I need to fit 2-4 hours of BAD QUALITY footage on a DVD-HOW?

[Sominex24]

I have very old quality film (Was taken from an 8MM film strip and the person used some mirror machine way back in the day to put it on VHS.

Then it was put onto MiniDV recently

I am going to put this on DVD now. Since the footage quality is VERY poor (and NO sound, I'll be adding my own soundtracks) , do I HAVE to use mpeg2 as the format on the DVD? I have 4 MiniDV tapes (1 hour each tape)

Can I use some other compression method to fit 2 or 4 hours per DVD?

No need to have it "DVD quality" if the source material is no good, right?

I transfer the video from MiniDV through my firewire card and use TMPG to convert the video from AVI to MPG (or whatever the DVD format is)


Thanks all

And it's been a long day, I hope this post makes sense!

[SLK001]

You have to use MPG2 compression for a DVD. 4 hours on a DVD with low quality material shouldn't be a problem.

[reboot]

What are the specs of the avi?
bitrate, fps, aspect, etc.?

[Sominex24]

You have to use MPG2 compression for a DVD. 4 hours on a DVD with low quality material shouldn't be a problem.

So I can jut use TMPG as usually would, convert the AVI to MPG2 and I can fit 4 hours? I thought MPG2 was around 2.5 GB per hour? (or something roughly along those lines)

[Sominex24]

What are the specs of the avi?
bitrate, fps, aspect, etc.?

I don't have the info on that YET

I am going to transfer them to my computer tonight

[jimmalenko]

If you want it playable on a DVD player, it must be either MPEG-1 (video bitrate < 1850 kbps) or MPEG-2 - this is non-negotiable. 4 hours (or practically any time you wish to be honest) can fit on a DVD because of the bitrates you use. Here's how:

Size (MB) = ((audio bitrate + video bitrate)* time)/(8*1024)
bitrates are in kbps, time is in seconds.

If we work backwards, say we know the target size and also the runtime. So:

audio bitrate + video bitrate = (Size * 8 * 1024)/time

So for most DVDs I would use a size of 4400 MB. This gives us some room to add custom menus if we wish. Assuming we have a four hour movie:

audio + video = (4400 * 8 * 1024)/(4 * 60 * 60)
audio + bitrate = 36044800/14400 = 2503 kbps

so your combined bitrate of video and audio can be 2503 kbps. We now have to make a decision on audio quality. Even VCDs are 224kbps so that is probably a fair guide. So:

video bitrate = 2503-224 = 2279 kbps.

So, if the quality of your footage is average --> poor and you have a requirement to fit 4 hours on a DVD and you will only be watching this footage on a normal TV, and you want a menu, my recommendation would be either one of the following:

1. Resize to 352 X 288 if you are in PAL land, OR resize to 352 X 240 if you are in NTSC land. Use a video bitrate of 2279 kbps CBR or 2-Pass VBR (min 1500, ave 2279, max 3000) and an audio bitrate of 224 kbps.

OR

2. Resize to 352 X 576 if you are in PAL land, OR resize to 352 X 480 if you are in NTSC land. Use a video bitrate which is 2-Pass VBR (min 1500, ave 2279, max 3000) and an audio bitrate of 224 kbps.

If you choose to use option 2, you might want to experiment with a few filters. They will take a lot longer to encode but will be able to clean up the footage somewhat. It really depends on how important the footage is to you and how long you are willing to wait for it to encode. I prefer to use TMPGEnc, and I could provide you with some further instructions regarding this. Others here prefer to use mainconcept or CCE, coupled with some Avisynth scripting.

[indolikaa]

Just to reaffirm, you CAN use MPEG-1. And since the source quality isn't that great, you should consider using it.

[buddyl43]

Why not encode at high bit rate and when finished just run it through DVD
Shrink?

[indolikaa]

Why not encode at high bit rate and when finished just run it through DVD
Shrink?

Good idea. Try a 30-minute segment at the ideal bitrate and shrink it, and see if the quality is still tolerable...

[buddyl43]

You Will need to do the whole thing, if you only do 30 minutes of it Shrink will not reduce the file size, think about it. By doing it this way you can get the maximun bit rate that will fit on a DVD-R.

[indolikaa]

You Will need to do the whole thing, if you only do 30 minutes of it Shrink will not reduce the file size, think about it. By doing it this way you can get the maximun bit rate that will fit on a DVD-R.

What the hell happened to the rest of my post?!


Yes, you are correct. What I was suggesting was he only encode a short amount of video and make multiple chapters of it, roughly equal to the total length of his authoring job.

Then shrink THAT project and see if the quality was acceptable. Unfortunately, something happened to about ten minutes worth of material.

I've done this type of conversion before. Depending on how poor the initial quality is, Shrinking sometimes produces a very bad result, even at Full-D1 resolution, and especially from DV.

[ZippyP.]

Don't Shrink it. It's better to convert to the proper size with the proper bitrate.

If you use 1/2 DVD resolution (352x480 NTSC) and a bitrate of 2500 kbps (no audio) you will get 4 hours on a DVD. Your output should be as good as the source. If you find the quality below par then you could try 2-pass VBR with a 2500 average (0 min, 8000 max) which will take twice as long to encode. You could also try the internal TMPGEnc noise filter, extra long encoding but I understand it helps esp. with captured footage.

[indolikaa]

I tend to agree with ZippyP on this one. I would be very concerned about artifacts because you'd be shrinking (a reduction process) from a bad source to begin with.

It might be fine, it might not.


Any source footage that is not in a digital container (DV, Digital8, etc.) I always capture and convert directly to what the finished product will be. Intermediate reductions, resizings and recodings will degrade the picture quality. Whether it's tolerable is in the eye of the beholder.

[FulciLives]

There have been a lot of good posts already but let me give me thoughts since they do differ just a bit.

The worse the quality of the video the higher the bitrate needs to be to avoid compression problems.

I firmly believe that to get the BEST out of poor quality video you need to MAX out your bitrate (or use a very high bitrate).

Since you have TMPGEnc I suggest you attempt to use the VIDEO NOISE FILTER as this will help to clean up the image quality somewhat.

As for the bitrate I suggest using Half D1 resolution (352x480 NTSC or 352x576 PAL) with a CBR of 5000kbps for the video and whatever you want for the audio (I use 256kbps AC-3 audio).

If you want to fit more then try a 2-pass VBR with a MIN of 2000kbps an AVG of 4000kbps and a MAX of 6000kbps

That 2-pass method (with 256kbps AC-3 audio) will get you over 2 hours of video per DVD disc.

The quality will be about as good as you can get next to using FullD1 with a VERY high bitrate ... but that FullD1 resolution (720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL) is probably overkill and with that resolution you will only get a little bit over 1 hour of video per disc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SLK001]

The worse the quality of the video the higher the bitrate needs to be to avoid compression problems.

Not necessarily. Usually, "poor" quality means excessive video noise. This can (and should) be processed by a noise filter PRIOR to encoding. The noise filter removes most of the high frequency stuff from the noise elements, making encoding a lot easier. I have been able to get four 50 minute VHS TV episodes encoded at FULL D1 resolution onto a DVD using CCE. I used an external temporal medium filter and I set the CCE noise filter to 15 (out of 20?). The resulting videos had "Q" values less than 5 across the entire length.

But, if no pre-filtering is used, FulciLives is correct, because of the massive amounts of high frequency noise stuff.

[Sominex24]

I am using TMPGEnc v2.59.47.155


Can someone walk me through this a little more?


I having problems applying ALL the settings you guys specified.


I am going with what Jimalenko and ZippyP suggested -amoung others


My initial small obstacle. I can't get the setting down to 352X480


But if someone could give me a walk through on HOW to get to the settings I need, it'd be appreciated.

Thank you!

[mikesbytes]

Cleaning up home or other low quality video is a bit of a black art. There is no single bullet that gives you exactly what you want in every circumstance. Hence the variety of responses. 4 hours on a disk is fairly cramped, but if quality is not the major driver, then it is do-able. I suggest;
1. Perform some sort of cleanup on the source. This will improve the quality and help reduce the size of the video file. Virtualdup filters is one option for this.
2. Read up the tpmg guides that abound on this site.
3. Try the settings advised in the above posts, or get someones template for tpmg, for example the KDVD at kvcd.net.
4. Create the file. If it ends up too big or the quality is too low, then try again. Plenty of cpu available while you are asleep or at work.
Good luck

[Sam Ontario]

I have very old quality film (Was taken from an 8MM film strip and the person used some mirror machine way back in the day to put it on VHS.

Then it was put onto MiniDV recently

I am going to put this on DVD now. Since the footage quality is VERY poor (and NO sound, I'll be adding my own soundtracks) , do I HAVE to use mpeg2 as the format on the DVD? I have 4 MiniDV tapes (1 hour each tape)

Can I use some other compression method to fit 2 or 4 hours per DVD?

No need to have it "DVD quality" if the source material is no good, right?

I transfer the video from MiniDV through my firewire card and use TMPG to convert the video from AVI to MPG (or whatever the DVD format is)


Thanks all

And it's been a long day, I hope this post makes sense!

As an alternative, non-expert's advice is to get a DVD recorder with firewire input and record to a DVD+-RW disc with your preferred sound or music or songs. It will be the easiest and guarantee no frustration down the road.

[pyrohydra]

Heh, how BAD do you want it?

It's possible to fit over 50 hours on one DVD-R, if you simply encode at 100 kbps and 64 kbps audio.

If you encode using 1 bit per second, it is possible to fit over 150,000 hours on one DVD-R. It's really up to you how low you want to go.

[reboot]

pyrohydra, does that mean I can fit all 357 episodes of Buffy on one disk?

[Sominex24]

I DON'T want to improve the quality of the video. It is what it is-

I just DON'T want to waste valuable space on the DVD by having it transferred from AVI to a top quality MPEG-2 ya know?

There is no reason to convert it to a file that is over 2GB large if there is no need for it.


So, I need a quick walk through on what you guys described above. The common tuturials don't really walk me through that


The one thing I DON'T need is sound. There is no sound to this video. How can I have it omit any audio capturing at all?

[indolikaa]

So, I need a quick walk through on what you guys described above. The common tuturials don't really walk me through that

You don't need a walkthrough.

You need to sit down, take a few hours, and READ the guides on this site. Then you need to come back here with questions you've come up with when you reach a roadblock.

The entire process is spelled out here. I had made several DVDs long before I ever asked a question. You can, too.

[mikesbytes]

Sominex24 wrote

I DON'T want to improve the quality of the video. It is what it is-

I just DON'T want to waste valuable space on the DVD

Improving the quality of the video by cleaning it up will actually save you valuable space, as you won't be wasting bits on the noise.

Sominex, welcome to the world of digital video. Get stuck into those guides.