Home DVDs now look worse on new TV

[heyjjjaded]

I have the Sony TRV 22 camcorder, have burned several home videos to DVD, and have always thought that the quality was great. Now we just bought a new 50" Sony LCD HDTV and I guess that it is bringing out the flaws in my home DVDs. The indoor footage especially looks really pixelated on the new TV. The outdoor footage looks OK to me, except I get more exagerrated pixelation with camera movement. The overall quality is just noticably worse on our new TV, but I do NOT have a progressive scan DVD player ... how much of a difference would a progressive scan DVD player make with the pixelation?

[Teutatis]

There several reasons for this:
1. The screen size is much larger (I assume)
2. The picture is stretched (widescreen)
3. LCD HDTV (along with DLP and plasma) have issues with dark scenes. The dark parts of the picture sometimes can appear blotchy, pixelated (indoor footage).
4. All HDTVs has some issues with pixelating scenes with fast motion (the processor can't keep up with the changes in the picture)

A good quality, progressive DVD player should make a significant improvement. It did for me. I have a 57 inch CRT. You will need to connect it to your TV with either component cables or DVI or HDMI, depending which of the two inputs your TV has.

I also recommend you buy a calibration DVD to adjust your picture properly. I like the "Digital Video Essentials" DVD. If the picture is properly adjusted, then a good quality, widescreen anamorphic DVD will look great on your TV.

[vhelp]

@ heyjjjaded

* What was your encoding setup like for those DVD's you home-brewed
and played on your new TV ??

* Did you use a multi-pass encoding mode ??

* what was the bitrates you used ??

* What was the resolution you encoded to ??

* What was the Encoder you used ??

My guess, however, is theat you used a multi-pass step in your encoding
and consiquently, your bitrates were too low all the time. I think
that on a regular TV (ie, 20" to 32" or less) are a little harder to
spot, but also factor in that if you didn't notice any pixelation in
these same DVD's played on your previous TV set, its because your eye
are finally opening up to the ability to spot detail, due to the great
need for higher bitrates for those newer tv set. Plus, I bet if you
were to play those same DVD's in your previous tv set, that you would
most likely find pixelations (after all) in those

My advice is to start raising your bitrates, and forget about trying
to fit more time on one DVD disk, because in the end, you'll be very
dissapointed with these, when you move to a higher-demanding tv set..
much like in your case. I always suggest CBR 9000 for 60 minutes worth.
When DL burners come down in price ( is $149 too high still ? ) and the
media get lower in price, you can fit 2 hr, (maybe 1/2hr plus) with a
little tweaking, etc. But, you won't have to loose as much in quality,
had you used lower bitrates.

I hope you still have all the miniDV tapes to these footages, so that
you can re-encode again, but w/ a CBR 9000 (at least try it) in your
upcomming re - DVD projects.

-->

-vhelp 3049

[lordsmurf]

New tv sets make "inferior" formats (VHS, DVD .... pretty much EVERYTHING) look worse.

Good sets have FILTERS to compensate for this.

[Deekkeed]

Hello heyjjjaded
As Teutatis said, LCD, DLP and Plasma have issues with dark scenes unlike CRT projection Televisions. But I have to disagree with Teutatis on his point about a progressive scan DVD player enhancing the quality of your home videos because most camcorders record interlaced video and there for a progressive scan DVD would not really help any. Besides most TV’s have far better de-interlacers (line doublers) then the ones in most DVD players. I do agree with Teutatis that you should calibrate your TV and use component video for your DVD hookups and a progressive scan DVD player will definitely enhance you standard DVD movies. Buy the way my videos are shot with a Sony TVR-33 and I view them on a 65” Mitsubishi wide screen. And they look pretty good.

Deek

[heyjjjaded]

Thanks for the help, everybody. I use TMPGEnc to encode and burn with MyDVD Plus. I don't pretend to understand all of those settings in TMPGEnc, but with much help here, I set up a template almost a year ago with the settings aimed at the highest quality possible. Consequently, I fit 60-70 minutes of video on each DVD. I have read a little about these calibration DVDs ... how much do they cost & where can I find them? Thanks again for the help!

[heyjjjaded]

Is there a specific setting in TMPGEnc that I would need to change as I move from an analog TV to a digital TV now? How about going from a "non-progressive scan DVD player" to a progressive scan DVD player? Thanks.