PapaJohn is amazing

[Guest]

Having wasted many hours and even more DVD's (We've used up 1/2 the world's
stock of plastic) I read PapaJohn's website and downloaded his profile for
DVD (PAL-I'm UK). http://www.eicsoftware.com/PapaJohn/MM2/PS3-Intro.html

Its absolutely perfect. I'd previously tried every possible profile and the
movies always came out either jerky (usually res too high) or blurry (the
default dvd profile was hopeless). I was about to give up with Photostory,
which was a shame because it has some nice features. Now with Papajohn's
profile they are crystal clear and smooth. Why couldn't Microsoft have done
that.

Well done PapaJohn, keep up the good work!

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

WOWSA, thanks David..... I just put those profiles out a couple days ago and
not being a DVD burner myself, I was hoping they would work OK, especially
in PAL land.... I guess they do.

Thanks for the comments...
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
Photo Story 3 - use the menu branch at www.papajohn.org

..

 

[Ravi G. Ravichandran]

This is great David! What software did you use to go from WMV to DVD?
Thanks.

Ravi

 

[Guest]

I used latest version of Nero (express and burning rom). Its a great
marriage with Photostory, because after wmv you can set all sorts of menus,
chapters, etc prior to burning. I actually haven't tried anything else
though. It works for me. And the quality is excellent now.

David

 

[Ravi G. Ravichandran]

Thanks. I am glad it is working for you.

I am using NeroExpress Vision (got it about 10 days ago with my burner).
However, I am creating NTSC DVDs. The quality of the DVD is not good. There
appears to be "jumpiness" especially red colored items and is very
distracting.

Ravi

 

[Guest]

Heya PapaJohn,

I too enjoy your web site and all the insightful knowledge you provide
there. Like everyone else, I was dissapointed with the NTSC DVD profile
provided by Microsoft. However, when I try to use your profile
(PapaJohn-DVDProfile.prx, I think), my DVD burning software (Roxio EZ CD/DVD
Creator 6) crashes on me with the error "DVD Builder encountered an error and
must close."

Are there any tweaks to this profile that might allow me to use it with
Roxio 6?

Thanks!

~tom

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Hi Tom,

I don't use Roxio but it might be a similar issue to what I have with
Sonic's MyDVD 4.5, the DVD software on my laptop.

I'm assuming you're using the saved story WMV file as input to Roxio... and
not converting it to a DV-AVI file or a Movie Maker movie WMV file first.

MyDVD 4.5 can effectively use DV-AVI files, WMV movies from MM2, and PS2 WMV
stories, but it can't use PS3 stories... the image codec version used by PS3
isn't supported. Those using MyDVD 6.0 say they can import PS3 stories. I
checked with Sonic and they told me that their software won't be patched to
support the PS3 stories.... and that uses of PS3 should run their videos
through Movie Maker to get DV-AVI files.

So the codec revision between PS2 and PS3 is significant.... another case is
the downloadable Windows Media Player for the Macs.... the image codec to
support PS2 videos is in it, but not for the PS3 videos. The codecs are
hard-coded into the player and not downloaded in the background as our
Windows based players get them.

I'm hoping you can extrapolate from this the Roxio situation.... again, I'm
assuming you're giving it PS3 WMV files, and it's doing better with them
than MyDVD 4.5 does, but not good enough. I'd like to know more about it.

--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
Photo Story 3 - use the menu branch at www.papajohn.org

..

 

[Guest]

Thanks PapaJohn. Yes, I am attempting to burn the .wmv file that was created
from PS3.

Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator

Again, what I find baffling is that I can burn the .wmv file created from
Photo Story 3 (using the Microsoft 640x480 DVD profile) -- but again, I think
the quality/clarity on the TV stinks! When I use your profile (the NTSC
720x480) in Photo Story 3 and attempt to burn it, Roxio crashes entirely
while it's reading the file (error message: "DVD Builder has encountered and
error and must close."), so I can't even see what it looks like on the TV.

I'll try running the .wmv (created with Photo Story 3 using your DVD
profile) through Movie Maker 2 to create a DV-AVI. And then burn the DV-AVI
using Roxio. (Does this mean the quality will drop a lot in Movie Maker?)

I'll let you know how it goes...

Tom

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

For my NTSC profile, I started with the DVD profile that came with PS3 and
tweaked it as follows:

- changed the video size from 640x480 to 720x480 to align with standard
MPEG-2 specs.
- OOPS - looks like I changed the frame rate from 29.97 to 30... .I'm
tweaking it now to go back to the 29.97
- changed the key frame interval from 8 to 3 seconds
- changed the video quality from 98 to 100

maybe Roxio has a problem with the frame rate??
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
Photo Story 3 - use the menu branch at www.papajohn.org

..

 

[Guest]

Okay, so it looks like Movie Maker 2 crashes as well (at 90%) when trying to
build a DV-AVI from your Photo Story 3 NTSC DVD profile.

Have you updated this profile on your web site yet? I would tweak the file
directly (based on your settings below), but I can't find certain settings,
like the frame rate (to adjust it back to 29.97).

Tom

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Yes, I updated it to the 29.97 fps setting

--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
Photo Story 3 - use the menu branch at www.papajohn.org

..