Chapter Menu thumbnails look awful

[MikeMattke]

I transferred MiniDV tapes to DVD for a customer. I edited and burned the DVDs on my S2000. I delivered them to his house and tried one out on his 80" TV. The Chapter Menu Buttons [thumbnails] looked distorted. Is there a setting that I missed? I always create the Main Menu and Chapter Menu in 16:9

On a similar note I transferred 8mm film into my Prestige. When I played it back the scenes in the Prestige or the resulting DVDs on an analog TV they looked fine. When I played them on a Flatscreen TV the colors were off and it looked bad. The customer refused to pay. I told him he had to adjust his TV and/or DVD player to get a better picture. He took one of his reels to Walgreen and said their DVD was far superior to mine and when played back on the same equipment it looked great. ???????

[Christopher6206]

Mike, I've noticed similar problems here. And I've done testing as to why it happens. I don't have an answer really. WHen I make chapter menus for standard DVDs with thumbnails and a little title under each one they look great on screen when I'm making them. But once burned and I put it into a DVD or Blu Ray player they don't look good on a flat screen TV but do look good on an old Analogue TV. And curiously I've noticed that for the flatscreen TVs the titling and thumbnails will look good for a fraction of a second and then turn blurry as soon as the chapter menu comes up. And even more curiously one of my Blu Ray players this does not happen. The thumbnails and text stay clear. My conclusion is that something in that particular Blu Ray player allows the chapter screens to remain clear but on all other DVD and Blu Ray players it is not the case. Further more when I play same discs in my Blu Ray drive on my PC the oppisite happens, the chapter thumbnails and tilte are blurry for a fraction of a second and then get clear, using 2 different DVD software players. I even tried switching the out the Blu Ray player that worked well with the TV that had the Blu Ray player that didn't work well and found it still looked good. So I think it is a software or hardware issue within some particular DVD and Blu Ray players when it comes to flat screen TVs. And there has got to be something going on with Arabesk as well I would think.

[Christopher6206]

I have also noticed in regards to 8mm film transfer that adjusting the TV screen does help a lot. I change my general TV setting to "Movie" mode. The other modes are just too bright. And the further away I am from the screen the better the picture looks. Not sure whats up with that.