'Green bars' on encoded DVD (telecine transfer)

[nmw01223]

I am new to Doom9, so I am not sure if I am putting this in the right place or not.

Basically, I have a problem with DVDs I have built from family telecine transferred 8mm films. The problem is that on some DVD TV players (not all, or even a majority) the actual movies come out with green bars - see this image: http://www.nightshade-arts.co.uk/downloads/green_bar.jpg.

The process I am using is:
- the films are captured to AVI files, no audio, 16fps, RGB24, 1280x960 resolution, non-interlaced, Xvid MPEG4 encoded (light compression, 250MB/minute).
- they are then converted to MPEG2 PAL: 4:3, 25 frames/sec interlaced, 720x576, 6000bps by the AVS4YOU video converter.
- They are then imported in Magix Edit Pro MX Premium and built into PAL DVDs (Edit Pro does rerender the MPEG files).

What is noticeable is:
- the movie image does extend under the green bars.
- the DVD menus (still frames captured from the movies) do not show the problem.
- the movies do.
- titles inserted into the movies using the Edit Pro title editor also do.
- the problem is not apparent when viewed on a PC, only with DVD TV players, and only some of those.
- there is an additional (possibly unrelated) problem in that when viewed using Windows Media Player, the menus look fine, but the actual movies are vertically compressed to an aspect ratio of roughly 2 or 2.5:1 (no green bars though). However other media players such as VLC have no such problem.

I am stuck on this. All settings look good. Queries have been put to Magix and AVS (probably nothing to do with AVS as (a) Magix rerenders anyway, and (b) the Magix generated titles also show the problem), and their forums, but no luck so far.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

[TheSkiller]

My advice is to ditch the unsophisticated Magix encoder/author (?) and use a proper MPEG2 encoder fed by an AviSynth script that prepares your source for DVD encoding. The results will be day and night quality wise I'm sure (apart from the problem that the Magix software seems to produce a DVD that is not DVD compliant and therefore produces these playback issues).

Btw, are you encoding twice? AVS4YOU + Magix?

Get HCEnc (http://hank315.nl) (freeware MPEG2 encoder, very good) and feed it with an AVS script. Then author the resulting DVD compliant video without reecoding using any authoring software you like. The important thing is the video shall not be re-encoded in authoring!

[Taurus]

My advice is to ditch the unsophisticated Magix encoder/author (?)
No, Magix is doing fine in encoding/authoring for DVD.
The latest mainconcept mpeg2 encoder is not that bad.
Maybe some settings got screwed up.
For a test just knob all switches to default.
And yes the menu authoring is a little boring.
You have to check and double check if all settings are right.
Some friends of mine are using Magix on a daily basis
and except some missing input and output codecs they are satisfied with their workflow.

@nmw01223:
And yes TheSkiller is right, avoid any encoding twice.
If the mpeg2 produced by AVS4YOU is DVD compliant
Magix should not touch it at all and rerender it.
Only at cutting points should be a smart rendering necessary.
And why are you converting a progressive source to interlaced?
Why dont you import your avi directly to Magix?
So many questions...

@TheSkiller:
And yes, I'm using HCEnc and avisynth too, what else :D;).

[Ghitulescu]

Would you care to upload some samples of both AVIs and corresponding parts of DVDs, if possible from those parts that are affected? Since it's your archive there's no issue with the copyright, unless you adversely decide :)?

[nmw01223]

Sorry for the delay to reply - bit of a computer disaster.

I agree double encoding is not ideal due to loss of quality. The original idea was that AVS would do the conversion then Magix would take it and not rerender it. In the end I did some final colour balance saturation etc changes that caused the rerender.

The reason I don't take the AVI files straight into Magix is that it all slows up tremendously. Firstly Magix isn't as geared up for AVI as it is for MPEG 2, and secondly the AVI files at 30-40Mbit/sec, ie quite big. Actually taking them straight into Magix is what I am now doing (putting up with a painfully slow UI), and the problem has gone.

However, I would still like to know what it is caused by. Difficult for me to post samples as it fails on very few DVD players, and none that I can easily lay my hands on. When I do get a dud one, I'll post a link to it.

And why are you converting a progressive source to interlaced?

Good question. The source is what it is - 1280x960 non-interlaced, and I thought DVDs had to be interlaced - PAL or NTSC etc?


Get HCEnc (freeware MPEG2 encoder, very good) and feed it with an AVS script

Not a big fan of AviSynth I'm afraid - but I don't want to start an argument! I'd be much keener on it if the various tools I use (AVS, Magix) would take AviSynth as a frame server - but they don't.