Urgent-Dazzle Output to VHS Causes Stops

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I have been using Ulead V4.0 to create a video of jpeg stills. I have added background music, titles and effects. I render the video to 352 X 240 NTSC 29.97 f/s with a video data rate of 1500kbps. The video appears to render okay and I am able to play the video in Ulead or on Windows media player with no problems. I then want to place this on VHS tape so I open Dazzle v3.61 and I am using Dazzle DVC DM4100-USB capture device. I import my Mpeg file into Dazzle and the MPEG plays fine without errors in the playing area of Dazzle.

My problem occurs when I try to output to a separate device, my VCR. The video will run for approximately 3-4 minutes and then it will stop outputting to tape. I can push it past the stopping point and restart and it may or may not stop again. When I do get a completed tape, it will have several frames that have blinking squares in the frames and of course these stopped areas. I have tried the following 1. Rendered at several different video data rates-No difference 2. Tried outputting to my video camera and tape-Still same problems 3. Tried rendering in I frames only-Problem left but quality terrible 4. Regenerated the jpegs in the problem areas-No difference

I have contacted Dazzle and Ulead and they both point the finger at each other, but they both agree the problem appears to be in converting from digital to analouge ( no dah!).

Does anyone have any suggestions short of trashing the whole project. I am in the process of trying to place this on a VCD and playing it on a DVD player, but I have run into the same problems others have and that is getting the DVD player to recognize the VCD. I am using a Toshiba DVD player and used CDR and CDRW disks and still can't get it to play

I would really like to find a way to get this on VHS tape without a problem. I need this for my daughters wedding in two weeks and I am out of solutions, Please help!!

I am using a 350mh Pentium II with 128mb of ram and 4G available HD space.

-- Charles Wyborney (wyborney@home.com), May 06, 2000

Answers

It seems like that the Encoder chip on the Dazzle is in the blink. My Dazzle USB started to produce random squares before it decided to die on me. The random squares indicated that the mpeg1 clip is corrupted. As for playing VCD on a toshiba DVD (I have a toshiba 3109 DVD player) don't even bother with it. Toshiba will play pressed VCD aka comercially made VCD, but it will not play home burnt VCD aka CD-R/CD- RW. I've tried many different CD-R/CD-RW media and different software burner on this DVD player. The best i can get it to do is using Sony CD-RW and EZ CD, which produced random trash square pixels on the TV screen (at least it will play something). This issue includes copy a working pressed VCD onto a Sony CD-RW disc.

-- (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), May 06, 2000.

That may not neccessarly be true about the dazzle 'on its way out". i have done some highrate crap and have tried to output it to vcr. Sometimes its ok and then others the picutre 'jumps horribly; or i get crazy blocks. kepp in mind my vcds i create and play on my PC and dvd player are fine. i think their is just something screwy woith the dazzles output. i too was going to write to them about this. or sometimes in my case the sound would not go back into my vcr only the picture. So i dont think its so much the dazzle "going out" i have mine for a long time after i tried to output stuff, and it still works great. Again its just something is wrong with their output function or the software they have with it. i guess i will drop them an email as well. i dont use video ulead at all, so its not their software either.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), May 06, 2000.

Hmm I own a parallel Dazzle and managed to capture from VHS to mpeg however,VCDs created with the clips didnt go well with my Toshiba VCD player the first 5 minutes would go fine,after which the quality of the movie will deteriorate (the video + video will have jerking effect) I've mailed Dazzle but havent got any solutions from them... is it because Toshiba players doesnt tolerate homemade VCDs???

-- Koshy (koshy@mbox3.singnet.com.sg), May 07, 2000.

Kosh,

You are talking about a dedicated VCD player or DVD player? My system is Toshiba DVD 3109 (the one that have 5.1 decoder built in with dual disc tray). This unit will play commercial VCD (aka press silver CD) fine without any problem, but when it comes to home made CD-R/CD-RW VCD....it will not tolerate it. I've tried Sony CD-RW/CD- R, Memorex CD-RW/CD-R, HP CD-RW/CD-R, TDK CD-RW/CD-R, PYN CD-RW/CD-R, Verbatim CD-R, CompUSA brands CD-R/CD-RW, Pacific Digital CD-R/CD-RW. None of these will work on this DVD player! The best I can do is Sony CD-RW, which will play the whole disc: audio is ok, but video has part of the picture missing via random pixelation throughout the whole play sequence. It's quite annoying to see half of your screen filled with trashy color and text squares :) So i wrote off this player as none home made VCD compliant! Take my home made VCD to Best Buy and Circuit City to test out the rest of the DVD players to see which one will play it well; Pioneer DVD players so far has been the best of all the DVD available. Did try it with Yamaha, Phillips, and APEX and don't like the output, APEX specially.

-- (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), May 07, 2000.


No current Toshiba DVD set-top will play CD-R/CD-RW reliably so scratch that brand out. For your other problem, I also use Ulead Video Studio 4. Great little program that does so much for low cost. I also use Matrox Marvel G200 capture device. I do not understand why you have to involve Dazzle in your quest to output to tape. Although I capture and encode to MPEG for VCD purposes I have had no difficulties with outputting to tape. Outputting to tape, at least in my case, doesn't involve MPEG. What I do is capture either with the PC-VCR application that came with the Matrox or with the capture portion of ULVS4; either way results are the same. I specify full, half or quarter CIF, and I use the resident MJPEG-codec of Matrox. For stills, I make sure that whatever resolution of the *.bmp or *.jpg stills I have they are always 4:3. They do not have to be exactly 640x480 or 800x600 as long as they are 4:3. I include these in the ULVS4 timeline. I may or may not include *.wav files for soundtracks. In any case, I then render the whole project back to a Matrox MJPEG-coded *.avi with again full, half or quarter CIF resolution. I can use three s/w players for playing back the resulting file: the PC-VCR app, Windows Media Player, and preview with ULVS4, and in ALL cases while playing it back video output appeared successfully from the Marvel so I was able to put it back to VHS tape with very good quality, especially with full CIF resolution (704x480) recorded onto S-VHS tape or S-VHS-ET. In my opinion MPEG is a limitation with are forced to contend with because we necessarily have to output our wares on VCD. If you do not have to output to VCD and it will be a traditional back-to-tape NLE situation then MPEG-1, and Dazzle for that matter, is hardly necessary. Of course MPEG-2 is in an entirely different league.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@yahoo.com), May 08, 2000.


Hi wingstarzz,

I'm talking abt both. I have tested homemade VCDs on Toshiba VCD player, Toshiba DVD player, Pioneer VCD player The VCD plays fine on Toshiba VCD player for 5 min on Pionneer and Toshiba DVD , the VCD got rejected(!!) The Toshiba DVD plays commercial VCDs well (so my friend told me) So far, I've tried Sony ,Kodak and brandless media ..today I'm going to try Verbatim and Mitsui(gold) Hmm I dun think it's the media's fault cos I've tried cd-copy an original to a blank and it plays _fine_ on my toshiba VCD nonetheless I'm willing to give it a try (sigh) What are the silver CDs everyone seem to be talking abt ? Besdies the brandless sort, I cant open up each brand of CDR and examine.. someone also mentioned that it's better to keep the dazzle unit as cool as possible to keep down dropped frames too bad I only have a miserable fan here BTW, I 'm not investing in a DVD player :) they are awfully expensive here !!!

-- Koshy (koshy@mbox3.singnet.com.sg), May 08, 2000.


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