I've noticed this with a couple of movies now using HC to encode. At the very start of a movie things look rather pixelated and I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this problem and knows how to fix it. I'm using HC-22 at it's best setting and DVD-RB Pro 1.27.3.

Have you tried using the bitrate redistribution!

Thanks Dialysis, worked great with your advice.

Glad to hear you got it.

Is it generally standard procedure to leave bitrate redistribution checked?

Ok, while things got better with bitrate redistribution I'm still noting a decent amount of pixelation--specifically during darker scenes.

How much compression is your project?
Can you post a log file?
Have you tried adjusting the Lumgain?

I don't have the log anymore, but I'm pretty sure the compression was around 70%. By the way, how do I adjust luminance gain? I see it is default at 0, but I'm not sure what it does the higher I set it and when I should mess with it.

Unless you manually deleted the log file, it's still there. Try setting the Lumgain around 2 or 3. If you are doing the whole movie, try using Steal Space From Extras. When using the bitrate redistribution, after the prepare phase, you can use the segment viewer to give more bitrate to areas you feel need more bitrate.

DVDRB is a great way to backup movies but it can't accomplish miracles. If your movie is very large (lots of frames) then bitrate will be quite low which will affect action scenes. Are you trimming all unnecessary content such as unneeded sound tracks and extras? If you absolutely have to keep the extras then copy them to a second disc.

I used DVDremake to get rid of the extra languages, subtitles, extra menus and bonus materials but the movie (Kingdom of Heaven) still takes up lots of space since it is so long and action packed. Something I noticed though is that the initial black screens with pixelation showed up differently depending on which dvd player I had the movie in. For example the pixelation was very noticeable in my cheap $30 player, considerably less noticeable in my PS2, and non existent on my computer's rom.

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For example the pixelation was very noticeable in my cheap $30 player, considerably less noticeable in my PS2, and non existent on my computer's rom.

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The pixelation being less notable with some units over others is probably more a function of the screen that you're watching it on. I'm assuming that you've removed all but a single sound track. Take care when using DVDremake or you can cause more harm than good. Have you tried backing it with a different encoder such as CCE? Some encoders do better at higher compression rates. Also try using RB's movie only mode.

cce did a better job for me than hc encoder on very high compression...i noticed more pixelated picture on the hc encoder result than the cce...but then again hc encoder is free and cce isnt