DV > DVD looks like a bad VHS tape...

[samwe]

I have used Windows Movie Maker, DVIO, and Sonic MyDVD to capture the DV from my Canon ZR-50mc.

I have used Sonic and TMPEGenc to convert to mpeg2.

Then I used Sonic to write to DVD.

No combination of those can get me anything that is not pixelated with out looking fuzzy, sort of like a poor VHS tape.

I have tried using nero in the past to burn to CR for VCD and SVCD but the results were like poor VHS so I bought a DVD burner hoping for an improvement.
My copy of nero will not burn to the new DVD burner, just to my CD-RW.

Any ideas on how to improve my quality of DVD?

[samwe]

No one knows hot to get DV to DVD with better than poor vhs quality?

I may end up selling my ZR50MC and my DRU-500A.
I already have a cheap VCR and a I can get a cheap VHS camera for alot less then my DVD burner and camera.

[alenhard]

Oh come on! You can't give up after two posts!

First things first- capture with DVIO (or anything else besides Windows Movie Maker).

Use TMPGenc to convert to MPG2. Make sure you use a high enough bitrate to ensure better quality (but remember garbage in=garbage out; you can't expect a finished movie to look better than its source).

Give me some more details about your methods and I'll try to help you out.

But if you do give up, I just might want your Canon!

[samwe]

I have captured with Movie Maker and DVIO, they seem to be about the same.

When I used TMPGenc I pretty much did the standard options. The bit rate was set to 8000.

When I play from the camera directly to my TV it looks good, but after I put it on DVD it looks worse than VHS.

I am wondering if I need something else to burn with? Showbiz and Sonic seem so "fluffy", who knows what they are doing.

I am going to try "How to author & burn a DVD using only freeware tools" guide on here. I hate to spend more money on tools wothout a clue to how they will work.

Too bad the samples here are not available.

[tomclary]

Also be sure to change the motion prediction algorithm setting in TMPGENC. Trust us, it is possible to create a DVD that looks as good as the original DV camera footage. Any chance the DVD authoring program is reencoding the video on you?

[yg1968]

I am using a similar setup to you and getting good results. I am not sure what is wrong. Is the DVD's quality OK on your computer? In TMPGEnc, you must set it to bottom field first.

Sonic my DVD isn't a very good program. I would try the trial version of Dazzle DVD complete or Ulead DMF 2.0 to see if you get any improvments. In any case, you are better off encoding with TMPGEnc than anything else. I wouldn't use the realtime conversion options of any of these programs as the quality suffers.

[DEC]

I've made a few SVCD's from my digital 8 cam with very good results. I capture with MGI, convert with Tmpeg using the project wizard, and burn with DVD Workshop ( easy to do menus ). I can't see droppping ~300$ for a dvd burner yet when it's only benifit is to fit a movie on 1 disk and most home movies are ~60 min. due to tape length.

[aleventura]

samwe, I got the same problem with a Sony camera and tmpgenc, I have try all the posible types of bitrate and the movies looks very pixelated, very bad compared to the original DV movie.

Please, we need some help here.

bye

[mrpchem]

Hello,

I am having the same problem as samwe. I was wondering if a solution has been offered. I have an athlon 2500+ 160 gb hard drive, 4X dvd burner, geforce 5200 video card

I captured my video footage with a sony via firewire. I edited my movie on movie maker 2 and then tried to burn it on by mydvd and ulead. I got roughly the same results. I then tried to convert it using tmpcgen. I got about the same if not worse video.

Please help

[MYoung]

I've encoded in TMpgEnc and authored in Sonic MyDVD before with great results. Have you tried comparing the quality of the video of the MPEG2 produced by TMpgEnc with the authored DVD? If the quality is different then it must be reencoding your already encoded video. You should be able to disable that in MyDVD.

[Bricktop]

tomclary Posted: Feb 23, 2003 08:24

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also be sure to change the motion prediction algorithm setting in TMPGENC.

Where is this setting mate?
Thanks.

[sumibas]

hi,
i have a Sony TRV320 (digital 8) and Sony DRU500A. i have used Sonic my dvd direct to DVD option with great results. the result is 85-90 % similar to the DV. I have also used CCE which give near DV quality results. But do not use sonic to Author converted MPEG2 to DVD it always reauthor no mater what and gets you garbage on DVD. i used DVD author from tmpgenc to author my Mpeg2 to DVD

Baskaran

[mrpchem]

Thank you to all the replies. I am still having all pixelated material. When i view my movie on the small screen it is fine on my computer, but once i try to view it on full screen it looks pixelated that is the exact way it is copied. I have tried encoding on tmpgenc and then using that to author it to dvd and it looked the same no difference.

Any more help would be great

I have a sony trv730

[daamon]

All those using TMPGEnc to encode to mpeg2, I use the following guide:

http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

...and find it VERY useful for explaining and helping to refine the settings in the tool. It talks about doing the video only. The bitrates I use are:

Max = 9,200
Average = 6,000
Min = 2,000

I extract a WAV (audio) from my DV AVI using VirtualDub and convert WAV -> AC3 (@ 192kbps) using ffmpeggui.

I then combine (mux) the 2 when authoring using TMPGEnc DVD Author and get excellent quality results.

Of course, there are other tools - I've only mentioned the ones I use. You may prefer others...

Good luck all...

[proxyx99]

First try to get your DV AVI tp play correctly at fullscreen res. Looks like there is something about it that is not right. Try one of the freeware DV AVI capture proggies to check if you get better results (winDV?). Preview during capture and see if quality drops after capture. Encoding will only amplify these issues. A fact that there are so many of you having issues means that you all may be doing the same mistake or your PC setup is in some ways similar. Worth noting that too many codecs on your PC may mess things up totally. Your PC setup has to be examined as well as it may contribute to your problems. Free Demo VisualStudio7 from Ulead is an end to end application and will allow you to keep your process consistent. Good point to start. Once everything works fine you may pick and choose your apps. Try Ulead and watch your results after every stage of the process (capture, edit, encoding and disc authoring).
Don't burn until you get satisfactory results on your PC first.

[mrpchem]

Thanks again for the advice i just tried windv and i get even worse results when i capture. Could it be my video card i am using a gefroce 5200 128 mb

Is everyone else able to get great quality when they view from their camera on full screen. I lose a lot of resolution when i do that it becomes very pixelated but as a small screen it looks fantastic.

Thanks again.

[proggy]

I feel your pain guys! It took me three solid weeks to find the right combination of software that I liked; to do the job I wanted. From what I think you are saying, you are getting bad captures from your DV camcorder. Is this correct?

When you capture from your DV camera to DV avi on your computer, it should look exactly the same as your source *EXCEPT* you will notice horizantal lines in your video next to anything that moves. Depending on what software you are viewing the avi file with, you may or may not see these lines (interlacing). If your avi file does not look the same as your source, than you need to solve that problem before doing anything else!

I use Scenalyzer Live, and you can download a free trial version. They should all give near the same results. Just remember to choose DV2 as the capture format and not DV1.

When you have verified that the avi is the same as the source, then you might want to use VirtualDub (free) to extract a small portion of video form your avi file to experiment with. Just get a 2 minute slice of video for practicing with TMPGenc. This will save alot of frustration since you only have to wait 16 minutes instead of 16 hours to compress your files. (not always that long!)

This guide will show you quickly how to use Virtualdub for this task:
http://geocities.com/mmelancholic/lddvd/guide_main.html

Once you've gotten this far, feel free to post more questions. Remember, your video should look just as good as the source by this point except you might be seeing horizantal lines.

[mrpchem]

The captures are perfect in the screen it captures it on. When i try to view full screen it gets all pixelated. The capture quality is beatiful but when i try to make it bigger it loses a lot of resolution. It seems that the large view is what gets transferred to dvd. Is your capture the same on full screen as it is when it is captured. I thougt all of the captures would look bad when you go to full screen. Please let me know how i could fix this. I dont believe their is a problem with the capture.

[proggy]

You might need to either post some example pictures, or provide a link to where we can see some example pictures of your problem. Your captures should be 720x480 if you are NTSC and 720x576 if you are PAL. Whether you view full screen or windowed, it will always be that resolution. So you are not "losing resolution" by going full screen.

Viewing your capture at full screen on your computer makes it easier too see faults with your source, your capturing device, or your software, but it does not decrease the resolution.

See if you can post some example pictures, and somebody should be able to help solve this problem or explain what is happening.

[Sparkplus]

You can check your captured file with Avicodec (free download) to see its properties, it should be 720x480 in size if not then you have wrong settings for capturing.

[spectroelectro]

Sonic MyDVD sucks major ass when it transcodes MPEG-2 streams, and it has a nasty habit of transcoding your streams without telling you.
Use another DVD authoring program. The one I would recommend is DVDLab. Most of the others (ULead DVD MovieFactory, MyDVD, DVDIt!) transcode your vide without telling you and wreck all that hard work you did in encoding to MPEG-2 with a high quality encoder like the Mainconcept or TMPGenc or CCE.

[mrpchem]

Thank you to all that have responded i really appreciate it. Sparks I finally went and recaptured all of the video that i had already did and edited and there was a huge difference. Thank you to all

Now I have a lot of work that i have done once already