encoding with CCE SP 2.5 - artifacts when played back on computer

[Red Right Hand]

It's nothing that I can't live with, but I've noticed a strange thing happening since I've started using DVDRB + CCE SP 2.5 for most of my DVD backup needs. I was hoping someone could give some insight into why exactly this happens.

When I (in Media Player, Nero Showtime, etc.) play the video from the original DVD, or from the (mounted) ISO image I make of it to do re-encoding from, the video always looks perfectly crystal clear. Likewise, if, after the "Prepare" step in RB, I play the .AVS scripts in Media Player, etc., they look just as good.

However, neither the .M2V's created by CCE SP in the encoding step, nor the actual rebuilt DVD files when all is said and done look nearly as good. The best way I can describe it is that edges of objects are not well-defined, to such an extent that I find the video to be pretty unwatchable.

The strange thing is that once I burn the rebuilt DVD files to a DVD-R and play it in my set-top player and Sony HDTV television, the edges look fine. I actually notice very, very little difference between the original DVD and the rebuilt DVD when I'm playing them on my TV instead of the computer monitor.

I'm guessing this has to do with the progressive display of my computer monitor as opposed to the interlaced display of my TV? If I were to encode using the "Disable Interlaced" option in RB, would this create files that are equally playable on both my TV and my computer monitor, or would the TV picture suffer when playing back a progressively-encoded file?

[Joergen]

I dont know what you mean, but there shouldnt be such a problem unless you absolutely rape the encode by keeping all the french and spanish audio etc making the movie bitrate near 2500kbit.

Unless you can muster a screenshot in DVD2AVI, RGB mode, of the same spot in the original VOB and the encoded VOB, there's nothing much we can say.

Also, WinDVD is the only standard for PC DVD viewing. PowerDVD's mpeg decoder gives much worse output than the material actually is, as it tries to cut corners in CPU usage at the expense of the video quality.

There could be an error with your avisynth setup causing interlace problems. And, you shouldnt deinterlace or force no interlace on the video unless you want to mess it up like that.

[DIggedy]

Another thing to consider is when playing on a pc the image is being upscaled to whatever resolution you're running your monitor... this will always magnify compression artifacts and look worse than playing on a tv in native resolution.

[Red Right Hand]

True, but the video looks crystal clear when played from the original (pre-recoded) DVD, and only looks bad when played from the backup. The backup, however, is virtually indiscernable from the original DVD when played on my HDTV projection TV with my set top player.