Disk Creation Video Quality - Blotchy When Panning

David72

Newbie Joined: Feb 02, 2011 21:27 Messages: 5 Offline

Solved by

Oct 16, 2012 09:04

Hello.. I recently upgraded from PowerDirector 7 to PowerDirector 11 and have been working with high definition video from a Panasonic Lumix Camera. I am working with youth football action type videos and have a question regarding the output to Blu Ray disk and quality of the video.

First, I am filming in the best available 1080P format on the camera. When creating a disk, I am choosing H.264 1920x1080/60i 24MBPS. This is the best available option within the create disk menu for Blu Ray. The output is excellent in a still camera position even as players are running. However, when I pan the camera, the entire video screen becomes grainy / blotchy and is not smooth. So it is the panning that looks bad but fixed on a specific position, the video is great.

Can anyone provide better options for the output format? I plan to experiment and have read some threads about disabling the video encoder, etc. Also, if I hook up the camera directly to the HD TV, the video is great and does not get blotchy when panning. Finally, I am not sure if I can produce the movie and burn to Blu Ray in better quality in a seperate process? I am still learining the process and am just looking for the best quality to burn on to a Blu Ray disk.

Computer is a Phenom 2, 8GB Ram, GForce GT9500.

Thanks in advance for any feedback,
Dave

jerrys

Senior Contributor Location: New Britain, CT, USA (between New York and Boston) Joined: Feb 10, 2010 21:36 Messages: 1038 Offline

Oct 16, 2012 12:24

Did you apply the PD stabilizer to your video? That can make things blotchy, because it deliberately smooths things to hide shaking.

If you preview your clips at the maximum resolution, do you still see the blotchiness? What if you play one of your clips in a simple media player? Jerry Schwartz

gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 17, 2012 03:59

David72:

in my opinion this is encoder problem.
Try to join a couple of your source file in TSmuxer (it does not reencoding) app and judge an effect.
I am pretty sure, that everything will be OK.

Have you tried to MPEG-2 encoding (BD 1920x18060i) ?

jerrys:

I am not an expert in stabilization, but are you sure that PD stabilizer deliberately smooths pictures to hide shaking ?
How do you know about it, give me a clue please.
In my opinion smoothing (if you observe it after stabilizing) is an EFFECT not a METHOD.
Stabilization in my opinion works by removing "shaked frames" (any algoritm, which measure moving of pixels above assumed treshold) and including something like new B frames.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 17. 2012 05:09

David72

Newbie Joined: Feb 02, 2011 21:27 Messages: 5 Offline

Oct 17, 2012 21:10

Thanks for the feedback... The video plays perfect using HDMI link from the camera to my 50" Plasma TV or on the screen of the computer as a produced movie. I did not run the PD Stabilization on the clips. Actually, the clips are directly downloaded from the camera with no modifications. It is not just a "little" blotchy with the panning but it looks like it loses about 50% of the quality when panning. Then when back to stationary position, the picture is excellent.

I will try to create a disk in the MPEG-2 format to see if that works.

Thanks - Dave

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Oct 17. 2012 21:13

gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 03:07

I do not understand after your last email clearly what your problem is (beacuse of my English maybe).

Do you still compare the same file (original clip from camera) or reencoded (1920x1080 60i)?
I understood till now that original file has no blotchiness, but reencoded has.

By the way: why do you reencode your progressive material (1080p) to interlaced (60i) ???

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 06:17

Could you post a sample? I would like to add that ANY panning with a consumer camera can cause problems in the video. Rolling-shutter CMOS cameras are especially prone to broken video images, the "cure" being to pan PAINFULLY SLOW. I'm not sure what blotchiness means, so a small sample or screenshot would be helpful. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
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gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 06:21

Quote: I would like to add that ANY panning with a consumer camera can cause problems in the video. Rolling-shutter CMOS cameras are especially prone to broken video images, the "cure" being to pan PAINFULLY SLOW.

You are right in 100%, BUT take into consideration, that when David72 plays his movie directly from camera, there are no bad panning effects , so the problem is in other place ....

David72

Newbie Joined: Feb 02, 2011 21:27 Messages: 5 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 10:12

Not sure how I can post a sample of the Blu Ray disk? I could post a clip but as I mentioned, but the clips play perfect. Also, I watched last night and would like to revise the "blotchy" comment. The video would be better described as "grainy" during the panning. For camparison, it is like watching a very good quality 1080p movie while camera is still then a much lower quality video when the camera is panning...

Dave

Xerox

Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Aug 09, 2009 01:36 Messages: 446 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 15:20

Your Nvidia graphics card may be causing the problem. Before clicking the "Start burning" button to burn a disc, turn off the "Enable hardware video encoder" option, which is to the left of the "Start Burning" button. Gateway DX4380, AMD A8-5500 Quad Core 3.2GHz with ATI Radeon HD 7560D; 16GB RAM; 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM; Windows 8 Pro 64-bit; PDR11, PDVD12.

James1

Senior Contributor Location: Surrey, B.C., Canada Joined: Jun 10, 2010 16:20 Messages: 1783 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 16:00

Hi,
Also try burning at a lower speed on your DVD burner...burning at a dvd writer max speed may cause some jittering and weird stuff.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

Visit GranPapa64's channel for your YouTube experience of the day!

David72

Newbie Joined: Feb 02, 2011 21:27 Messages: 5 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 20:57

Success!!

I want to thank everyone for their input and hopefully this will help future PD11 users... I first tried the MPEG-2 format and it was much worse. Entire video was jittery, etc. I then tried burning in the full best BD format 1920x1080/60i 24MBPS (as I did in the past). However, I took the advice above and un-clicked the "Enable Hardware Video Encoder" and in the burn screen, clicked the tools and changed the 40x burner speed to 4x. I am assuming that the system somehow selects the burn speed for the BD burn (6x or more?) but I manually clicked 4x. The video looks excellent. Clear and perfectly smooth panning.

Result: It was either the "Enable Hardware Video Encoder" or the speed of the BD Burn. I have read some threads on problems with the Gforce cards so maybe that was a main contributor. Everything went smooth so no complaints and I will burn with these setting going forward. Also, someone asked why am converting to 60i when the video was taken in 60P but I believe 1920x1080/60i 24 MBPS is the best possible quality offered by PD on a BD burn...

Thanks again everyone,
Dave

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Oct 18. 2012 21:03

jerrys

Senior Contributor Location: New Britain, CT, USA (between New York and Boston) Joined: Feb 10, 2010 21:36 Messages: 1038 Offline

Oct 18, 2012 22:06

Quote: jerrys:

I am not an expert in stabilization, but are you sure that PD stabilizer deliberately smooths pictures to hide shaking ?
How do you know about it, give me a clue please.
In my opinion smoothing (if you observe it after stabilizing) is an EFFECT not a METHOD.
Stabilization in my opinion works by removing "shaked frames" (any algoritm, which measure moving of pixels above assumed treshold) and including something like new B frames.

You might be right.

I know that stabilization zooms in. I also know that in extreme cases you can get severe jittering that is much worse than the original shaking.

I always thought that stabilization involved "averaging" adjacent frames, analogous to calculating a moving average on a series of numbers. That's what I meant. It would require removing and inserting frames, but I never thought of it quite that way. It's a difference in viewpoint.

In any case, it appears that stabilization had nothing to do with this topic. Jerry Schwartz

gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 19, 2012 12:53

Quote: Also, someone asked why am converting to 60i when the video was taken in 60P but I believe 1920x1080/60i 24 MBPS is the best possible quality offered by PD on a BD burn...

It was me who were asking for.
From my point of view it is FATAL information (for you of course).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 19. 2012 12:56

Xerox

Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Aug 09, 2009 01:36 Messages: 446 Offline

Oct 20, 2012 01:53

I think the best quality settings you can use to burn a Blu-ray in PD are 1280x720 at 50p/60p when you source is 1920x1080 at 50p/60p. You really give up more quality if you burn using 1920x1080 at 60i. This is especially true when there are lots of pans. Gateway DX4380, AMD A8-5500 Quad Core 3.2GHz with ATI Radeon HD 7560D; 16GB RAM; 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM; Windows 8 Pro 64-bit; PDR11, PDVD12.

gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 20, 2012 02:43

Maybe another options:

1. let's create custom-profile wher YOU CAN (in Quality Profile Setup) set progressive type of frame. It is possible in Produce mode, I do not know WHY it cannot be used in Create Disk mode, so you should burn it separately (avoid another rendering)
2. from create menu choose AVCHD and Removable Disk where in 99,99% you will have 10920x1080 60p option. Because I have never used this option I do not know what is the file structure, hope it is possible tu burn it anyway.

All this options (mine and Xerox's) are definitely better than interlacing your source material

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 20. 2012 03:10

David72

Newbie Joined: Feb 02, 2011 21:27 Messages: 5 Offline

Oct 22, 2012 11:01

In PD11 my options are the following:

"Create Disk" best option: 1920x1080/60i 24MPBS
"Produce" best option: from 1920x1080/60P all the way up to 4096x2304/60P, etc.

The question I have is can I use the produce option and then take that produce file and burn it to disk? I have never done this and always use the "create disk" function to develop the disk and the best quality options are listed above...

Thanks - Dave

James1

Senior Contributor Location: Surrey, B.C., Canada Joined: Jun 10, 2010 16:20 Messages: 1783 Offline

Oct 22, 2012 11:12

Hi,
Yes and no..you can Produce the file to a directory on your hard drive and use windows file manager to transfer to disk, but the disk won't play in DVD player as a Movie disk, and depending on your DVD Player (what formats it supports). I have transferred 'productions' to flash drives and memory cards and been able to view them.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

Visit GranPapa64's channel for your YouTube experience of the day!

gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 22, 2012 12:24

Quote:
"Create Disk" best option: 1920x1080/60i 24MPBS
"Produce" best option: from 1920x1080/60P all the way up to 4096x2304/60P, etc.

Just another reason to throw BD discs away and keep your movies on HDD :

James1

Senior Contributor Location: Surrey, B.C., Canada Joined: Jun 10, 2010 16:20 Messages: 1783 Offline

Oct 22, 2012 12:53

Hi,
I have also created BD disk through Create disc option but burnt to a folder, then used 3d party software to transfer that folder to a BD-RE disk and had success. I have a PS3 and an LG 55" TV that plays them.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

Visit GranPapa64's channel for your YouTube experience of the day!

gregston

Newbie Location: Poland Joined: Jul 05, 2011 03:29 Messages: 42 Offline

Oct 22, 2012 13:04

No doubts, everybody does what he/she wants - free choice