DVD Studio Pro menu text flicker

Jared Meyer

Jared Meyer

Veteran
http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9324/1181185822.mov

The above clip shows what's happening in my DVD SP 4.0 menus on an LCD tv, but it does the same thing on my MacBook dvd player.

My menus are simple photo backgrounds with text and shape boxes. Everything is from within DVD SP, no Photoshop created assets.

As you can see in the clip, the edges of the text are flickering. It's not every single character that's affected, and it doesn't only affect the thinner fonts.

It's obviously to do with the interlacing that's going on, and the flicker will actually disappear on my MacBook if I deselect "Deinterlace" in the dvd player menu.

Some of my menus exhibit this flicker, some don't. I burned two dvd's today, both for the same client. The menus were almost identical, but one shows this flicker and the other does not. The flickering menu has more text and shapes but otherwise the same. No motion, only one track.

Any ideas how to fix this?
 
If you can convert the menu assets into photoshop files, and apply the "More blur" to the entire frame you'll reduce the flickering your seeing from interlacing.

There may be a similar setting inside DVDSP.
 
Thank you for the reply.

I know that the blur option is available, but I'd rather get to the root of the problem and cut it out completely. Like I said, it doesn't occur on all of the menus I create, so it's not just a result of interlacing. There's something else going on and I can't figure out what it is.
 
Flickering is going to happen because you have a sharp line that has no feathering, or bluring on the edge. It's nothing you are going to be able to get around without blurring edges.

It is the solution to the problem.

Also you should know that when loading on some DVD players, it will only play one set of fields, so you'll see massive flickering as the DVD player does an aspect ratio change, or just load from one video menu to the next. To downplay this loading time, try to have your videos fade out so that the AR change isn't so obvious.
 
Hey Alexander, thanks for the continued feedback.

I hear what you're saying, but it just doesn't jive with what I'm seeing with my own two eyes. I went ahead and recorded a clip of the DVD menu that does NOT exhibit the flickering. Same DVD player, same TV. In fact, it's almost the same DVD menu with minor differences in the amount of text boxes and more video on the track - almost filled to capacity.

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/9324/1182815772.mov

Check it out if you get a second.

There absolutely, positively has to be a reason the flicker is showing on one menu and not the other.
 
I just had this thread brought to my attention by someone else sending me an email.

I can't watch the video right now, but I'll throw in some more information.

Some TV's and DVD players are going to display different DVD's differently. The flickering text that you see on a TUBE TV is an artifact created by the TV not how you encode the DVD.

Blurring the text helps to alleviate this problem on SD TVs. If you are making SD DVDs you should make sure you don't have and hard edges anywhere in your design or you will have flickering on Interlaced displays like tube TVs. You will not see flicker in the DVD simulator, or on the disc playing on your monitor (because it's a progressive display)

RED and BLUE are the worst colors to use for text on an SD DVD menu, due to how the human eye precieves color, and how the signal gets compressed.

For example if the text is 255, 0 , 0 try 230, 10, 10 on the RGB scale. The text will still appear red and play better with SDTVs. You will still see flicker if the font is really small or if the text has hard edges against a high contrasting background like PURE WHITE or PURE BLACK.

Keep testing your output until you get a result that you like.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top