DVD quality.

[flbs]

Can anyone please explain me how to increase the quality of my DVD recordings. I have read several pleases including here, that you can hold approx. 2 hours of video on a DVD disk, but when I burn 120 min. of video the picture quality is not a 100 %. You see arrears with a little fuzzy colours etc., much better that VHS quality, but not at all as good as when I record an edited video back on DV tape. When you buy a DVD movie that holds even more than 2 hours, the quality is excellent, why the difference????
I use Pinnacle studio 8 to edit and burn the video, and with 2 hours of video, it shows a quality level on about 53%. Any good advise to increase or explain this is very welcome.

[bugster]

Can anyone please explain me how to increase the quality of my DVD recordings. I have read several pleases including here, that you can hold approx. 2 hours of video on a DVD disk, but when I burn 120 min. of video the picture quality is not a 100 %. You see arrears with a little fuzzy colours etc., much better that VHS quality, but not at all as good as when I record an edited video back on DV tape. When you buy a DVD movie that holds even more than 2 hours, the quality is excellent, why the difference????
I use Pinnacle studio 8 to edit and burn the video, and with 2 hours of video, it shows a quality level on about 53%. Any good advise to increase or explain this is very welcome.

1. For top quality DVD's (commercial quality) you need top quality source material. DV is pretty good but nothing like proffesionally shot film or tape.

2. Use the best encoder. Not sure which encoding engine Pinnacle studio 8 uses but you could try encoding to DVD mpeg with TmpGenc, CCE or some other encoder.

3. For 2 hours on a DVD at top quality you need to use multi-pass VBR encoding, does Pinnacle do this?

4. Use compressed audio to leave max room for the video. AC3 is the most campatible but if in Europe mp2 is just as good and easier to encode.

5. If we are talking home videos then camera shake caused by handheld cameras and poor lighting just eat up the encoders bitrate. Use a tripod when you can, pan and zoom VERRRRY slowly etc.

6. Commercial DVD's (see 1 also) are usually double layer. i.e they can hold twice as much data as a DVDr, so more room for higher bitrates extras etc. Also, the source is near perfect, the encoders used are the best and the pro's know how to get the best out of their tope-ned equipment (though not always ).

Hope this helps.

[HAGGARD]

And also:

DV camera's are interlaced, which also eats bitrate!!!!

'HAG

[bugster]

And also:

DV camera's are interlaced, which also eats bitrate!!!!

'HAG

I know DV cameras are interlaced, but never thought of interlacing requiring extra bitrate before, can you explain why this should be the case or point me to something that will?

[HAGGARD]

I know DV cameras are interlaced, but never thought of interlacing requiring extra bitrate before, can you explain why this should be the case or point me to something that will?

Because interlacing causes more high frequencies when camera is moved in horizontal direction...
Although all encoders use field based compression (eg. renders only even or odd fields together), the decoder needs to separate the fields again.
Since there is difference in the fields (with fast motion) the decoder cannot exactly (never does, but in this case even more) recover the original interlaced picture anymore. In this case you would see more decoding artifacts.
Try for yourself... Take a piece of interlacedvideo, encode it with 3000kbps and encode that piece with the same bitrate again, but deinterlace it... And see the difference...
But since deinterlacing DV-video is not an option, leave it interlaced and use higher bitrates or VBR.
Also keep in mind that video uses 50(PAL=2x25fields/sec) or 60(NTSC=2x30fields/sec) frames/sec which is twice as much as a motion picture (about 25 REAL pictures (call it photo's) per second)!!!

'HAG

It's hard to explain it in simple words, but I hope that you know what I mean...

[BobK]

If you want the best possible quality on the disk using Studio 8, check the "best quality" box in the disk settings. You'll only get one hour on the disk, but it'll be better quality than the 2 hour settings.

When you buy a DVD movie that holds even more than 2 hours, the quality is excellent, why the difference

One reason is that when you buy a DVD it's usually a DVD 9 and holds twice as much info as the DVDs you burn on your computer. They also start out with better source material. Probably other reasons too.

[ktnwin]

1) Studio 8 is a very user friendly tool to create DVD with menu, no question about this. But the quality is limited to 1 hours per DVD-R
2) If you want 2 hrs to 3 hours of good quality DVD on DVD-R, then there are may posts on this. Essentially, I encode the long video using TMPGenc in half-D1 resolution (352x480), I can fit upto 3+ hours of video on a blank DVD-R with excellent quality. I also encode sound to AC3 which consumes a lot less space than PCM sound (used by Studio 8).

[vhelp]

Yeah, but you may also want to consider 16:9 in your DV project instead,
for improved quality. But, if your source was already shot in 4:3 mode,
then you have to options:

* one, encode fullscreen, or
* two, crop 60 pixels off the top and bottom (120 pixels total) and follow
...that w/ an 16:9 encode in TMPG.

For an demo sample clip of a 16:9 encode from my DV footage (2.35:1 AR)
based off my TRV-22 here: VHELP's Sample clips...
and remember to read the note below on powerdvd useage.
.
.
I use the 2.35:1 (above clip) for maximum quality purposes. I'm the
director, and as such, deam this AR as such (even though my footage is
shot in 4:3 AR) My "director's" perception is 2.35:1 !!

It's true, that Interlace cause poorer quality, that is, eats up a lot of
bitrate or short-changing you on your cost/per/DVD disks. But, that area
too, can be improved upon. For one, start by obtaining a tripod and using
it in all your footaging. Make sure this tripod has smooth panning, and
not "sticky" panning (like mine does) else you'll get some quick-jerks when
you pan your cam. But, with a little time and practice, you can eliminate
it or overcome to an extent on that issue w/ "sticky" panning. You'll see
your bitrate drop or your cost/per/DVD improve etc. Take it any way you
want "mathimatically" speaking

Even though the bitrate will drop a bit after you do an de-Interlace,
you'll not benefit 100% from it. Why ?? ..because you loos the temporal'ness
in quality when you delete a frame. This, you can see when you look at the
same frame (the De-Interlace vs. Interlace) and compare them both. What
you will see is noise in your De-Interlace frame, and crips clean in your
Interlace. So, basically, it's a love/hate phenominoe. But still.., even
after a de-Interlace, you can still achieve good quality (see my sample
for proof) but that there's no geting past the pure Interlace encoding for
maximum quality. You just have to raise the bitrate (couple that w/ a
good tripod shooting) and who knows.. or sky's the limit
.
.
Other issues and lots more things to talk about, but not the place for
this to happen in But, good luck anyways.

From the Video Workstation of,
-vhelp 2067