The digital revolution stops at the border

[gwyn]

At least, at the border of Analog and Digital, and it's got no visa or passport, so it's not crossing the border into Analog. Or at least, not on my digital highway. I made this vid for the Vividcon premier show and for the first time tried to use more effects (which, with iMovie, doesn't really mean much, because there aren't many effects to use, even with the time-motion effects plug-in package I bought). There are really only four things I used, and they seemed fine on the computer screen. When I made a full-quality DV file and burned a dvd, then played it on my hi-def TV, everything seemed hunky dory except the anime slo-mo effect. I fiddled with that a bit, and got it to a tolerable - not great on a couple clips, but tolerable, place.

Then I took it to someone's house who has a regular old analog TV/dvd/vcr combo, and it was a total mess. The simple fadeouts that I'd used to punctuate the music and clips turned to pixelized blobs of light every time there was a fade (which there are rather a lot of). The slo-mo and anime slo-mo (a simple effect that stills the frame and then blends those frames together to create the kind of faux slo-mo that you see sometimes in anime movies) jitter and flash on the screen, worse than they did the first time I checked them and found the problem I thought I'd fixed. Anything slower than 2.5 times normal speed vibrates and flashes. It was monumentally depressing to see that all my hard work won't play on 99% of the screens of people who would get this on a disc.

Most people I know don't have digital TVs, and many folks I know still can't play dvds on their computers. Even though I now have some vids online, I still make my vids with the large screen in mind -- I don't like the visual quality and smallness of vids online, and this one was an especially rich palette and strong visuals to play with, and one where I'd tried very hard to build the color palette along with the story, so that not only do the clips get more intense, but so do the types of visual treatments. Knowing that almost no one would be able to play this on the disc we're making for distribution is just... really frustrating, because it's a vid I was really proud of and something I wanted to get out there to fellow fans, to share. I'm not a known vidder, so having it only be online would not really reach many folks.

If the projector at the con is digital, it may still work to at least show it there, but I wouldn't be able to include it on a con disc, since most people would be watching the discs on an analog TV. And it's weird that I haven't heard about this before... I've used slo-mos from this plug-in on another vid (not as heavily, though) and it seemed fine on the analog TV I played it on. I've seen vids that are much more effects-heavy than this pathetic thing, and they seemed fine on analog sets (though probably were made with more sophisticated programs, though I'm not sure why all of a sudden that would make a difference). I'm not smart enough to understand why this particular vid, using almost all the same effects I've used before, and very simple ones at that, turns blacks to pixelated mush -- if they can handle fadeouts elsewhere, why not here? Is it just sheer volume that freaks out an analog TV -- it can't process that much info from a DVD-R? I'm not sure I totally get it, and I'm not smart enough (I wouldn't even rate private first class in the digital revolution army, man) to figure it out. Or problem-solve.

The vid that was in my head is what's on screen. I don't even know how to remake it -- this is the way it formed in my mind, and I'm not one of those people who can easily alter an artistic vision once I have it. I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter -- there's probably a limited audience for a vid like this anyway, so far of the people who've seen it, few have bothered to say much about it. Maybe something strange is happening with the DV files; I noticed the fadeout at the end of our other vid we showed also freaked out the analog TV. But crummy TVs and low-end players are more the rule than the exception, so that means that since online is the only way it'll play well, online it's gonna have to be, I suppose. Arg. I know a lot of the frustration, too, is that I put more work into it than normal, and it's hard to realize your baby has a mustache and looks ugly to others.

I should disable comments since this is nothing but a whine, but I'm curious if anyone else has found a problem with effects-heavy vids playing poorly on analog screens, or if it's just because I use little old iMovie and iDVD. Everything else I've ever done on those programs, though, has played beautifully. I don't get why my Digital passport has suddenly become unwelcome in Analogland.

Comments

[barkley.livejournal.com]

I've never had this issue, and I have no idea if bitrate enters into it, but it's one thing to look at.

How long was the DVD you made and what version of iDVD did you use to make it? IIRC, iDVD 3 and 4 will adjust the bitrate down depending on how much info you want to put on the DVD. If your vids are less than an hour, they will encode at 85 Mbps. You want it to be down at 55 in order to make it compatable with the most systems. There are two ways to go about doing this.

Way one: make sure you have more than an hour of material on the disc.

Way two: (easier than it sounds, but it sounds complicated) hack into the iDVD project file, open up the txt file and find the parameter that sets the bit rate and change it to 55 and then add your movie to get it encoded at the lower rate. I have instructions on how to do this somewhere that I wrote up for Escapade.

Here it is essentially:
http://www.bonuspoints.net/misc/Mpeg2EncodingwithiDVD.txt

If you go with way two, I'd be happy to go through it all with you.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, yes, I'd love the chance to try this. You are always so amazingly helpful, I honestly don't know what I would do without you! Right now, I've got... nine? I think, vids on the disc -- I did wonder for a moment whether I was getting too *much* info on the disc, but then everything else seemed fine, and it plays fabulously on my hi-def tv and on the computer. Just not on an analog tv.

I'll see if I can figure this out, and if I can't (probably!), I will definitely be in touch...

[luminosity]

I'm glad you didn't disable comments. :)

I make all of my vids to show on a TV, which means that they're really dark online. That can't be helped, considering the options I choose.

One of the problems I've encountered over and over again when I encode for DVD (m2v/wav) is that the m2v part occasionally picks up 1/2 frames. It drives me crazy to see a stray clip on that type of encode that doesn't exist on the AVI/MOV timeline. The only way I've found to combat this is to come in 1-2 frames on my captured-and-placed-on-the-timeline clip.

I don't know if IMovie has such a thing, but in Premiere, there's an option to "deflicker" (under Clip Options). I use this all the time because of the interlace/deinterlacing *crap*, which makes the clips look like venetian blinds. Maybe IMovie has something like it? If it does, you can highlight *all* of the clips on the timeline, click "deflicker," and let it render again. Maybe that will help.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I wondered if you'd ever had anything weird happen, because you do use a lot of cool effects and yet everything seems to play well, when I've seen them on the con discs at others' houses.

I *hate* that interlacing thing! Hate it! The hi-def tv has been great at helping me spot the stray frames, but I still have to make a disc first... grrr. Anyways, I haven't seen anything like a flicker control (these programs are so unsophisticated it would make you laugh like a drain), but that doesn't mean it can't be set -- Barkley just mentioned above some controls you can set in the .txt file, which may end up helping. And I've learned from her and Killa that savvy people know workarounds... it just seemed like this might not be workable. Maybe there's hope, since I know the most amazing folks!

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

More thoughts -- have you tested the disc on a regular DVD-analog TV set up? Cause truth be told - the DVD players in combo TVs are just crap. For the most part they can't handle SVCDs and in some cases - DVD-Rs. I have 2 cheapo DVD players (Mintek and Pioneer) an analog TV and DVDplayer (with Power DVD) on the PC. I'd be more than happy to try out your disc on my set-up. Heck - there are a ton of us who would be thrilled to help, if only to get a chance to see the vid sooner ;)

Anyway - I am not convinced that all hope is lost, even if the vid will only play correctly on a digital tv (for now) - Where there is a will there is a work-around.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I Hope not... I'm feeling a little more hopeful now that I see this isn't that unheard of. I just hadn't seen it before, and it was *so* bad. I figured that the first setup was pretty crummy and low-end, so I asked someone else to check it when she got home, and she said it was better, but still bad. Unfortunately I don't have an analog set at home anymore, but I'm going to try it at my dad's tonight, I think, and see what happens on his computer. The more info I have, obviously, the better. But I now have tons of discs for testing, so I could probably send one easily (and also get you that Don't Fight disc!).

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Yay!! - If you don't want to wait - (I can't remember if you have cable/dsl or not) - you could transfer the m2v/wave files and I could burn them as an SVCD here and see if that works on my set up. Workarounds - there *will* be work arounds.

I'm on aim either as sidthedogfaceboy or if I'm vidding or should be vidding -sidabet.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I have the craptastic dialup of doom. Just when I think it's going to do something, after I'm almost finished with a three hour upload, it hangs on me and then I can't get the connection back. So I rarely put anything up -- but I fear not the post office!

I'll add you to my AIM -- I'm emcat8, but I've been really bad about being on lately, and need to get back in the habit of having it on when I'm working on a vid or something.