TMPGnec works good but I want better quality.

[gsd103]

I made my first DVD of a mens B-ball game recorded with my Cannon GL-1. TMPGnec settings were system audio/video, CBR, 7000 data bit, 10, 2/4 Y or 4/2 Y, and Highest quality slow. Then made the DVD in Movie Factory 2 with no processing mpeg compliant files checked. DVD was burned with MF2 also. The quality looks okay on my TV, but I want better. I only used up 2.5 gigs of room on my disc, and would like to utilize the full 4.3 gigs if possible. How can I get better quality with less compression, I want to max out my disc so I have better quality.
Is there a program that will turn my raw avi from my GL-1 to MPEG-2 with barely any compression? Or is this the best we have until we step up to a proffesional dedicated system ?

Thanks,
Dominic
Northridge ,CA

[Baldrick]

Please post conversion questions in the conversion forum. I'm moving this one.

[Tommyknocker]

You may want to try to load your video into TMPGEnc's wizard. It will allow you to adjust the bit rate using VBR. This way, you can get as close to your max capacity of your DVD. Of course, higher bit rates usually translate into better video.

Or if you like, try a bit rate calculator. It will tell you what to set your bit rate at before you even burn.

[housepig]

how much room would you use if you set TMPGenc for CBR, 8000 instead of 7000?

The reason for using VBR (as it was explained to me) was to utilize a higher bitrate for sections where it was needed, and less for sections where it wouldn't make the video any better. This allows the overall size of the file to be optimized (good quality without going over a bit threshold).

So since your material is not even close to filling the disc at CBR 7000, I would just jack up the bit rate as high as you can (I think 8000 is the limit with TMPGenc, and I think 9,800 is the maximum allowable under the dvd spec) - you don't need to "budget" your bits with VBR.

[gsd103]

Housepig I was also thinking of jacking it up to 8000 CBR. And yes VBR does nothing for me in this situation, you are correct. I wonder if Canopus procoder would do any better?

Thanks Guys

Dominic in Northridge, CA

[rsuave5]

go two pass vbr and put the lowest bit rate to 6000 and highest to 8000 and your stuff will be awesome as well as the highest quality slow

[gsd103]

Rsuave thanks for the vote for 8000 bit rate. The VBR only helps compression and size does not matter to me, now if my wife would only............ ah nevermind. I will try Constant Bit Rate at 8000, I dont want to go variable anything.

Thanks,
Dominic in Northridge,CA

[SaSi]

If you are not woried about size, then you can try 9500 kbps. Either CBR or single pass VBR. The DVD allows up to 9800kbps total audio and video but I reccomend that you don't exhaust this max with Tmpgenc as I've seen the program exceed it's max bitrate setting causing problems with DVD playback.

I've read in many places that once you exceed 9Mbps in an MPEG2 video stream, there is no visible difference between the uncompressed video and the MPEG2 video. This should give you quality almost equal to the original.

[gsd103]

SaSi thank you very much. I think I will try 8000 CBR first as I have heard that anything above could cause playback problems like you said.

Thanks,
Dominic
SoCal

[txpharoah]

I give TMPGenc the highest recommendation because its the most affordable and easiest to use. The only programs that have given me better quality are Canopus ProCoder ($600), Discreet Cleaner ($$$ and slow), and MainConcept ($$$ and hard to use). In each case, the settings must be tweaked. You cannot just use the templates. And even then, the "better than TMPGenc" was not always true in each case. Some of my restoration projects will ONLY look good into TMPGenc.

Then again, templates may be your biggest issue in TMPGenc too. Don't use them. Learn what the settings mean, then set them yourself.

And FYI, throwing more bitrate or resolution at something won't make it better. A good 352x480 4.0 MB/S VBR encode looks perfect.

[housepig]

And FYI, throwing more bitrate or resolution at something won't make it better. A good 352x480 4.0 MB/S VBR encode looks perfect.

true, but if you have the space, there's no reason not to crank the bitrate.

(well, except maybe encoding time, but it sounds like that's not the main concern for this thread...)

(although if you're going for CBR, then TMPGenc doesn't need to 2-pass it, so the encoding time is shorter anyway... I'm converting a laserdisc on my other box right now, and it's only going to take about 90 minutes for the conversion [about 2:1] instead of the 4-or-5:1 I would expect from VBR... since I have the room on the disc, why the hell not...)

[txpharoah]

... since I have the room on the disc, why the hell not...

Yeah, I do the same if it's a short movie and I allow it to hog the whole disc. In that case, feed it bitrate and resolution like it was a kid eating candy. Usually that's only for footage an hour or less. Full CBR is fine. Did that yesterday on a 45 minute movie from VHS.

[DJRumpy]

If your DV source is high resolution, then keep it that way. If it's a lower resolution (like 352x480, or 352x240), then keep it there. Only resize if necessary.

On the VBR front, just to clarify, VBR is not only to produce better quality using less space. It will even improve a video with min/avg/max set to the same high amount (essentially multipass CBR). The multiple passes help the encoder to deal with fast action, scene changes, and scene fades. All of these can use up huge amounts of bitrate. The additional passes help the encoder to allocate bitrate to these scenes where needed. I would set your MIN to 0, or 300 if you player has a problem with low bitrates, set your AVG to some suitably high number for DV, or to define how large your output needs to be, and set your max to 9.8 MB (or 10,035 KB). If you can't access these settings, try using the UNLOCK template.

Just remember that the closer your AVG setting is to your MIN, or MAX, the more you limit the encoders ability to vary the bitrate with a VBR MPEG (example: if you set your AVG to 1000 less than your MAX, then the encoder will only have a +/- 2000 average kbs range to work with).

[SaSi]

Talking about 352 x 480 (or 352 x 576 for PAL), does anyone know what is the actual resolution of an 8mm Camcorder? Not a digital one, not a Hi8 one, a plain old 8mm.

I have never come across any citaction of this resolution and my experience so far is that capturing at full DVD resolution is perhaps too much. Scan lines are quite visible.

If camcorder is like 352 x 280 actual resolution, then the best quality will be achieved by encoding at this resolution and using up as much bitrate as possible.

And regarding how to obtain the best possible quality out of Tmpgenc in the fastest time, (when size is not an issue), I have found that:
1. For high bitrates motion estimate search is fast and good. Anything better appears to be a waste of time - Don't shoot me, just writing what my eyes tell me.
2. Single pass is always faster than 2 pass, and single pass Constant Quality with a Q=90 and a max bitrate of 8Mbps (for DVD) produces excellent results. For lower bitrate bitrates, two pass VBR is always better quality, although it typically will require at least 150% more time than a single pass CQ of single pass VBR.
3. In Quantization, checking "No motion search for still picture part by half pixel", improves speed considerably. At high bitrates, this does not really deteriorate image clarity. Instead, it tends to remove slight noise.
4. Encoding Audio and Video together is slower than encoding Video first and Audio after that, in two separate rounds, done in a Tmpgenc Batch.

[housepig]

Sasi -

a question and a comment....

comment first - about 8mm video rates - lacking a good website with info, I would look around at various manufacturer's sites (Sony, JVC, etc) and see if I could find a downloadable manual for an 8mm camcorder that might have that information in the specs. If you have an idle 15 minutes, it might be worth your while (just share with the rest of the class...)

now the question:

4. Encoding Audio and Video together is slower than encoding Video first and Audio after that, in two separate rounds, done in a Tmpgenc Batch.

I'm going to test this out and see how much faster, but do you have any problems with audio synch when you do it like this? And how would you set this up, exactly? Have it render two discreet streams, then mux them with Mpeg Tools? Or some other way?

[Cecilio]

hey i know this has nothing to do with this thread, but im wondering if this reselution is compatible with Mpeg 2 352*240. look its cause i hate this resolution but i have an avi with the size of about 700 megs and well i dont wanna use 2 cds using 352*480 so then i tried this mpeg 2 352*240 and i tried it on my apex burning it as a non standard svcd with 48000 khz and well my apex played it. ok and it might not play on many standalones, but i was wondering if when i get my dvd burner will it take that resolution and still burn the movie and then can it be compatible on most DVD players?

[Tommyknocker]

Cecilio wrote:

hey i know this has nothing to do with this thread...

You are right, it does not. Please open another thread. What you are doing is called "hijacking a thread". This look familiar?:

Please do not hijacks topics, if you want to discuss something else create a new topic.

[Cecilio]

quote]Please do not hijacks topics, if you want to discuss something else create a new topic. [/quote][/quote]

ok i do not know how to open up my own topic can i have some help there plz

[4k4e4n4]

If you already have Movie Factory 2, try using it to convert your home movies to dvd Mpg. I was also unhappy with Tmpgenc quality and was pleasantly surprised at the MF 2 conversions. All my home movies are done this way and look great.
Ken

[DJRumpy]

Cecilio, enter any forum, and click the 'New Topic' button. You must be registered as a forum user to do so.

[Cecilio]

Thanks DJRUMPY

[Blkout]

If you already have Movie Factory 2, try using it to convert your home movies to dvd Mpg. I was also unhappy with Tmpgenc quality and was pleasantly surprised at the MF 2 conversions. All my home movies are done this way and look great.
Ken

I can't see how that's possible. I have encoded some movies using MF2 and they don't even come close to what I can do with TMPGEnc. I can only assume whatever setting you used in TMPGEnc were not optimized for your source avi.

[SaSi]

Sasi -

a question and a comment....

comment first - about 8mm video rates - lacking a good website with info, I would look around at various manufacturer's sites (Sony, JVC, etc) and see if I could find a downloadable manual for an 8mm camcorder that might have that information in the specs. If you have an idle 15 minutes, it might be worth your while (just share with the rest of the class...)

now the question:

4. Encoding Audio and Video together is slower than encoding Video first and Audio after that, in two separate rounds, done in a Tmpgenc Batch.

I'm going to test this out and see how much faster, but do you have any problems with audio synch when you do it like this? And how would you set this up, exactly? Have it render two discreet streams, then mux them with Mpeg Tools? Or some other way?

Sorry in being late to catch up with the thread. Haven't been too idle in the past days.

@Housepig, regarding my comment and your question about encoding audio and video in separate, let me elaborate:

First of all, encoding them separatelly has never given me audio-video sync problems. I've had sync problems in the past, only while capturing in AVI (DivX) with VirtualDUB. Not blaming either DivX or VD, obviously was some mistake from my part, can't remember what it was but probably to do with using correct frame rates throughout the process.

Anyway, back to encoding.

I need to encode audio and video as separate streams as I have to feed them to Scenarist which will take elementary streams only.

With DVD material, I almost never encode audio. I demux the AC3 track(s) into separate files (Smartripper) and re-encode the video only using Mainconcept. I end up with a re-encoded (reduced in size) video file which is fed to Scenarist and the AC3 audio tracks that are added after that.

With captured (camcorder) material, I capture into AVI (hufyuv for video, uncompressed PCM for audio - who bothers to compress temp audio?).

This AVI file is fed into Mainconcept. I select a ES video output and add this to the batch list and then change the setting for an Audio ES and also add it to the list. I then run the list.

In some cases, I still use Tmpgenc (when i need to resize, reframe and slightly stretch the video frame). Again, I do the same things, adding tasks to the batch list and running the batch list after that.

I started that mainly to save time. I do all preparation work, select the settings, create a rather fat list and run it overnight.

In doing so, I realized that encoding was much faster for the video. Initially I thought that it was normal since no audio encoding was done in parallel. However this was much faster. Audio encoding is very very fast. On average, I would say that encoding separately works out to be 20~25% faster.

If you think about it, it becomes obvious. Encoding two separate streams in parallel makes the disk write two separate files in parallel, causing fragmentation. When you delete or move files, empty areas start to develop, therefore further encodes start to write scattered blocks around the disk, making disk writes a substantial part of the process, in terms of time.

By avoiding this dual-in-parallel file creation, my disks are now less fragmented, the HD avoids doing seeks all the time and the overall process is faster.

Now, in terms of 8mm camcorder resolution, I've found nothing yet on that. However, I am now looking to buy a digital one. I've seen some expensive models advertise that they have as much as 530 lines (PAL). Since the D1 resolution is 576, this means that the newest-expensive-digital models are inferior to DVD quality, at least in terms of scan lines. It obviously means that the 8 year old plain 8mm models will have less. Will look around more, do some experiments and come back in the capturing forum.

[4k4e4n4]

Blkout Wrote:

[I can't see how that's possible. I have encoded some movies using MF2 and they don't even come close to what I can do with TMPGEnc. I can only assume whatever setting you used in TMPGEnc were not optimized for your source avi].

I am converting DV to DVD Mpeg. Where the movies you converted with MF2 DV source or DVD Rips? Maybe my Tmpgnc settings where not optimal. What do you use? I tested similiar bitrate encodes from Tmpgnc version 2.51 vs MF2 of my DV home movies and MF2 looked better.