Someone just posted something similar about a low bitrate DVD being less compatible with set-top DVD players than a higher bitrate DVD. I must admit that this seems backwards from what I'd expect.

Just to make sure I understand, you are saying that the same portion that doesn't pixelate on your computer when played with WinDVD, DOES pixelate on your set top player?

You can check the compatibility issues for your particular player at this link:

Panasonic RV31

Hi John.

Thanks for your message.

Actually, you are correct. The same portion that doesn't pixelate on the computer when played with WinDVD *does* indeed pixelate on the Panasonic RV31. I've burned many disks with Pinnacle Studio before, and never had that problem (although a billion other problems as any Pinnacle Studio user could atest to!).

I've using the Ritek 1X media on a Sony DRU500A, and the link you provided seems to provide pretty good evidence that this should work well. Before leaving for work today, I noticed that I had a little bit of space left for optimization on the video file, so I managed to upgrade it to 4.00 Mbps, while keeping the menus at a lower rate. I'll experiment with that, and if that doesn't work, I'll try buying a different brand of media.

Hi! Actually, I'm using the Ritek 1X media, and have never really had any problem before, but I've never packed this much data on a DVD before either. I'll try on another computer and with other media as well.

Thanks!

I don't believe it is the media. It is the Mbps. You will notice pixelation at anything below 6 mbps.

You will notice pixelation at anything below 6 mbps

I agree with this, although kangavideo said he didn't see it on his monitor. However, it is possible that his computer monitor is much smaller than the TV and therefore doesn't reveal the pixelization as much. Also, the computer monitor is interlaced which may provide enough blending to mask some of the problems.

If you can create a DVD+RW or DVD-RW that plays on your set-top player, I'd try making a rendering a small portion of the video that shows the problem using 2 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 6 Mbps, and 8 Mbps. Put this on the DVD and play in your set top player. See if the pixelization only shows up at the lower bitrates.

"You will notice pixelation at anything below 6 mbps"

I'd have to disagree.

It is going to depend on how good source footage is & how good encoder is.
I don't expect to have (or get) pixelation just because my bitrate is below 6Mbps.

A lot of commercial DVDs are under that bitrate.

I'm not saying it's not a problem with the MainConcept encoder (I don't use it) but if it's any good it should be able to offer encodes below 6 without that always resulting in pixelation.

The issue has more to do with what file you're trying to render. I've dropped down to around 4.5 Mbps already and had no pixelation at all on my Pioneer 333 set top. However even dropping down to 6 Mbps for a video that had a lot of fast action the pixelation in some scenes was there.

So if your video is more along the talking heads type, you probably can get away will lower bitrates. However if you're doing a NASCAR event, lots of luck.

I have experienced the exact problem you describe. I think the people who have responded with "try other media" or "you notice the pixelization more on a PC monitor because of the resolution" don't understand the problem. It is not a total failure of the media, or even an intermittent problem -- it is a repeatable failure in the data stream, and we aren't talking about pixelization like compression artifacts around sharp edges: these are big chunks of errors where a portion of the image sort of "freezes" and corrupts on the screen, the playback may even stagger for a few seconds, and then it continues, similar to what you sometimes see on digital cable TV if you click to a station and don't catch the "full" frame.

The discs have been burning play back 100% fine on all PCs and on my cheap $45 Apex set-top and my $1200 old-horse Pioneer '909 combo player. However, on my brother's $100 Sony, a 90 minute program will display this error maybe five or six times, always in the exact same spots. It will even do this with an exact copy of the same disc, so it's not bad spots on the media.

In reading, I found a teeny-tiny footnote that said that a data rate that it too low could cause set-yop players to kind of "time-out" ... they think that the data has stopped coming and go to pieces. Computers on the other hand don't "expact" anything and keep working until they get an "end of file" message, or the data has stopped completely for a LONG time. It seems that some set-tops are freaking out; that's my best guess.

I read a whitepaper that said to keep the bitrate above 2,000k, so I have been using 2,250k as a "minimum" setting. It seemed to help for a while, but now I'm seeing the problem again on some friends' players. I think the minimum/average/maximum bitrate settings are "suggestions" and the software doesn't really follow them very well.

On the other hand, my Pioneer has a bitrate "meter" than I can activate, and the numbers "seem" consistently high! e.g., in the 5.5 range! So what is really going on, I don't know. But it *is* an issue, and you're not alone.

I would say that cramming as much video ontop a disk as you are is asking for trouble. I can get about 100 minutes of decent quality video on a disk (a little over 2 hours if it's animation), but that's about it, and I risk that pixelization problem when I do it.

All I'm saying is that in my experience just because you are under 6Mbps you shouldn't expect experience pixellation from that alone.

If the pixellation is a by product of poor encoding or poor hardware then maybe, but not just because of data rate.

I recently, as an experiment, took a single sided dual layer DVD-9 with approaching 3 hours of content on. (It was a replicated disc that I had a legal right to copy). Out of curiosity I decided to see how much of a quality hit I would get ripping this & burning to a DVD-5 (4.7Gb) disc. This left me with an average available data rate of 3.5Mbs for video & audio.

I was amazed at the quality of this DVD-5 , a slight hit yes, but nowhere near as drastic as I expected & no pixellation that you are describing. This was displayed on a 42inch Plasma screen from a Denon 3800 player. On a smaller display I would expect the difference to look even less marked.

Most cheap DVD players are actually DVD-ROM based & this is why they don't behave the same as regular players. (They don't display layer change pauses like most others)

I suggest trying it with other players first , because if it plays back fine with thme it's obvioulsy a compatability problem with the hardware & I suggest trying a different brand of disc second because burning a disc takes minutes & costs very little compared to the effort of re-encoding & compiling a project if it could be solved by something so simple. If after that you still have problems then you are going to have to explore other avenues.

Hi guys,

Here's the scoop -- I decided to do a couple of things:

First -- I forgot that I had *intended* to record the video to my Ritek DVD-R disc, but at the last minute had decided to record first to the Sony DVD+RW disc that came with the DRU-500A and if that was successful, I would record to the Ritek disc.

At the same time, I found that I could optimize the video portion of my work in DVD Architect that was previously at 3.3 Mbps to 4 Mbps. I lowered the bit rate of the menus a bit which cleared up just enough space for me to move forward the quality setting on the video portion. Of course this required another 6 hours of rendering (on top of the initial 13 hours from vegas, and 5.5 hours in architect to reach the initial optimize settings!).

After rendering to the Ritek disc, I tried the DVD in both my computer and on the Panasonic player, and all was fine. The menus worked flawlessly, and the video was pretty decent quality. Of course this leaves me wondering whether the Ritek DVD solved the problem, or the increase in bitrate. I'm guessing it was the media.

For interest, the original VHS video sample was acquired using the MainConcept DV Codec in VirtualDub.
When I finished in Vegas, I allowed the render to go to mpeg2, but that wasn't really necessary since DVD Architect would have to re-encode the whole project at the lower bitrate setting. I wonder if Vegas can encode at the lower setting to avoid having to waste time.

I'm just happy that my production now plays...

Thanks for the good discussion...