I'm getting the same problem on two different Apex AD-1500 players. I also tried burning the "DVD Architect Project for Test Burning Only" but it's too short as the speed-up-slow-down problem usually starts happening after a couple of minutes into the video. I've only seen one instance so far where it happens in the first minute (I've burned about 12 projects now and all of them I can't keep because of this and the blocky menu problem). I've just burned a personal video project using DVDA and it has the same problem. I'm going to burn it using Ulead and do two captures so I can display them side by side for you guys to see. Both will have used the same mpeg file. The previous burns were of tv shows that I like to record so I couldn't send them to you for fear of copyright violation. But now I have video content so I can share. :) I'll post in this same thread once I have them both captured. SoFo, let me know if you want me to send you the two discs (i.e. The one created from DVDA & the one created from Ulead). I can send them in the mail if you want to look at them but I would think you can reproduce this by burning a longer program and finding one of the players that exhibit this problem.

Thanks,
-Troy

Ok, I've captured back from both the DVDA & Ulead created discs and created a little video in which you can see the problem. The video shows the Ulead created video first, the DVDA created video second then both Ulead & DVDA split-screen which is very interesting to watch. In the video the problem is visible at 25, 29 & 39 seconds (this is during the DVDA created segment). It's also visible during the split screen segment.

Here's the link:
dvda_problem_1_500Kbps.wmv

Again, both were burned with the same mpeg source, same burner (Pioneer A03), same brand DVD-RW discs bought at the same time last year. Both discs were played back and captured from the same Apex AD-1500.

-Troy

Hi Tecknal and SoFo Guys

This looks just like the problem I got in a DVDA project of a ballet program - which I mentioned on the "menu text quality" thread.
The dancer, while jumping around the stage, seems to "teleport" to the position right ahead... The bitrate used were both 8.000 and 7.000 Kbps CBR (I "think" the problem was more pronounced using the higher bitrate) with PCM Wav Audio.
I'm using a Sony 500 burner on Sony DVD+RW discs for testing; the problem appeared both on the Sony DVD+RW recording and a Discrite DVD-R I use for keeping.

By the way, the files were rendered using VV4, and burned using RecordNowDX 4.6, which came with my burner. I only used DVDA to create the DVD project (menus and preparing the TS directories).

What audio format are you using (PCM or AC-3)? To find out, go to the Optimize DVD dialog (File | Optimize DVD...).

#1
When I tried this out, I had rendered a stand alone MPEG2 file from V4 using the default DVD NTSC preset (video and audio together). This experienced the problem after burning with DVDA.

#2
Then I tried to create the DVDA Video Stream preset and then rendered an AC3 file. This also experienced the problem after burning from DVDA.

In both cases above, the video jumping happens in the same points in the video. In all cases from V4, I'm using the Sonic Foundry presets with no modifications. When bringing these files into DVDA, I'm making no changes to the Optimize area.

#3
Taking the MPEG2 file from #1 into Sonic DVDit! PE, the problem goes away.

Ron

It says Auto (AC-3) Stereo. I've never tried anything else with DVDA and it always recompresses the audio. The one exception to the recompression is when I rendered from VV4 and used DVD Architect Video (defaults) and then rendered the audio as AC3 (192) and tied them together in DVDA. That is the one that has this speed-up-slow-down problem within the first minute of playing. On this video that I used in my example I encoded using Tsunami and I believe it encodes using "MPEG-1 Audio Layer II" @ 384 kbits/sec. I just checked the DVDA & Ulead created discs with PowerDVD and the DVDA says "Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 192Kbps" and the Ulead created disc says "Audio: MPEG 2.0 192Kbps".

Later today I'll start the whole process again using V4 to encode the mpeg. Anything you want me to try when I do it? I usually use the default settings.

HTH,
-Troy

I had a problem that sound similar to this on the first DVD I made using DVDA. In that case, I used a straight MPEG2 file for both audio and video and let DVDA make the AC3 audio. On two subsequent DVDs, I gave DVDA the MPEG2 file and an AC3 file and have not seen the problem on those DVDs.

Ok, here is another example between what it looks like from a DVDA created and burned project vs. Ulead DVD Movie Factory. Both had sources encoded from V4. I used the "DVD Architech NTSC Video Stream" for the DVDA burned video and I used the "DVD NTSC" profile for the one burned from Ulead. I would have used the same one but Ulead DVDMF1 could not load an Mpeg without audio. From what I can tell in the settings the video portion should be exact and I have proved this out to myself previously by using the "DVD NTSC" mpeg in both DVDA & Ulead and the DVDA always has this slow-down-speed-up problem. This time it was within the first 30 seconds of my my video. Again, I burned each standalone movie to dvd-rw then captured it back using a Canopus ADVC-1000 then put it together in vegas. I show the Ulead clip first, then the DVDA clip second (the problem manifests between seconds 8 & 9 in this clip) and then I included the keyframed mask that I used to split the two videos and then finally the composite. Also, it is not as easy to see to me if the windows player is full screen. The slowdown is almost like a velocity envelope change in motion between seconds 8 & 9. The offer still stands that I'd be more than happy to send a disc with both projects and my avi's, mpegs, etc. to Sonic Foundry Support but I really think you could reproduce it on your own if you got ahold of one of the players that are having this problem and burned more than just a minute or two of video.

Here's the new video:
dvda_problem_2.wmv

Thanks,
-Troy

I'm able to repro this on an Apex AD-1500. (The same disc in other DVD players plays fine.) Thanks for your detailed feedback on this issue. We're looking into it.

That's great news. I hope a fix can be found before the first update. :) Do you know if the blocky still menu has been seen on that Apex AD-1500? That's the exact model I'm using (2 of them). Glad to have helped and thanks for the update, appreciate it!

Yes. We have seen the blocky still menus on the Apex AD-1500. We're working on this issue also.

Great! Thanks again for the feedback.

-Troy

That's great that you can duplicate the blocky menus. I've had to go back to Sonic's DVDit for now. But I'm looking forward to using DVDA again when an update becomes available.

Thanks.