Very Slight Horizontal Jitter on some MKVs

[Redux]

On a few mkv conversions I have recently noticed that I get an occasional very slight horizontal jitter. If there's a strong vertical component of the image it seems to offset, staggered a small fraction of an inch, for a few frames. Similar but not exactly the same as typical judder.

If I take the same dvd source and make an mpeg file with mpegstreamclip the jitter is not there. VideoRedo's QSF does not eliminate the jitter on the mkv.

I'm not sure how long it's been happening. I noticed it on a few recent mkv conversions, Mac version, and I then happened to be looking at a file from about 6 months ago and I see the same thing. Very subtle, very occasional.

I have a lot of variables outside MakeMKV, for example I'm looking at the files on a Tivo, and I will look into these other variables. But I'm interested as I start my investigation whether others are seeing this.

Thanks.

[Woodstock]

Is it on a particular playback software/hardware that you see it?

DVD sources will almost always have interlaced video. Bluray is mostly non-interlaced. Some players do not deal with interlaced video very well. With VLC, you can turn deinterlace on and off and see the difference in the video.

The program you mentioned, mpegstreamclip, is probably removing the interlace as part of creating the MP4 file; the standard settings for handbrake do that as well.

[Redux]

The program you mentioned, mpegstreamclip, is probably removing the interlace as part of creating the MP4 file

The flow is (mpeg2 all the way): DVD to MakeMKV to Tivo (via pyTivo) = BAD, DVD to mpegstreamclip to Tivo = GOOD, DVD to MakeMKV to everything else seems fine so far in my testing over the last few hours, including VLC with and without deinterlace.

Clearly this is NOT a MakeMKV problem as such but some interaction between MakeMKV-produced mpeg2s and the Tivo that does not occur on the Tivo with mpeg2's generated by other than MakeMKV.

Unfortunately my family's preferred (as in ONLY) acceptable viewing mode is through the Tivo, so I have to do something with old DVD files and DVDs moving forward. I really like MakeMKV while Mpegstreamclip is very old and clunky and I'm distressed at the notion of redoing large parts of my library (that were originally done with MakeMKV, and God knows where the original DVDs even are!).

My inquiry here was just a shot in the dark to find if anyone else is seeing it. I'll look at some pyTivo and its ffmpeg settings. I'll also sample back historically and see if it ties in to a specific version of MakeMKV forward. I'll work something out. I've been gradually replacing DVD files with BluRays as they're available anyway, so if I live long enough ... Thanks.

[Woodstock]

How old of a Tivo? Any of them that can do HD should be able to handle h.264 encoded MP4 files, so you might be able to standardize on a smaller format and just run "everything" through a tool like handbrake.

But I haven't been using my Tivo for a long time, because I moved to media players that are much better at dealing with streamed content from non-Tivo sources. I was surprised a few months ago to find that it was still powered up, because I'd turned off the LEDs.

Does their TV take multiple HDMI inputs?