Need help on figuring out what is wrong with certain DVDs (1 Viewer)

[Jay E]

Hi

I just recently bought a new HDTV 1080 TV and a new Oppo DVD player that upconverts to 1080 and I notice certain problems with my DVDs now. I am a complete novice when it comes to these things so please excuse my ignorance.

1 - I just tried to watch my 1943 Munchausen DVD from KINO and after 20 minutes gave up due to the image problems. Whenever someone moves, or the camera moves, it is not smooth - it appears that the image is being trailed as they or the camera moves (is this was they call ghosting?). I've read reviews of the KINO DVD and none of them state any problems with the transfer, in fact the reviews were glowing. Very frustrating.

2- In other DVDs I will find have objects moving around in the background, such as walls, lamps, trees, mountains etc...which is very annoying. This happens quite frequently. I just watched my Breaking Away DVD and objects in the picture kept moving around so much it felt like I was watching the film while on LSD.

If someone can explain what these problems are I would appreciate it. Is there a way to fix these problems? Is there a way of adjusting my DVD player or my TV so that they can play these DVDs without these problems (I never noticed these problems when watching on my old picture tube TV).

Many thanks for any help.

 

[TomDaniel]

Hi-

Yeah, HDTVs are great, but they tend to amplify the problems of less than stellar DVDs, problems you may have never noticed until you got that nice new TV set.

I don't have either DVD, but I can answer the first question, based on much experience with Kino, Image Entertainment, New Yorker (usually), Facets, and others of their ilk. They regularly use PAL masters for the NTSC DVD, when the film is of European origin (and sometimes when it isn't). These play with double images/blends/ghosting which makes the DVDs virtually unwatchable on a decent sized TV set. It's not the fault of either the TV or your Oppo. Nothing can be done (except to, maybe, buy the PAL version of Munchhausen).

I see shaky backgrounds sometimes also, but better people than I will have to explain the reasons.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Yes, PAL conversion issues are your problems with Munchausen. It crops up with frequency in places where it shouldn't---such as Warner's set of the Chaplin films. If teeny-tiny houses like Synapse and Mondo Macabro can do a proper NTSC/PAL conversion for a minor cult film, not to mention cheap Chinese players being able to do it on the fly, I fail to see why the major studios can't manage this task.

I'm not counting Kino and Milestone (another frequent offender) in that group by the way; I know they don't have the budgets of Warner so I'm willing to cut them some slack, especially when they don't have access to a proper master. I believe that some of the time on their licensed pictures they get a master that has already been converted and there's not a lot they can do about it. Other titles that show this problem are Milestone's otherwise superb PHANTOM OF THE OPERA set and Kino's METROPOLIS. I opted for the UK METROPOLIS myself to limit the ghosting issues.

 

[Tory]

Hey does this sort of problem allow one to see through people? Either my x-ray vision has come back or there is something wrong with the DVD, yes?

 

[Richard Gallagher]

In addition to what the others have said, you might want to try setting your Oppo to show Munchausen in 480i or 480p rather than upconverting it. When I looked at it on my upconverting DVD player, it seemed to me that in both 720p and 1080i the upconversion actually made the ghosting worse.

It doesn't appear that there is a PAL version of Munchausen available. I checked at amazon.co.uk and Movie Mail, and neither of them show a PAL version for sale.

 

[Jay E]

Thanks for the information provided so far. maybe I will switch my DVD to 480 and see if that helps.

Some other DVDs where I see objects moving about are Stalker, the Russian War & Peace & Querelle, but there are quite a few others as well. I was wondering if this has anything to do with edge enhancement?

 

[Richard Gallagher]

That explains why I couldn't find it! Thanks.

It is indeed the PAL version.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

This is a fairly common MPEG artifact, though more common on MPEG-1 products than MPEG-2 ones. I'm sure all of us saw in the early days of digital cable facial features that would move around within the outline of the face. It really boils down to a badly done compression job more than excessive image stabilization, although that can sometimes have the same effect.

 

[JulianK]

It's not necessarily a by-product of MPEG encoding. As often as not it's the result of excessive Digital Video Noise Reduction (DVNR) processing. This is often applied during the telecine stage to make MPEG processing easier (because noisy images are more difficult to encode).

The effect on faces is one of the tell-tale symptoms. Another can be seen on patterned textiles - the pattern stays locked, even if the person is moving slightly.