DVD-RB + QuEnc creates choppy movies ?

[alu66]

Hi, I have searched through the forums looking for an answer, but there does not seem to be a easy answer for this. I am testing with the movie "Torque" NTSC.

My Setup:

DVD-RB .59, QuEnc .54, AviSynth 2.5.4 + MPEGDec3dg.dll, CCE SP Trial 2.67.00.27 + EclCCE.

DVD-RB Settings:
AVS Options - ConvertToYUY2() checked, MPEG2Source checked
QuEnc Options - Single-Pass Encode checked

QuEnc Settings:
MPEG-2 selected
Use VBR selected
12 GOP Size
2 Max B-Frames
8 DC Precision
16:9 Aspect Ratio
Everything else unchecked

Problem: When using QuEnc, the main movie has severe playback problems when max_bitrate (in rebuilder.ini [Options] is set to 9000. (completely freezes, audio drop outs) Previews have no problems. If I set the max_bitrate to 8500 or 8000, the main movie plays but the play back is very choppy, as if it is missing frames or something. Playing the disk in my PC with WinDVD and it plays fine. Playing disc in my Panasonic standalone is where the problems are seen.

One curious thing is that when I use CCE SP Trial + EclCCE, there are no problems at all. I have been trying to get this to work ever since DVD-RB .56 and QuEnc .51 I figured I would give the latest versions of DVD-RB and QuEnc a try but still experience the same thing everytime.

Am I missing something in the way QuEnc is setup?

Thanks in advance.

[dragongodz]

its already been said many times that avcodecs rate control is not real good at the moment, causing spikes etc. you are better off using 2 pass with QuEnc for now.

note that more of the modern players(strangly the sheapo brands especially) are more forgiving of the spikes while brand names such as panasonic, pioneer and sony are more likly to not like them. :)

[alu66]

Thanks for the reply. I'll try to encode with 2 passes to see if it will help the situation. I'll post results soon.

[alu66]

OK, I tried the following settings in the Options, QuEnc Options:

High Quality - checked
everything else unchecked

When QuEnc launches, Use VBR, High Quality, and 2 Pass Encoding are checked. In the Advanced Properties, everything is unchecked, 16:9 is selected, and Max Bitrate = 9000.

Unfortunately the choppiness is still there. The audio and subtitles match. The only audio channel I kept was the 6 Channel AC3 and English subtitles.

Rebuilder.log file contains this:
- HIGH/LOW/AVERAGE Cell Bitrates: 6,783/5,008/6,775 Kbs

In my initial post, the extras /previews are fine, but the main movie is where the choppy video is. What else can I try to get a good rebuild of this DVD using QuEnc?

[dragongodz]

you may want to try using deinterlacing or deinterlace with decomb and see what effect that has.

ah just remembered this aswell
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80636

[alu66]

Hi, yes I have tried the deinterlace with decomb as well, but the effect is still the same. Playback for main movie is choppy / jerky.

I have read through the link you mentioned...I think the 'fix' is to run the files created by QuEnc through pulldown.exe and convert them to interlaced?

I'll give it shot to see if that fixes the problem.

Thanks again for the input.

[dragongodz]

I think the 'fix' is to run the files created by QuEnc through pulldown.exe and convert them to interlaced?
yes convert the seq_header flags to interlaced.

[alu66]

The nagging question though is that the extras (4:3) are not choppy, while the main movie(16:9) is choppy. If it is an interlacing problem, shouldn't the choppiness apply to all?

I ran the m2v files through pulldown.exe with -proq_seq i, and after rebuilding the files, the resulting files in the VIDEO_TS folders are too big to fit onto a DVD-5 :(

[jdobbs]

The extras are probably interlaced while the movie is telecined progressive. I'll take care of this, as this is the second thread to discuss it. I'm going to make the assumption that the sequence header should be set to interlaced on NTSC telecined sources.

[alu66]

Thanks dragongodz and jdobbs for your input. I'll be checking for the updates so that someday I can get DVD-RB and QuEnc to work with each other. In the meantime I'll keep trying different workarounds to see if I can figure it out.

[alu66]

Jdobbs, thanks for fixing this in .62

Dragongodz, the only problem now is that QuEnc .54 errors out while encoding. The usual Microsoft error message, "QuEnc has caused a problem and will be shut down.....would you like to send an error report to Microsoft" Something about the QuEnc caused a fault in avcodec.dll. I did unzip all of the files from QuEnc .54 into the QuEnc directory that I have so everything should have been the latest version.

This problem does not exist in QuEnc .53 though. I unzipped all of the files in .53 and allowed it to overwrite the .54 version and everything works fine. Not sure what to make of this, but I am happy that DVD-RB .62 works well with QuEnc .53 :)

[dragongodz]

and i bet you have a Pentium 4 right ? god i should have got Nic to make this a sticky or just replaced the release. :)

use the mem-aligned version of the avcodec.dll with 0.54. it can be downloaded from my web page(link is in the first post of the QuEnc 0.54 post).

[alu66]

yes I have a P4. I'll try the avcodec-mem.zip and post back soon.
Thanks for the quick response.

[alu66]

Sorry for the late reply, but yes the choppy movie problem has been resolved. Thanks for the tip about the dll.