2 questions

hello, i have to make a dvd for an exhibition and have come up against 2 probs, i hope someone here can help me out.
1/ one of my videos seems to flicker/judder at one particular point on the dvd, only for about 5 seconds but is highly noticeable. during these 5 seconds i used a number of filters, including nattress de-interlace, strobe, 3-way colour (removing everything but red), the whole video runs ok in my fcp 4.5hd timeline though
2/ i am combining my own work and someone elses, how can i ensure that the noise levels are equal throughout (my outputted work, to video or dvd is always rather quiet compared to everyone elses, i always ensure that the noise levels are below -12 in the timeline though)
i hope this makes sense to someone somewhere
many thanx

> 1/ one of my videos seems to flicker/judder at one particular point on the dvd, only for about 5
> seconds but is highly noticeable. during these 5 seconds i used a number of filters, including
> nattress de-interlace, strobe, 3-way colour (removing everything but red), the whole video
> runs ok in my fcp 4.5hd timeline though

Have you been watching on an external monitor during the editing? If you only watch the image in the Canvas, that only shows you one field and would not show you field-order and interlacing issues. Those sound like what you have.

What format are you working with? What frame rate? I also had come across discussions online about how Compressor messes up the field dominance on Uncompressed SD movie files by screwing up on its "Auto" setting when dealing with the field dominance. Did you use Compressor? The solution recommended in the discussions was to change the Compressor Field Dominance from Auto to Lower. Some of those discussions are below:

[forums.creativecow.net]
[forums.creativecow.net]

> 2/ i am combining my own work and someone elses, how can i ensure that the noise levels
> are equal throughout (my outputted work, to video or dvd is always rather quiet compared to
> everyone elses, i always ensure that the noise levels are below -12 in the timeline though)

Yeah, that's a common problem. Are you mixing to -12dB (DV) tone or -20dB (DigiBeta) tone? If the former, then your levels are too low -- a -12dB reference tone should have audio peaking around -6dB to -8dB. But even if you're peaking around -6dB, that's low for a DVD. The levels above are for output to tape for broadcast, and when you burn to DVD using movie files exported from your timeline, those levels will be a bit quiet. For video, I still adhere to them because I'd rather mix a bit low than blow out any speakers. But for instance, when doing home music recording I'd also have to mix very close to 0dB in order to get CD burns to play with any volume.

Try raising your mix to peak around -6dB and burn the DVD, see if you're satisfied with the results.


www.derekmok.com

wow, many thanks derek for your reply,
if i understand this correctly, i should "set the Sequence field dominance to lower", before i export a self contained file to bring into dvdstudioro.
and with the audio peak at -6db.
many thanks again

its PAL if that makes any difference and i've just checked my setting and its set to lower already?