sorry i've been M.I.A. for a little while. lots o' fun stuff going on in my off-line life.
now, for the obligatory stupid questions, filmdragon...
- what version of CCE are you using? (Basic, SP, and verson # please)
- have you tested the footage doing, say, a 5-pass VBR encoding? yes, yes, i know it takes longer... but you will have even better quality, and once you encode a video properly at max bitrates, you're done. (at least until BluRay discs become affordable...)
my suspicion is that you might be using a newer version of CCE, and one setting might need to be changed.
for instance, in the CCE version 2.70.01.05, if you have a fade-in or a fade-out, you NEED to put a check mark beside "fades on a static scene" in the advanced settings... when i didn't put a check mark beside this, i got quirky horizontal lines happening during fade-in/fade-out.
here are some things you might want to run tests with, as far as changing settings... and remember, ONLY change one of these at a time. when you hit the golden nugget that sorts out the problem, you'll know which setting needs to be set (and used, in general). also note: in CCE, set the input/output frames (time codes in frame #'s) of the specific part you want to test out with different settings... this will save time and HD space because you aren't encoding the entire video over and over again. then, change ONE setting, and write down on piece of paper "video test 1 = change in setting 'X'" and so forth. that way, when you watch the test DVDRW you burn the video encoding tests to, you can quickly ID which setting is the culprit.
settings to "play"/adjust from their native defaults:
* disable adaptive Q-matrix switching
* the Low Pass filter
* the High Pass filter
* change the slider to more "complex" for the Simple Setting (which has "scene" types listed as Natural, C.G., Animation)... you obvsiouly want to choose "Natural," but move the slider toward "Complicated" to see if this helps the "blockiness" part you're encoding.
* make sure you do NOT have "Close all GOPs" check marked in Video Settings
* do you have the Intrablock DCT precision set to 10?
if you can, PM me with *all* of the settings you generally use in CCE. i know this all might seem to be a pain, but once you get all of your settings correct (including your preferred bitrate settings), you can make it a "template" that is automatically used when you start CCE and add an (DV) .AVI file to be encoded.