Hi all! I am SO happy to find this place! I am having an issues trying to render a film I made that was shot with my Sony Handycam.
I'm sorry if this is posted in the wrong forum, please feel free to move mods.
Here's the skinny. My film is about 1 hour and 47 minutes long and also has about 17 minutes of extra features as a different "track" in my TMPGENC Authoring Works 4. So the film itself is one track in TMPGENC and the extra features are another track, each's running time is above.
Now first the info you guys will likely need. About 95 percent of the footage was imported from my master tapes/camcorder as .AVI using a firewire into my Sony Vaio. Maybe 20 minutes of the film consists of old VCR footage that's not actually too bad. I took all the clips (Handycam master footage and old VHS footage) and assembled the movie in Windows Movie Maker (WMM). I then published the movie as a .WMV from WMM. Then the .WMV went through Windows Media Encoder with two-pass encoding and produced the final file (this procedure refers to both "tracks" I described above as the exact same procedure was used for boith, resulting in two final .WMV files to import into TMPGENC Authoring Works 4 to author them to a custom DVD.) Both .WMV files play BEAUTIFULLY and smooth/fluid on camera pans and such.
Now comes the problem. I have burnt through a spindle of Verbatim DVDs (I heard they are one of the best brands to use for highest quality) trying to finalize this movie through TMPGENC AW 4 and although the resulting DVDs are pretty damn good...the footage still doesnt maintain that "live" look that the raw footage exhibits, I've always called this "live" look the "soap opera look"...where it looks "live", I'm sure you guys know what I mean. Anyway, I have tried no less than 40 different experiments adjusting bit-rates, encoding properties, etc and I still cannot effectively get that "live " look of the raw footage. I also haven't been able to solve a simultaneous problem that hasnt gone away either...during high-motion camera pans the video appears ever-so-slightly choppy. Not as bad as I have seen it in the past, but certainly not as fluid as the raw footage.
SOOOOOO, what I am BEGGING for help with is this. How in the world can I render this DVD through TMPGENC AW 4 and maintain the high quality of the original tapes...or at least close to it? Should I be using double-layered DVDs to author with perhaps? The only conclusion I can come up with is I am trying to fit about 2 hours and 6 minutes of TOTAL video onto a regular 4.7mb Verbatim blank DVD-R designed for only two hours. After all the coasters I've made and different experiments I have done: I am starting to think that that extra 6 minutes in somehow making the TMPGENC AW 4 compress the entire DVD and whereby affecting the camera movement's/pan's fluidity.
So given the info I have provided, does anyone know what settings I should use for my particular situation? I do still have the original WMM file that I rendered from originally so if need be, I could be walked through the steps of "publishing" the footage properly if it is determined by someone here that I didn't publish the original film from WMM properly, before TMPGENC AW 4 is even involved. I'm just hoping someone here can give me a list of estimated settings to program TMPGENC AW 4 with in terms of the encoding properties.
I really need to finish up this project so I can clean out about 30 GB of .AVI off my PC. By the way, that's why I initially imported into WMM a ton of short .AVI clips that make up the final film (.avi is best quality no?). One final thing I should mention is that this film also conatains some clips from theatrical film for comparison of movie filming locations (which is what the film is about-matching up locations from a movie today and then fading into the thearical movie clip.)
So I am VERY close to achieving what I am looking for but those camera pans/high motion sequences just seem a tiny bit too "jittery" compared to the original raw footage.
Any help or advice anyone can provide would be appreciated. It's very frustrating having the film and extra features done and ready to go yet I just cannot seem to get it encided right so it appears nice on the TV.
Thanks in advance during my time of desperation!
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Last edited by Captain Tatonka; 22nd Feb 2010 at 14:35.
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the extra step you used going from dv to wmv is probably killing the quality. the proper method would be to import the dv to an editor, do the editing and then export as DVD compliant mpeg-2 video and ac-3 audio ready to import into an authoring program.
Last edited by aedipuss; 4th Mar 2010 at 09:08.
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"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Hi aedipuss, Thanks so much for the reply! You know what, you are 100% correct and I'll tell you why. Thinking back, when I first just published a DVD directly through WMM it looked OUTSTANDING! I was just too limited with WMM DVD Maker in terms of Menu options and being able to add additonal pages. Thus TMPGEnc AW 4 was purchased.
So it seems the biggest mistake I made was using WMM at all to edit the film since it cannot export a file as MPEG-2/AC-3 correct?
If so let me ask this; is there anyway at all to avoid me having to literally reassemble the entire film from scratch in another editing program (it's a complex editing job that took weeks). I was thinking of perhaps using WMM to render the film as a giant AVI instead and insert that file into TMPGENC.
Think this is an option aedipuss? Any other suggestions to spare me starting all over. No wonder the Windows-made DVD looked so good directly from WMM... :~( -
Hey aedipuss!
Well I re-published the film from WMM as an .AVI. Then I imported to AW4...it looks great (has that "live" look I was seeking above) but I now have two new issues. First during transitions (cuts and dissolves), the final DVD's video is jumpy for a split second until the transtion is done, then it is fine. Also, my second new issue, the audio also skips at every clip change or dissolve. I think it's because I encoded in Dolby or something. I've taken a screencap of my video and audio settings I have encoded the DVD with...does anything jump out at you that might cause these mentioned problems in the settings you see in this pic? -
what type of avi did you use? check it with mediainfo, use the text output. copy all the text and paste it here. the only thing i see that might cause problems would be a field order mismatch, the output is set to top field first, and if it's DV the avi might be bff.
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"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Here it is aedipuss...
General
Complete name : remaster.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile : OpenDML
File size : 21.9 GiB
Duration : 1h 48mn
Overall bit rate : 28.9 Mbps
Video
ID : 0
Format : Digital Video
Duration : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:1:1
Scan type : Interlaced
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.360
Stream size : 21.9 GiB (100%)
Audio
ID : 0-0
Format : PCM
Muxing mode : DV
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 1h 48mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%) -
Aedipuss? I posted what you asked for and I am waiting for a reply so I can continue my work. Are you still here?
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@Captain T: aedipuss is around here somewhere. He's pretty active on the forums so I'm sure he will get back to you soon. While you and I are stateside (not sure about aedipuss), there are people all over the world who post to these forums. Heck, our friendly admin, Baldrick, is a Swede!
Let's eliminate one potential problem while we're here. While I don't use TMPGEnc Authoring Works (I've used their Plus edition of their mpeg encoder for years and while slower than some it gets the job done with little fuss), I've used WMM a time or two. Can you check the resulting DV avi from WMM to see if the audio is skipping or the video is jumpy? If it is jumpy there, then your problem lies within WMM and not TMPGEnc AW.
HTH,
CogoSWSDSOld ICBM Coordinates: 39 45' 0.0224" N 89 43' 1.7548" W. New coordinates: 39 47' 48.0" N 89 38' 35.7548" W. -
Hi Cogo! Thanks for the info about aedipuss, I didn't mean to be a pest. Yes, all the .avi's play just fine after publishing from WMM. It's the transfer to DVD that is causing the problems. I went ahead and followed aedipuss' last bit of advice and I went ahead and changed the .avi's to bottom field first. I just watched the resulting DVD and it no better; I still see that choppiness only during transitions. So I'm not sure what to do next.
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hey captain. sorry about no being around, but the winter hurricane that past by us here in new hampshire took out my cable. no phine, tv, or internet for a week. luckily we got power back in a day, and there was no damage to the house, other than a 75 foot pine down in the backyard. going to be one long spring cleanup this year.
next time you are looking for a specific person you could try the pm(private message) button. it's the little envelope icon. i always respond if i can.
anyway glad to hear the quality is now were it should be other than the transitions. were the transitions created by wmm? and the avi you exported played fine through the transitions? taw should only be converting it to dvd mpeg-2 and then converting to dvd format ifos and vobs. it shouldn't be changing it that much.
the workflow should stay bottom field first throughout the process. if mediinfo doesn't say whether it is or not try using gspot. check your source avis, the output avi from wmm, and the output from taw. the setting should be to output bff from taw. other than that make sure you have the latest version of taw, as it gets "updated" frequently.
if it still isn't working, maybe try encoding to dvd spec mpeg-2 and pcm wav audio from wmm. take those and use the free dvdauthor/dvdauthorgui to create a dvd and see if it's any better. if not then it's wmm creating the problem, and you most likely need to get a better editing program.
good luck!--
"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Thanks aedipuss! Sorry to hear about the weather. I'm in MA and it just missed us but everything closed anyway (we were expected to get nailed but it missed us). So everyone got a snow day and then nothing happened. Glad you didn't have anything more serious happen.
Anyway, I will go through the settings in TAW as it's probaby a bit rate setting or something that I myself changed. I say this because I have used TAW and had it output the WMM transitions normally before, but that's when the camera pans/fast movement were choppy. For some reason it seems one is a trade-off for the other at the moment. I did notice that bff seemed to make the picture a little more grainy, does that make any sense? -
bff vs. tff wouldn't change the "grain" they both use the same fields. one would just have jerky motion, and possibly interlace lines as the wrong field would be playing first in a frame.
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"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Hey aedipuss! Well I tried rendering using the setting "progressive" instead of "interlace" just to see if that would fix the problem. Well it was a debacle (as I suspected it might be) LOL! The entire film was choppy. So I am going to go back to the "interlace". How do my bitrates look to you in the above screenshots? Could they be part of the issue?
Whatever is happening is happeneing in TAW because as I say, the avi's themselves play just fine on their own as a stand-alone file and also comes out beautiful when put to DVD through WMM. I am going to reset all the settings back to as they appear in the screenshot pics above except I will switch to bff and see what happens. Any other adjustments I should make before I start burning? It takes a good 8 hours to render this so I'd like to make any other modifications you recommend, if any, before I start the process again.
Thanks once again for all your advice here aedipuss, your help is invaluable! -
Hey aedipuss, I have come across a question. You will notice in the above report about my source .avi that it says it is CBR encoded yet when we are trying to publish it to DVD, the output is set to VBR (only way I can get two-pass encoding). Do you think this could be causing the jumpy issue? Trying to encode a CBR .avi using VBR through TAW? Do I really need two-pass encoding since the source file is beautiful quality on it's own?
This is just something I came across and wondered if this CBR/VBR discrepency could be at least part of my problem. -
the cbr of the source has no effect on the taw render to mpeg-2. either cbr or vbr will be fine.
the only settings i would adjust in taw are the bitrates. use a calculator to determine the best bitrate for the length of the source. for 1hr 48 min including 384kbps audio i would go with:
Maximum 9000
Average 5000
Minimum 2000
i always go a little low on the ave. bitrate just in case....
here is one you can use.
http://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php#Calculator--
"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Hi aedipuss!
Well I set my bitrates exactly how you have suggested except I am unable to change the minimum bitrate...it is default set at 1550 kb/s and unable to be changed as long as I have it set for two-pass encoding.
After rendering a DVD using your settings (sans the minimum bitrate); I still get the nice clear picture but the fades and dissolves are even more choppy than before. It seems it's only during the transitions that there is choppiness...not before and not after. So I do have the clear picture quality I sought; just still having issues fixing these transitions. Any other ideas? -
you could try a different package to render to mpeg-2 and author your DVavi source to see if taw is the problem. maybe give avstodvd or the film machine a try. they both can be set to use the Henc encoder which is pretty good.
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"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Hi aedipuss,
Well I suppose I could do that but everything I read said that TMPGENC was one of the best encoders, so I bought that one after researching different ones. I also have to use this program to author the DVD because I spent $90 on this software. There simply has to be a way to get it to work right. The last thing I want to do is consider my $90 wasted over the transition issue only. There must be some setting that is amiss that is causing this. What about the setting I found here in the advanced encoder settings that says "detect scene change"...could this have something to do with it? It is currently activated and has been on every rendering I have done so far.
Perhaps this could be the issue if I uncheck it this time? -
i don't know. i'm not a taw user, maybe try turning it off and see if it helps.
you could try starting a new thread that asks just for specific taw help and maybe another user knows something that could fix it.--
"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Hi aedipuss,
Well I tried it with the "detect scene change" unchecked and no difference. I did notice that the audio also has a little skip to it during the transitions as well. So whatever the problem is it's definitely related to the transitions only. The rest of the film plays great and the video quality is perfect...it's just those damn transitions that are the only problem left. I've been searching Google for an answer but I keep finding my own post here now in the results.
Is there a special time when I should be encoding into Dolby Surround 5.1 or can you encode in DS5.1 using any source? I picked DS5.1 as my sound output just because I assumed that was the best output. Should I try just stereo? I doubt this but could this have anything to do with my transition issue?
Also, something else I think may be relevant here, my DVD is actually two tracks. The film itself (Track 1) is 1 hour 48 minutes. The Extra Features (Track 2) are 17 minutes and 25 seconds. Wouldn't this affect your bitrate suggestions above? Perhaps I am trying to cram too much onto a 4.7 DVD at that bitrate?Last edited by Captain Tatonka; 8th Mar 2010 at 09:08.
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if the source is stereo then usually i stick with stereo ac3. there is no information for the encoder to use to make the surround sound channels from, and it ends up duplicating the front audio, which can work ok for music but might not for dialog.
yes any additional item on the dvd effect the bit rate that should be used. in that scenario both pieces should be encoded vbr 2 pass at an average bit rate of around 4200.
with some encoders 4000 should be used as a minimum bit rate to consider using before it looks bad. others like cce that can do 9 pass vbr can be used down to the 3000 bit rate area and still look passable, but not necessarily good.--
"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Thanks aedipuss,
So I should render the DVD again using these bitrate settings for both individual tracks:
Max br 9000 kb/s
Avg br 4200 kb/s
Min br 1510 kb/s
I will also just use stereo sound and not Dolby then, seems pointless based on your info as I need the dialogue to be clear and not "echoey".
Now I have three choices for audio output, which should I pick to go with the bitrate changes noted above?
Dolby Digital
MPEG-1 Audio LayerII
Linear PCM
Here's what the audio bitrate is set at: 384kb/s -
the first i would guess, as ac-3 2 channel dolby is what i would look for.
as for the bit rate, i don't know how taw handles the size issue. once you make your settings does taw encode to them and create a dvd image no matter how big the output is? did the last one come out oversize for a single layer dvdr?--
"a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303 -
Well it all fits on the DVD, the menus and all the extra features. The only problem is the choppiness in the sound and picture during transitions only. So yes, everything appeared to fit just fine on the DVDs previous.
I do not have ac-3 2 channel Dolby...my choices are only 5.1, 5, Stereo, and Monaural
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