Your bitrate is too low. Rise these figures respectively to 8500-9000 VBR.

ReelDVD will accept open gop files--it's only a suggestion for closed gops.

Jim

Cunhambebe,

Thanks for your reponse.

I've tried it both ways. Encoding in Vegas (Using DVD Architect/main concept) and using AVIs brought directly in. It does not matter, it happens both times. Bringing in AVIs was just a suggested workaround I was giving a try.

When I said that my other files were encoded at 4200-8000 I was not refering to my motion menu that I'm having a problem with. My motion menu was encoded at 8000 CBR. I was making the point that the other media within my project had been encoded at much lower rates yet it looks great.

Again when I do the following test with the exact same file it proves there is an issue with DVD Arcitect. Perhaps it is more problematic with certain types of video but it is definately a problem. It seems to effect built in text elements the most (Note: The text elements are in the original video file as edited in Vegas)

1. Brought in file #1 (Made in Vegas and encoded at 8000 CBR using DVD Architect specs). Set it up as a motion menu: Edit>Set Background Menu>Choose File #1

2. Brought in same File #1 but dropped it on top of my motion menu as a video link.

3. Prepared and burned DVD.

4. Played back DVD. Motion menu text is jagged. Click on video link (which came from the same orginal file) and the text looks great.

Exact same file (encoded at 8000 CBR) was used in the test. The only difference is that it was set up as a motion menu and as a video link. Video link looks great, motion menu terrible. Sony needs to fix this.

Marc

I believe I've found the cause of the problem:

1. With the curser on the timeline in DVD Architect I can see the jagged problem on both my computer monitor (DVD Architect window) and my external preview to my Sony broadcast monitor.

2. However if I go into preview mode (F9) and set the quality to BEST the jagged problem dissapears and the video playing on both computer monitor and my Sony broadcast monitor looks good. If I switch the quality setting to HIGH or lower I get the jagged problem.

So what DVD Architect appears to be doing is that when it masters a DVD project it masters the video files at BEST quality and the motion menus only at HIGH qaulity.

Hopefully Sony can change this and the problem should be solved. SONY?

Marc

Hi.
"When I said that my other files were encoded at 4200-8000 I was not refering to my motion menu that I'm having a problem with. My motion menu was encoded at 8000 CBR. I was making the point that the other media within my project had been encoded at much lower rates yet it looks great."

- Ops, sorry, really. I just find DVDA a great application despite of some drawbacks. One improvement that I've noticed and no one agrees with me, is that DVDs authored and burned with vesion 3.0a are sometimes too sharp and I still don't know why this is happening.
One drawback that has been discussed around here is the way you configure the NEXT button (on the RC) with DVDA. You can configure every end action for all the media BUT this will not work for the NEXT button that will play the same sequence of files as they were added when the DVD was authored. What a pity! DVDA has too many options but unfortunately not for the NEXT button and yes, sometimes, despite all the improvements of the new version, this drawback is a very weird and severe flaw that does not make any justice to DVDA. Of course there are alternatives/workarounds to correct this flaw, but no one will give you a perfect outcome. What is a perfect outcome here? To let someone skip intros and media, following a reasonable sequence. Anyway, I haven't noticed this problem with menus and intros.....I understand that DVDA's biggest flaw IS the NEXT button.
Another drawback is the outline for the subtitles on DVDA. It is still too thin and sometimes this can be very annoying. I'm sure Sony one day will fix this.

"...2. However if I go into preview mode (F9) and set the quality to BEST the jagged problem dissapears and the video playing on both computer monitor and my Sony broadcast monitor looks good. If I switch the quality setting to HIGH or lower I get the jagged problem."

- I guess those settings are only for preview mode (I guess).

Cunhambebe,

I appreciate your trying to help. I'm hoping this "quality problem" is a simple matter of some programming changes to make the menus render out at production quality like the video files but you never know. In many ways DVD Architect is light years ahead of Reel DVD so I'm not looking forward to returning to it or having to switch programs again.

Marc

Marc,

I may have to agree with you, although I'm not yet certain.

I too noticed that my menu video looked "mushy" to me in my first project, but I thought it might have been something I had set wrong in Vegas. I'm new to authored DVDs. My second DVD with menu looked a bit odd too. I mostly have been doing DVDs without menus up to this point. I think I'll take your lead and do some more experimenting. I'm wondering from your description if if might be a frame/field thing, perhaps something's getting rendered funny so that the antialiasing is not interfield rendering properly. My last 2 menus did not have text - just motion video backgrounds, so I can't directly compare results with you yet.

I'll give it a shot later this week and get back with you.

Tom

Thanks Tom, I look forward to hearing about your results. The easiest way to test it is to use the same piece of video as both the motion menu and a video link. The results are pretty obvious when using video with text and graphic elements.

Marc

Bump for Sony. Any comments?

Marc,

I haven't used DVD3 a lot yet but yesterday I tried to burn a DVD and when DVD architect rendered my DV video it has jaggies all over. It is very noticeable in text, looks like I am loosing half my resolution, like it was deinterlaced. When I look at original file it is nice and smooth.

Same with preview the quality after RENDER is the same as high in preview pane.

Motion menu text .. looks bad to me also. DVDA3 3.0b insists on renrendering the motion menu video. Has someone notified Sony tech support?

Ed B

Marc - sorry I haven't had a chance to check this out. We were out if town most of the weekend and then we've had a "bug" running through the family that's kept me unable to do much. Hope to get to it later in the week, but it looks like some others are chiming in too,

Tom

It's my opinion that you may be dealing with a couple of different issues, this based on some testing that I just did and I'd like to post some pictures showing the results, but none of the DVD Playing software I currently have access too will let me capture a picture.

Anyway, I did 3 different tests - motion menu using MPEG as the source, motion menu using DV AVI as the source and motion menu using uncompressed AVI as the source - now I need to qualify this by saying that since I dond't have DVDA3, all of these tests were done with 2, but I really would expect similar results with 3.

Test 1 - MPEG source - DVDA must first decompress and then recompress the menu video stream; sure enough you can see some artifact of this in the letters, jaggie edges, etc.

Test 2 - DV AVI source - well, DV doesn't like hard edges in general and anytime you're doing titles in DV you need to be pretty careful otherwise you're going to see artifact in your end result. Since I only had my screen to go by, the DV looked slightly better than the MPEG but there was still some artifact present on the title edges.

Test 3 - Uncompressed AVI source - looked great; couldn't tell any visual difference between the motion menu and a movie using the same footage that was included in the project (rendered from Vegas).

Hope this helps.
--Scott

Thanks Scott. Interesting experiment. Marc's dilemma is how come it looks good in the main video and not in the menu, using the exact same DV file for both? I certainly see how using uncompressed AVI would look better overall, but it seems that DVDA SHOULD handle the DV menu video and the same DV content video identically.

I wonder if there is some magic/hidden/undocumented setting that we're missing?

You will always see a sometimes severe quality hit when using MPEG as the source for a motion menu. DVDA must first decompress this material, multiplex in the additional video information and then recompress everything. At this point the text material has gone thru 2 compressions - it lost some info at the first compression and it will lose even more with the second.

One way to avoid some of this is to do your text in DVDA (which can't always be done).

You're also going to see a hit if you take the material out of Vegas as DV AVI - DV codecs are not optimized for handling titles which have hard lines and usually large changes in contrast along that hard line. MPEG handles titles much better, but doing that second compression step in DVDA is going to kill any advantage MPEG has over DV.

By using umcompressed AVI as your motion source material you avoid the issues with the DV Codec and you avoid the second recompression from using MPEG - hence your source material is as pristine as you can get.

Everyone comments about how Holloywood movies look so great on DVD even at fairly low compression rates - the reason is that the source material is so excellent in quality that the MPEG encoder has a lot to work with. This is no different with a motion menu - if you start with compromised source material, you're going to end up with less than acceptable results.

Also note that other authoring programs may not suffer from this problem simply because of how they work. For example, DVD Lab doesn't do MPEG compression, it simply adds the mask information into the video stream, so you get what you start with. This may also be the case with other software, I don't know.

Could there be something else going on? You bet. One thing I don't like about doing MPEG encoding with DVDA is that I don't have as much control over the encoding options as I do when coming directly from Vegas - changing the sampling from "good" to "best" being one of the more important options (which can also effect text).

--Scott

Great points, Scott - thanks.

Another way to get the"best" looking motion menus is by frameserving the video from Vegas to DVDA3. For multiple motion menus use multiple instances of Vegas.

Ed

Finally got some art up showing the movie snapshot, the menu using MPEG as source, DV as source and uncompressed AVI as source.

http://www.dvd-reflections.com/menu/index

Thanks everyone for chiming in on this.

Whatever the reason, the fact that Reel DVD and I'm assuming many other DVD authoring programs in this price range do not seem to suffer from this problem make DVD Architect a flawed product in my view. I hope Sony will correct this soon because it's such a nice program otherwise.

Marc

May be related to this issue, as menus are I believe rendered to MPEG2 even if they're still (non-moving) menus, the same difference has appeared in a project of mine -

The Text on my main menu - made up of non-moving thumbnails & text created in DVDA3 - looks decidedly "woolly" when played back on TV, whereas once I click to play a Video File, Text which was created in Vegas Media Generator then rendered to MPEG2 looks beautifully crisp and sharp.

There is a clear difference in quality between the two, which I hope will soon be fixed.

Woolly?

Rob