I own a Canon G12 camera. It does produce a 1280X720p MOV at 24 fps. The bit rate is about 18 Mbps.

Ignore the frame rate warning. You can turn that off in preferences.

I suspect your system may be underpowered to handle that high bit rate video. Or your video driver may be old.
I have no problem with video produced with the G12 Camera.

You can produce the video at any frame rate you want to, PD will render the video to suit.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Hi Carl, thanks for responding. Let's deal with your comments in order:

First off I don't get any frame rate warning. Does PD9 have that feature? All the confirmation prompt options are enabled except for HD video import.

Second, I have no problem editing or producing the video so I don't think the PC performance is an issue (my specs are in my sig). The jerkiness is only apparent when playing back the authored DVD on my stand-alone player. I should add that I don't author my DVDs in PD, I use a third-party application for that.

Thirdly I don't see any way to produce the video at other than 25fps. I tried adding a custom MPEG-2 quality profile but frame rate does not appear as an option in the setup.

Am I missing something obvious? I'd be grateful for any further thoughts you might have. Regards,
Mike

Home-build system:
Intel Core i5 Quad Core 3.3GHz, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz,
Asus Nvidia GT440 1GB, 2 x Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB, 1 x Seagate ST1000DM010 1TB,
Windows 7 Prof 64-bit, PD 9 Ultra 64, PD 13 Ultimate 64

Quote: Hi Carl, thanks for responding. Let's deal with your comments in order:

First off I don't get any frame rate warning. Does PD9 have that feature? All the confirmation prompt options are enabled except for HD video import.

I don't get one either importing the G12 video. There are times when your TV mode is set to PAL and you import a NTSC, you get that warning. If one does show, ignore it.

Second, I have no problem editing or producing the video so I don't think the PC performance is an issue (my specs are in my sig). The jerkiness is only apparent when playing back the authored DVD on my stand-alone player. I should add that I don't author my DVDs in PD, I use a third-party application for that.

You did not make it clear, the jerkiness was on a DVD and in a standalone player. The question becomes, did you try playing that DVD in other DVD players?

Thirdly I don't see any way to produce the video at other than 25fps. I tried adding a custom MPEG-2 quality profile but frame rate does not appear as an option in the setup.

TV mode affects the produce options. You must be in a PAL country.

Am I missing something obvious? I'd be grateful for any further thoughts you might have.

Try producing a MPEG2 HQ video to burn to disk.

Produce MPEG2 HQ put that produced video on the timeline go to Create Disk.
By pre-producing to DVD Standard you take some of the load off the computer while creating a Disk.

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Hi Carl,

Sorry if I didn't make clear that the problem arose when a DVD was played in my stand-alone player. The problem takes the form of a regular - about every two seconds - barely perceptible hesitation. I only have one standalone DVD player, actually a Hard-Disk/DVD recorder but the effect is the same if I play the produced MPEG-2 file through Windows Media Player. The effect does not appear, however, if I play the source .MOV files so it is definitely being introduced by the MPEG encoding process and logically can only be due to the frame rate mismatch.

You are correct that I am in a PAL region and from what you say I conclude that there is nothing that can be done to correct the problem. Is that a correct assumption?

As I mentioned earlier I don't create the disk with PD. I always render to a file, normally MPEG-2, and author the DVD with a separate application.

Quote: Sorry if I didn't make clear that the problem arose when a DVD was played in my stand-alone player. The problem takes the form of a regular - about every two seconds - barely perceptible hesitation. I only have one standalone DVD player, actually a Hard-Disk/DVD recorder but the effect is the same if I play the produced MPEG-2 file through Windows Media Player. The effect does not appear, however, if I play the source .MOV files so it is definitely being introduced by the MPEG encoding process and logically can only be due to the frame rate mismatch.

As I mentioned earlier I don't create the disk with PD. I always render to a file, normally MPEG-2, and author the DVD with a separate application.

You should try the Powerdirector Create Disk, Use No Menu.

I bet that if you let powerdirector create the disk from the edited Mov, your pause would be gone.

It is interesting that Windows Media Player does not show a glitch.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

I looked at Create Disk when I first bought Power Director but quickly decided it was too inflexible and non-intuitive. Also as I mentioned in my first post I wanted to include the edited .MOV project together with projects edited from .M2TS sources, all as separate titles, and I'm not clear how you would do that with Create Disk. I expect it's possible but probably quite a clunky procedure.

Surely Create Disk must use the same encoder as when producing to a HQ-DVD file so I'm interested to know why you think the result would be any better?

Just to clarify, Windows Media Player plays the original source material without a glitch but exhibits the same problem as the authored DVD when playing the produced HQ-DVD MPEG-2 file.
Regards,
Mike

Home-build system:
Intel Core i5 Quad Core 3.3GHz, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz,
Asus Nvidia GT440 1GB, 2 x Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB, 1 x Seagate ST1000DM010 1TB,
Windows 7 Prof 64-bit, PD 9 Ultra 64, PD 13 Ultimate 64

Since you are making DVDs which are standard definition (720x480/576).

If you produce a MPEG-2 HQ video from your mixed video on the timeline.
You will have a produced video that is the correct resolution and bit rate to create the DVD disk.

By pre-producing the mixed content, you take a great deal of the load off the computer while making a DVD.

You can either put that produced MPEG-2 video in the the timeline then go to Create Disk or you can clean the timeline and go to Create Disk and import the video or project on the Content Tab of Create Disk.

I think you will find that most if not all of the glitches will be gone.


Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Quote: If you produce a MPEG-2 HQ video from your mixed video on the timeline......

Hi Carl. I think you may still be slightly misunderstanding what I'm trying to do. I produce a HQ-DVD MPEG-2 file from only the .MOV sources. That is one project. I then start a new project with an empty timeline and produce another HQ-DVD MPEG-2 file from only the .M2TS footage.

I then import these files into my authoring application and make a menu to select which one I want to play. In some cases I also make a sub-menu for each movie with buttons to select entry points using the chapter points. The authoring program then compiles to produce a set of files for burning the DVD for which I use yet another stand-alone application.

The resulting DVD plays both files successfully, however the one from the .MOV sources exhibits the regular hesitation whereas the one from the .M2TS sources is perfectly smooth. Playing the MPEG-2 file made from the .MOV sources in WMP also shows the same regular hesitation. The fact that I'm using files produced from different sources is irrelevant - the problem still occurs if I make a DVD with only the .MOV project.

It is clear to me that this must be due to some kind of rounding problem resulting from the fact that the frame rate of the .MOV sources is nominally 24fps whilst that of the resulting MPEG-2 file is 25fps and I strongly suspect that as I am in a PAL region there is no way to overcome it.

Power Director's Create does not give me anything like this flexibility but even if I were to use it and import the pre-produced files into Create I don't see how that would give a different outcome to what I'm doing now. Is this a gut feeling you have or is there something I haven't grasped?
Regards,
Mike

Home-build system:
Intel Core i5 Quad Core 3.3GHz, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz,
Asus Nvidia GT440 1GB, 2 x Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB, 1 x Seagate ST1000DM010 1TB,
Windows 7 Prof 64-bit, PD 9 Ultra 64, PD 13 Ultimate 64

Have you tried other file converters to change the frame rate of the .MOV files.

I am sure a part of your problems has more to do with downgrading HD videos to SD video for burning to a DVD.
Usually Powerdirector is pretty good at producing MPEG-2 HQ videos from HD sources.

You can use MediaInfo to check the parameters of all of the videos to see if the 24 fps .MOV are being produced as 25 fps videos.
http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

We use the Text mode. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

I don't need MediaInfo. In Windows I can just right-click on the video file and get Properties, then select the Details tab and it gives all the parameters. It shows the .Mov source files frame rate as 23fps and the produced MPEG-2 file as 25fps. I can also right click and get Properties on the thumbnails in the PD9 library pane which reports the .MOV files as 23.976fps and the MPEG-2 file as 25fps. Clearly the Windows figures are rounded down to the nearest integer.

It definitely isn't an issue with downsizing HD to SD. All the stuff I've edited from my Panasonic HD camcorder (.M2TS sources) comes out fine with no artifacts.

I have tried a file converter called MediaCoder that had very good reviews. I set it to transcode the .MOV files to a M2TS container at 25fps and at the maximum bitrate offered, 16,000Kbps (that's slightly lower than the .MOV files which are 18,000Kbps). I then repeated the edit in a new project using the .M2TS files and, guess what? - no difference, other than that I could now see the hesitation on the Power Director timeline!

Looking at the playback more carefully I judge the hesitation to be at regular one-second intervals and it therefore seems likely that the conversion from 24 frames to 25 frames is simply being done by duplicating a single frame every second. Obviously what is needed to give a smooth transcode is for interpolation to take place between frames. It doesn't look as if there is an easy solution to this problem so I guess I'm going to have to give up on it and avoid using the Canon G12 for video. Regards,
Mike

Home-build system:
Intel Core i5 Quad Core 3.3GHz, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz,
Asus Nvidia GT440 1GB, 2 x Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB, 1 x Seagate ST1000DM010 1TB,
Windows 7 Prof 64-bit, PD 9 Ultra 64, PD 13 Ultimate 64

Quote: Looking at the playback more carefully I judge the hesitation to be at regular one-second intervals and it therefore seems likely that the conversion from 24 frames to 25 frames is simply being done by duplicating a single frame every second. Obviously what is needed to give a smooth transcode is for interpolation to take place between frames. It doesn't look as if there is an easy solution to this problem so I guess I'm going to have to give up on it and avoid using the Canon G12 for video.

This is exactly how 24 fps is converted to 25 fps, you have to dup a frame every second.

The frame rate difference is so small it cannot be done any other way.

I would bet that you were in a NTSC (30 fps) Country, you would barely notice the added frames.
The difference between 24 fps and 30 fps is 6 frames per second. by adding 6 dup frames per second, you do not notice the extra frames.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Yes, I can see that adding 6 frames per second, i.e. an extra frame every four frames, would make the effect much less obvious.

In principle it should be possible to interpolate the frames to give a smooth transition from 24 to 25 but admittedly this would be a computationally intensive task so such algorithms are unlikely to be found in consumer video converters, especially free ones.

Oh, well, thanks for your input Carl. Regards,
Mike

Home-build system:
Intel Core i5 Quad Core 3.3GHz, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333MHz,
Asus Nvidia GT440 1GB, 2 x Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB, 1 x Seagate ST1000DM010 1TB,
Windows 7 Prof 64-bit, PD 9 Ultra 64, PD 13 Ultimate 64