Green bars at bottom of avis

[Henderson]

I did something recently to screw up my AutoGK and so far haven't figured out how to fix it. When I rip any DVD the usual way, there's a wide uneven green bar that pops up at the bottom of some frames. They appear sporadically for the first 5 minutes or so only of the avi file, not throughout the entire movie. And by sporadically, I mean 10 frames might be good, then the green pops up for 1 frame, then 2 good frames, 1 green frame, 12 good frames, 1 green, etc. The green will appear with both Xvid and Divx.

If I go into the hidden options and check the box at the upper right to Reduce FPS for 60/50fps HDTV progressive sources, the green will not appear at all no matter what frame rate I select there. But the final avis are badly interlaced so it's not really a good fix.

The only thing I remember changing before this problem popped up was updating the AC3 codecs.

I'm certain it's not related to my dvd recorder, any odd copy protection (these are DVDs I recorded myself off cable), my video drivers or media players. The green will appear with every media player I've tried including VLC and KMPlayer. The same DVD will rip perfectly without the green on another PC, and also on this PC if I check the Reduce FPS option as I said. I've reinstalled video drivers, AutoGK, Xvid and Divx and still can't get rid of the green.

I have YV12 unchecked for color spaces in ffdshow settings and checked that didn't get checked somehow (it didn't).

I'm at a loss what else to try to get back to how it was before the green started to appear. Any suggestions?

Here's a sample of a frame showing the green:
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9523/greensample.jpg

Thanks for any help.

Edit: In the last few hours I completely uninstalled AutoGK 2.55, ffdshow and AC3. My other system was running AutoGK 2.53b so after rebooting from the uninstalls, I installed that version and the green is now gone! So possibly something in version 2.55 just doesn't agree with my system, or it was a combination of things, but happy that the green is gone for now. I haven't reinstalled ffdshow or AC3 yet, but I'll also install the older copies when I run into the need for them.

[Ghitulescu]

Maybe resize? The image has 720x544 pixels, so without any deep thoughts I think you altered somehow the image (a DVD Recorder yields always 480/576) and the green comes from padding (MOD8 or MOD16).

[Henderson]

The DVD recorder I've been using is a Lite-On DD-A100GX, and when I record in 1 or 2 hour mode, the size is always 720x544, so I usually try and stick to the original dimensions. If I record in 3 hour mode, then the dimensions will drop, but can't remember if to 640 or 576 width, I really don't record in the lesser qualities to be able to keep the video as high quality as possible. You do see noticeable degradation in the quality at the longer recording times so I avoid them.

Maybe this recorder is different because it can play both NTSC and PAL formats and is all region? It's also not on every frame, that green pops up just for 1 frame every 2-12 frames for the first 5 minutes only, and it just recently started happening.

[Ghitulescu]

And the recordings it makes on DVDRs are viewable on other players?

[Henderson]

Yes, they play fine. I also have a Philips player only (DVP5982) that plays the videos just fine as well, whether I burn them as .avi files or convert them to DVDs, but always retaining the 720 width. That's the max size stand alone DVD players will play and I've never had any problems with that.

[Ghitulescu]

I was talking about the recordings your LiteOn, that that you press REC ;)

You can't have 720x544 original recordings of the LiteOn that can be played on any given DVD player. Unless the LiteOn records in another format than DVD.

[Henderson]

Ok, in digging into the size more, when I bring up the .vob recorded files in both G-Spot and MediaInfo, they show the recorded size as 720x480. But when I play the .vob files, the player and screenshots taken from it are actually 640x480. So I was taking the 720 width off what G-Spot and MediaInfo said. So when AutoGK made the files 720 width, it increased the height to keep the aspect ratio correct. Not sure why G-Spot and MediaInfo reads that way though, but it's on every file, not just a problem with a few.

But regardless of that, I've been using the 720 width for ages without any problems, and it just recently started having the green bar appear for the first 5 minutes on all encodes. Going back to AutoGK v2.53b seems to have fixed it though, I haven't seen any green bars now, even though the output file size is still 720x544.

[Ghitulescu]

You don't get it, do you?

You don't have problems with 720 and no vertical green bars. As I thought, the VOBs are ok, you do probably something wrong.

You have 64 more pixels that are filled by default with green (no valid video data). 480->544.

[Henderson]

I think we're talking in circles here. At it's widest point, the green bar at the bottom is only 14 pixels high. That doesn't make up the difference as you're thinking to "fill in" the difference between a height of 480 and 544. The resizing has nothing to do with the appearance of the green bar.

Here's the same movie, exact same frame, redone with AutoGK 2.53b:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/4379/nogreen.jpg

There's no green bar at all, and there isn't one through any part of the entire movie, and the output size is still 720x544.

As I said, because of AutoGK always ripping my movies to a width of 720, they always turn out 720x544 and have for years. I've checked several others still on my hard drive that I haven't burned yet. They have turned out perfect and there are no problems playing those avis on my stand alone DVD players. There's no problem with playing them if I convert them to standard DVD format either.

I'd buy into your idea more if the green line was consistently there throughout the movie, but it's not. When this started last week, that green bar appearred only sporadically for the first 5 minutes of the movie only, and never again. If it was a problem with the resizing, that green bar would be there for the entire length of the movie, and not just the first 5 minutes of it.

[Ghitulescu]

I find it strange that you feed AutoGK with 720x480 and obtain 720x544 without any settings you done upon it.

Green means "no valid video data", so extending 480 to 544 resulted in a sort of "nirvana" for video.

Just revert to 2.53b and live happy. Not always the newest is also the best.

[Henderson]

Forcing the 720 width is definitely my fault as I explained. I was taking the info from G-Spot and MediaInfo as the definitive measurement. But I stupidly blocked out the discrepancy that 720x480 (reported by both) isn't 4:3, which these older movies definitely are. When played in VLC or KMPlayer where I can take a direct screenshot to compare, the recorded image is definitely 640x480.

So not doing the math and missing the obvious that 720x480 wasn't 4:3, I manually set the width as 720 under Advanced Options in AutoGK. To keep the aspect ratio correct for 720 width, AutoGK then resized it to 720x540, and apparently added another 4 pixels to 720x544 to keep it all in even increments of 16, which is probably what makes it compatible with most DVD players. So that explains the odd output dimensions.

Today I did 3 samples of the same 30 min episode and found the stretch to 720 actually gave the best image, which surprised me. I would have expected keeping to the 640x480 would have been best.

But I'm happy back with v2.53b, it's all back to working perfectly with it. Thanks for your input though, it made me catch the reported size discrepancy I hadn't noticed before.

[Ghitulescu]

You might go read about PAR and DAR. Because 720x480 is 4:3, as well as it can also be 16:9. Emphasis on PAR.

I read this forum since the beginning (I'm a new member however) and I still do not understand why people do convert so much - a process that if not correctly undestood (which is the vast majority of the cases) creates more problems than it solves (only one - storage space). If you don't like the MPEG-2 codec (over say DivX/xVid) why on hell did you buy a DVD-recorder (mandatory MPEG-2), and not a plain good old capture card?

[Henderson]

That's interesting info I was never aware of, thanks for that.

I actually have a Hauppaugge capture card too that I originally used, but when I finally broke down and bought a DVD recorder, I found I much preferred using that so I didn't have to tie up both the TV and computer at the same time.

One of these days when I'm sure I'll actually backup every new movie I add, I'd like to switch over to keeping them all on a hard drive. The thought of a few hard drives replacing rows of DVDs on shelves, even in slimline cases, just makes me drool. But without maintaining a full backup, I won't risk a hard drive getting fried and losing everything.

Thanks for all the info.

[kis2005]

Henderson - I have had the same thing happen on a couple of older movies from the 40's and I also set the fix resolution at 720 (which is the default res of DVD's ...at least NTSC) I'm going to try your fix and go back to 2.53b.

[kis2005]

btw ...with a fixed resolution of 720, AGK states that the chosen resolution is 720x544 with and aspect ratio of 1.32

[kis2005]

The green bar at the bottom (which was not solid but flickering) was fixed using 2.53b. I compared the AGK logs and didn't notice any difference. I also compared the screen shots, and there wasn't any signs of cropping. It seems that the flickering green bar was introduced for whatever reason.

[Henderson]

Possibly it's just a certain video card or driver (9800GT Nvidia for me) or OS (WinXP Pro) it's happening to, we seem to be in the minority since I haven't read much else about this. I had the green bar at the bottom of colored movies also, mine wasn't limited to just black and white. But I did notice that what seemed to be good frames between the green popping up here and there, there were actually rainbow bars in various pale colors. It wasn't noticeable at all against the black and white movies, but you could make it out against a colored movie. So it was a constant bar for the first 5 minutes, just not always in green.

[kis2005]

I have only noticed it on older movies that were full frame. It could be caused by the way the DVD was authored or a whole lot of other reasons, but by using 2.53b over 2.55, I don't get the green flickering bars. I don't know what the difference is between the versions. I am using Windows XP64, but I'm using GeForce GTX260 ...could that be a difference? ...I don't know.