Red shadown in Windows Media Player 11

GEJ wrote on 7/6/2008, 8:41 PM
Hi all.

I experienced something odd today, and I'm looking for an explanation.

Yesterday I made a movie with VMS8. I rendered it to an avi file. The preview of the avi file on my PC LCD screen looked great. I then burned this file to a DVD, with DVD Architect Studio 4.5. I played the DVD with Windows Media Player 11, and it looked great. I then played the DVD on 2 TVs in the house; and found that the credit roll was hard to read on the smaller TV, so I decided to redo the credit roll, make the letters bigger.

So I did that today. Afterwards, I rendered a new avi file. Again the preview of that file with Media Player looked great. So I burned it to a DVD, with Architect Studio.

And this is where the "oddness" happened. I played the second DVD on the same Media Player and my LCD; but now, throughout the whole DVD, I have some reddish "shadow", except where the background is completely black. In one scene one can see a red ladder in front of a white camper. In that scene there now appears a red shadow of that ladder! Other scenes are not that clear; they mostly contain some reddish "shadow image" on the bottom-right quarter of the screen.

Luckily playback on both TVs and my laptop DOESN"T show this red stuff. So the DVD is - I think - perfect, and the fault has to be in Windows Movie Player. At least, that's what I'm assuming.

Another thing that got my attention is that when I play the first DVD (with the hard to read credit roll) again there is no red stuff at all. Pop the second DVD in again, and there it is, full of red...

Again, I am assuming that my DVD is fine; but that the problem is caused by Windows Media Player. Can anyone explain what could cause this; and if there is some kind of "fix" for this problem? I've made quite a few DVDs, but never saw this.

Thanks,

Erik

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 7/6/2008, 9:16 PM
Do not render in AVI. Render in the appropriate DVD mpeg2 template that DVDA recognizes automatically and doesn't re-encode.

As for WMP, just install the latest version of ffdshow that provide a newer codec version for mpeg2.
GEJ wrote on 7/7/2008, 4:31 PM
Hi Eugenia, thanks for your reply.

Installed latest version of ffdshow.

Interesting about using MPEG2. Rendering time is about the same in VMS; but creating the DVD sure goes a whole lot faster!

I don't see any difference in picture quality, so I think I'll be using your advice for future projects.

Thanks,

Erik
MSmart wrote on 7/7/2008, 6:23 PM
Interesting about using MPEG2. Rendering time is about the same in VMS; but creating the DVD sure goes a whole lot faster!

I ALWAYS render to AVI letting DVDAS do the mpeg encoding. For shorter video lengths, doing it in VMS is okay, but if your video is longer, DVDAS will have to re-encode.

DVDAS has a Fit-to-Disc option so no matter the length, the bitrate needed to make the video fit on DVD will be used. In this case, AVI source video in DVDAS will give you the best quality.
Eugenia wrote on 7/7/2008, 7:54 PM
Personally, I prefer to not export to DV AVI because it's not a lossless codec (this is good only if your source is also DV AVI and you didn't add any plugins). But then again, I don't use DVDA at all, I use the freeware DVDFlick app that can take any kind of source video (I usually feed it my edited 720p HD MP4 h.264 video) and then it re-encodes to 480p with great quality.
GEJ wrote on 7/8/2008, 9:19 PM
Interesting!

My sources are all AVIs. I get them from my Canon Elura 100. I rarely use effects; most things I add are simply text.

Unfortunately, I don't record/process enough video to be really "familiar" with all of the software's capabilities, and still have a lot to learn...

Still, I appreciate all your thoughts!

Thanks,

Erik
GEJ wrote on 7/8/2008, 9:21 PM
DVDFlick...

Thanks for the tip, Eugenia. Checking that out right now.

Erik