Expectations: MiniDV -> DV

deepor · Member Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn

With just a couple of DVD burns under my belt, I'm admittedly a newb. I'm hoping by learning the right techniques and tools, I'll get to where I want to be. But I've begun to wonder if my expectations are set too high.

My primary objective with my new DVD writer is to convert hours of MiniDV video of my children and family to a set of focused videos on DVD that I can distribute to family and save forever.

Having recorded digitally, I assumed I could get to DVD digitally without any loss in quality. Heck, I just watched Lord of the Rings I and II on DVD with amazing resolution and color. What's the big deal with getting my crummy DV on the DVD?

I used NeroVision Express (v2.1.0.8) to capture video from a Sony MiniDV to DV-AVI Type-1. I used NVE to Make DVD... (DVD-Video), encoding with Quality=Standard play (5073 kbps). First, time I encoded directly to DVD - I think; the second time I encoded to disk and then burned the files to DVD. Both times I noticed some degradation in the quality of the video. I don't know the precise words to describe - maybe a little pixelation, maybe a little jumpy, less smooth movement compared to the original and even the interim AVI.

So, I'm guessing there are some things I can do to improve the quality - please provide suggestions! But, is it not realistic to expect the DVD to have the quality of the original DV? Why not?

THANKS

ghosty6 · Member Joined: 15 Jul 2003 Location: Aussie

I began like you and now I make perfect DVD's from DV.

Here it is:

1.Capture from firewire to PC using Ulead studio 7
2. Make changes if required in Studio 7
3. Frameserve from Studio 7 to Procoder 1.5
4. Author and Burn files from Procoder with Ulead DVD workshop.

I have used every Encoder available, however Procoder used correctly will be no diff in quality from the original.

Persit and use the guides, it takes a long time to master it.

daamon · Cockney Pommy Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Location: Melbourne, Oz

Hi deepor,

ghosty6 is describing the basic process of capture, edit (crop, add fades, background music etc.), encode (step 3 is a little more than encoding - read up on frameserving), author (making chapters and menus) and burn to disc. Possible tools are also mentioned.

It's common acceptance (though not totally), that it's best to use the right tools for each step.

This link: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120013 is a guide by Baldrick, the site Administrator and may be of interest.

Also, see this link:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=725433#725433

...for the steps I take to go from DV cam to DVD disk with menus and good quality. I don't claim it's the best way or the right way as there's loads of ways and loads of different tools. But it will give you a good insight into what you need to do, typical tools and settings.

If your home movie is over 100 mins, you'll need to lower the bitrate as time and bitrate are the only factors determining how big the finished article is (too big, and it won't fit on a DVD disc). Check out the DVDRHelp Bitrate Calculator - found in the Tools section.

Hope that provides a broader insight into what to use, and how to go about it.

proxyx99 · **Banned** Joined: 22 Oct 2003 Location: Americas

Keep your bitrate not lower then 6k avg. Good to encode 8k CBR if space/length is not an issue (for best quality). Always use highest quality settings (if you screw up you cannot go to WalMart to repurchase your home movie...!).

deepor · Member Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn

OK, first I'll try adjusting the bit rate settings. NVE supports a setting of 8k or 9k for high quality - not sure if my DVD player can handle it, but we'll see.

How do pro movies (e.g., Lord of the Rings) get 2 hrs of such hi quality on a DVD?

I'll also take a look at the links you provided; initially, though, I'm hesitant to invest the time/money to replace my toolset, unless there is a clear quality advantage in some of the tools mentioned. I'd love to hear more if folks have had success with Nero.

Thanks for your help!

daamon · Cockney Pommy Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Location: Melbourne, Oz

Hi deepor,

I've just noticed this:

racer-x · Posted: Feb 10, 2004 05:55

You can get quality equel to the original DV, but not better. You can never get better than source(garbage in garbage out). The movie industry spends millions to get the quality they get, so forget trying to equel their's.

There's lots of things that you can do to improve quality. It starts with a good clean source video. Capture to AVI. Edit in a good video editor. Encode with a good encoder. Author with a good DVD Authoring S/W.

Sure you can get the job done with an all in one app, but like you're finding out, the quality sucks.
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daamon · Cockney Pommy Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Location: Melbourne, Oz

@ racer-x

You've hit the proverbial nail on the head.

Your call deepor - How much quality do you want vs how much time & money you wanna spend?

The latter isn't as expensive as you might think. In fact, the first of the links I gave in my first post won't cost a penny, and the second can be achieved for not too much cash.

The main factor is the editing tool you use - can vary from free, thru fair up to loads. TMPGEnc (encoder) and TMPGEnc DVD Author can be bought as a bundle for $99.
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bugster · Moderator Joined: 30 Jan 2002 Location: UK

Deepor, try a different mpeg -encoder. I can't comment specifically on the encoder in NeroVision Express but lets just say that previous mpeg encoders from Nero have always been sub-par.

Try Mainconcept, TmpGenc, procoder or Cinemacraft encoders if you want quality.

rcguy · Member Joined: 08 Jan 2004

I use a Sony camcorder DCR TRV 27 to record DV. I then use Studio 9 to capture, edit and burn. It's that easy. Best Buy has Pinnacle's Studio 9 on sale for $69.99 with a $20.00 competitor's upgrade rebate. Yes, I end up with an outstanding quality picture plus surround sound.

deepor · Member Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn

At the moment, my main objective is maximizing the quality of the conversion from DV to DVD-mpeg and preserving - not improving - the quality of the original video. I'm sure there are editing/authoring tools with better functionality, but the basic stuff in Nero is fine for now. I'm wondering though about encoding and whether some of these tools offer higher quality AVI and mpeg encoding.

But, first try is increased bit rates. Thanks again for the suggestions.

triphop · Member Joined: 10 Jul 2003

Actually the most important part of the process is the source material and this is where deep pockets trump you. Single image sensor DV cameras with poor optics are not going to produce "good" DVDs no matter what you do. Entropy rules ya know. Most of the advice posted before is completely applicable - DV is one of the simpler paths to DVD. It can be summed up as:

Shoot - Capture - Edit - Convert to MPEG2 - Author DVD- Burn

Triphop

donpedro · member bember Joined: 05 Aug 2002 Location: EU

I haven't seen any comments in this regard, but you know what can make BIG difference in quality of final product ? Get rid of your shaky hands. Get tripod and shoot with it. Just try and see. Other than quality of optics, sensors and much more expensive mpeg2 encoders that studio is using to make DVD (e.g., Lord of the Rings).... TRIPOD is the magic word.

EDIT: I was just reading another post about this... and.... light condition is another thing that affects encoding.
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triphop · Member Joined: 10 Jul 2003

MrMungus · Member Joined: 18 Dec 2003 Location: Dallas

[quote="deepor"]At the moment, my main objective is maximizing the quality of the conversion from DV to DVD-mpeg and preserving - not improving - the quality of the original video. quote]

You can't. You're going from 25Mbps to, at most, 9Mbps. You have to lose quality somewhere in there. DVDs at a lower bitrate than the original will never look "as good as" the original tape. They can only look "good enough" or look as if there is no *perceptible* loss in quality (akin to WAV vs. MP3).
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deepor · Member Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn

proxyx99 · **Banned** Joined: 22 Oct 2003 Location: Americas

For home based encoding 7k seems to be the range where artifacts start disappearing. Try 7.5 or 8 k (9.7 approaches the limit and may not be safe with all dvd players). Better encoder will give you better results (so will tweaking encoding settings/parameters). This is how Big Guys achieve quality, costly equipment plus tonns of experience and fine tuning.

MrMungus · Member Joined: 18 Dec 2003 Location: Dallas

daamon · Cockney Pommy Joined: 10 Jun 2003 Location: Melbourne, Oz

LlamaStick · Member Joined: 26 Jun 2002

Lots of good advice, so I'll not add anything other than to answer your Lord of the rings DVD question.

Commerical DVDs are DUAL layer - this means they can hold over 8Gb of data. DVD-Rs you are burning hold 4.7Gb so recording 2 hours on a DVD-R has to be done at a much lower bit rate.
That's why even LOTR extended editions are on 2 discs....

(Dual layer is not 4.7Gb x 2 though - another one of those mysteries!!)

Regards,

Steve.

vhelp · ..Semi Neutral.. Joined: 31 Mar 2001 Location: New York

Unfortunately, all those recordings from past to present, will resort to
the resulting quality, base upon your skills levels. I say past to present
because many people are lead to believe that their hand-held cam and home
footage will come out DVD quality.. till they try and fail. Not to sound
intrusive. But, the bottom line is this. You did not incorporate a tripod
in your footaging. It's a must. What do you think that Hollywood and
Cinema always use some form of Tripod mechanism ?
Even w/ their expensiv cameras, there is no match for using a Tripod.
.
.
Next, if the "fluid motion" that a given triod is capable of yielding.
.
.
Next, if a "motorized fluid motion" (the ultimate) up/down/left/right
of such a gizmo (I have one, and does great, but is not fast in motion)

Some more things to pinch your nerves..
* Fast panning kills your chances of good quality.
* sudden jerks, or panning (left/right) will also result in poor chances.
* Lighting conditions
* camera settings while shooting. Auto mode is the worse mode for an
...amerature to use. It will constancly fluctuate the brightness and
...other things, that will result in lesser chances.

Regarding the above, to an newbie (or ameture) these things are meaningless
and/or nonsense to them. They don't see qualit issues in their first passes
w/ this endeavors. But, give them a little time, and they will learn that
their results need improvements.

If you ever wonder how you can achieve Cinema quality (or close to it)
time will tell, when you actually start practicing those techniques above
and then some. Once you get use to the idea of Tripoding, things will get
better in the area of quality. Also, you be confortable w/ Tripods and
you may even become "aware" of certain things, that will spark your mind
w/ ideas and techniques to improve your footaging

But, beleave me, there is nothing else you can do for your older footage.
Whats done is done, w/ regards to how your shot your footage w/ your given
cam. The next best thing you can do is research on various websites for
camming techniques and things. There is lots of stuff out their. But,
this is for those that are really cerious about getting better quality
out of their camming endeavors.

I think that about the best you can do is utilize the maximum bitrate per
dvd disk, per hours worth, and live with the quality. Also, since DV is
pure interlace, it is best to leave it that way and encode w/ Interlace on

Next, if you plan on continuing footaging, I would highly recommend that you
start learning to incoporate a tripod in all your shots.
Also, learn how to move your cam (panning) and one more tip, breathing technique.
I know if all sounds like rocket stuff, but it isn't. If you are really
serious about quality, this is what you have to resort to. It's worth it.
But, if quality is not you main concirn, then de-regard what I've mentioned
above

And, good luck

-vhelp

deepor · Member Joined: 08 Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn

Ahhh, Dual Layer, now that makes sense

Thank you, LlamaStick.

I've read a thread or 2 on upcoming dual layer writers slated to come out probably sometime this year. And, obviously, even cheapo DVD players are equipped to play from these dual layer disks. Very cool. Well, I suppose I'll make do with my new single layer writer for the time being, certainly until there's a bit of price/functionality competition in the Dual Layer writer market. But that will be very nice.

I was able to encode at 8,000 kbps in Nero successfully with no burps from my DVD player. I noticed that, although I couldn't specify different Low-Med-High bit rates, that the 2-pass option indicated VBR. So maybe I am getting variable bit rate? Also, I downgraded to AC3 audio with no significant degradation in the sound quality, at least to my ears. Haven't had a chance yet to experiment with other tools yet.

THANKS for the coaching.

FulciLives · Posted: Feb 17, 2004 21:21

Since 8000kbps is about as high (more or less) as you can go with your MPEG-2 DVD spec encoding you don't want to use a multipass VBR mode. Just use a CBR mode at 8000kbps and convert your audio to 224kbps 2.0 AC-3 or even 256kbps 2.0 AC-3

If you want to do LPCM WAV audio then you should do a CBR of 7500kbps on the video as pushing it higher might cause problems with some DVD players ... this is because LPCM WAV audio has a very high bitrate.

With home shot cam stuff you should never be able to tell the difference between say 256kbps 2.0 AC-3 and LPCM WAV audio.

As for improving the picture ... ask vhelp about the 411 filters. There is one for VirtualDub and one for AviSynth and it sounds like an essential filter for DV footage. Also you want to look into some sort of video "noise" filter. I am rather found of Convolution3D myself but there are others out there that might be easier to use (Convolution3D requires AviSynth and that scares some people).

So between filtering the video and encoding at a high bitrate ... well ... you can't go wrong.

One last thing which many have said and I will stress this ... try CCE BASIC (aka CINEMA CRAFT ENCODER) or