Slight Horizontal Banding on DVD

I'm having a slight problem with some footage that I've edited and now trying to compress to DVD. In scenes with dark gradated water background, I am getting very slight horizontal banding on the DVD version when displayed on my 40" Sony TV. Just in the dark blue water areas.

The problem can NOT be seen in FCP, on my Mac using QT and H.264, on the youtube version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUKFYMlKiNo) or in the Bluray version on the same TV. But, when I play the DVD on my new 40" Sony flat TV, the horizontal banding can be seen. It is slight but annoying.

I've never had this problem before and I was using the same compressor setting that I've always used to make DVDs. The settings are shown below.

Does anyone have any ideas how to solve this problem?

I've just started another Compressor (3.5.2) run with Deinterlace filter set to Best to see if that helps.

Regards

Peter

Name: MPEG-2 16:9p Better

Description: HQ 30 mins DVD-5 Progressive

File Extension: m2v

Estimated size: 357.03 MB

Type: MPEG-2 video elementary stream

Usage:SD DVD

Video Encoder

Format: M2V

Width: 720

Height: 576

Pixel aspect ratio: PAL CCIR 601 (16:9)

Crop: None

Padding: None

Frame rate: (100% of source)

Selected: 25

Frame Controls On:

Retiming: (Better) Motion Compensated

Resize Filter: Linear Filter

Deinterlace Filter: Better (Motion Adaptive)

Adaptive Details: On

Antialias: 0

Detail Level: 0

Field Output: Progressive

Start timecode from source

Aspect ratio: 16:9

Field dominance: Progressive

Average bit rate: 6.8 (Mbps)

2 Pass VBR enabled

Maximum bit rate: 8 (Mbps)

High quality

Best motion estimation

Closed GOP Size: 12, Structure: IBBP

DVD Studio Pro meta-data enabled

BlackWhite Restore

Black: 5.000

White: 0.000

Hi Peter

Are you using the same version of compressor as before or is this a newer version?

Whats the DVD look like on another screen?

Hi Peter

 

Are you using the same version of compressor as before or is this a newer version?

Whats the DVD look like on another screen?

I can't remember when I last upgraded Compressor but I think that it was a while back. I upgraded FCS not long after it was released. I'm sure I've done DVD compressions with this version without this problem.

I have not seen it myself but I gave a copy of the DVD to a friend and she said she could see the banding on her TV too.

I've thought about what could be different about this video but haven't come up with anything conclusive. The only new element is the video camera (from Sony HC3 to Sony 550VE), but, as I mentioned, the banding is not visible on any other version accept the mpeg2 for the DVD.

Regards

Peter

Bummer....

I would try another encoder and encode out a MPEG2 file and see how that looks.

Not on a MAC here but I know on a PC not all encoders are the same, just because its a big brand name does not mean its a good encoder.

Bummer....

 

I would try another encoder and encode out a MPEG2 file and see how that looks.

 

Not on a MAC here but I know on a PC not all encoders are the same, just because its a big brand name does not mean its a good encoder.

I just got home and the Compressor run with Deinterlace filter set to "Best" has finished (took 7 hours to produce 7 minutes of mpeg2 video).

The result is much better. The horizontal banding is gone. You can see some gradation banding but very very slight and only in scenes where the colour goes from very dark blue in the bottom to very light blue in the top. I'm guessing that the 576 vertical pixels of SD just can't cope with that much gradation smoothly. The Bluray version with its 1080 vertical pixels is so much better.

Regards

Peter