Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

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slicetwo
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:57 pm

Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

Post by slicetwo »

I've done some searching and haven't found any concrete answers yet, so I created an account to see if anyone can help me. I'm finally ripping my entire DVD collection and I have a rather large stack of DVDs that rip, but when I play them back with VLC, they have a constant green strobe effect throughout the entire movie. The DVDs are from various studios and years. I've had success with a bunch of DVDs, too. I'm using 2 different computers to rip simultaneously, and it happens with both machines (one is a custom build and the other is an off-the-shelf Dell). I just started using MakeMKV yesterday. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

Some of the DVDs that aren't working (though not the full list):
Seven
Chronicles of Riddick collection (although the animated movie on the DVD worked fine, Pitch Black did not)
12 Monkeys
Army of Darkness
Total Recall
Kung Fu Hustle
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Woodstock
Posts: 9938
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:21 pm

Re: Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

Post by Woodstock »

What are you using for playback?

"Strobing" could be what others refer to as "flicker", and it is not uncommon when playing back an interlaced video on a non-interlaced monitor. Different players have different ways to deal with interlaced video, including settings to (attempt to) remove it.
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slicetwo
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:57 pm

Re: Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

Post by slicetwo »

VLC Player and I'm playing it back on my Panasonic plasma TV. Is there a reason some DVDs would rip fine and others would not in this case? This literally looks like the entire movie was shot with a green strobe light on set.
slicetwo
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:57 pm

Re: Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

Post by slicetwo »

I actually just ripped a movie and tested it on VLC and it flashed green, but then I rocked Windows Media Player and it played fine. Now I have no idea what's going on. Haha.
Woodstock
Posts: 9938
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:21 pm

Re: Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

Post by Woodstock »

There are lots of things that can affect the playback of a DVD. You might find that, when played in a 640x480 window, there is no strobing, but the scaled-up image has it. Or vice-versa.

If you play the particular DVDs directly in VLC to the same monitor, do you see the strobing? MakeMKV copies the video track directly to the MKV file, with no scaling; theoretically, VLC playing the DVD and playing the MKV file should be identical.

Practically, though, VLC turns on some playback tweaks when it dealing with disk playback that are normally "off" for media playback. A few weeks ago, I was playing back some video surveillance files and they had extreme flicker. Turned on VLC's flicker filter, and it disappeared. Except I then started to see what looked like "phosphor persistence" (essentially after-images) in video... Turned the flicker filter back off, and that went away.
MakeMKV Frequently Asked Questions
How to aid in finding the answer to your problem: Activating Debug Logging
slicetwo
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:57 pm

Re: Green strobe effect when ripping some DVDs.

Post by slicetwo »

I'll test out some more stuff. Turns out Bubba Ho Tep played fine via Plex, so I think it's a VLC thing, as you've suggested. Now I feel dumb for having deleted all those videos that were strobing without testing other players first. Thanks for the advice. I'm gonna do some more research.
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