Quality problem with making DVDs

[monkeybrains]

I've made 3 videos in the past which I've combined to make 1 DVD with a menu. First I transferred my videos to DVD and the quality was pretty much as good as the masters. However, the combined DVD I've made is well below 4.7GB but when I play back, the quality is nowhere near as good as previous. I've not compressed as there is no need? but I can't understand where the loss in quality has come from...is there any way to improve? I tried changing the bitrate to 9000 but this made it worse!!. I'm using Ulease Movie Factory 4 Disc Creator.

Any advice much appreciated.

[rkr1958]

Let me see if I understand you correctly.
1. You've made 3-individual DVDs and when played each DVD looks as good as the master (or source) video from which it was made?
2. The sum total of all three DVDs is less than 4.37-GB so you decided to reauthor with menus and put all three on one DVDR?
3. The resultant DVD produces picture quality than is worse than the three original DVDs?

If so, then a couple of questions as I'm not familar with Ulead Movie Factory 4 Disc Creator.

1. How long does Ulead Disc Creator take to "reauthor" to one DVD?
2. Is it possible that it's also re-encoding and not just "reauthoring"?

One suggestion I have is to download TDA, which comes with a 30-day free trial and try that to reauthor all three DVDs to a single DVD. You put each DVD on it's on track, create a simple menu & reauthor. This whole process to reauthor should take 20 to 30-minutes (give or take a few minutes). If the resultant DVD has a quality that is the same as the original DVDs then the culprit is Disc Creator (either the program itself or the setting you used)

[monkeybrains]

rkr1958

Yep, you understand me correctly.

I'm not too familiar with DVDs as haven't done any editing etc for the last couple years.

Disc Creator takes around 30 minutes to turn all 3 into one TS? folder. The main problem I'm finding is the picture quality is good or equal when there is no movement but when action pics up, it becomes blocky (I guess there's a more technical term ) .

I'll have a look at TDA - thank you.

If there is a specific setting, that would be great ie what bit rate would be best and does the 2 pass?? thing make much difference?

[TheFamilyMan]

I use MF3 for authoring. To me it sounds like your clips are being reencoded. You can disable reencoding by setting the "do not encode mpeg compliant files" check box in the project settings. Project settings are accessed by selecting the "gear" icon on the bottom of the window (at least that's how MF3 and MF2 did it). I've never had problems with deteriorating quality when authoring using this setting. There is also a "treat mpeg audio as non-compliant" check box that when checked will covert mp2 audio to either LPCM or AC3 (the audio compression settings determine the format). You can leave that one unchecked. Good Luck!

[monkeybrains]

Many thanks - I'll have a go at your suggestion. On another comp at the moment but will try tomorrow.

Many thanks and will let you know how I get on.

[monkeybrains]

Hi.

Just been into MovieFactory and that setting has been ticked of to bypass encoding. Tried encoding to make sure (take a lot longer) to make sure. The quality is as good as the original when no action is happening - it's when movement occurs that if becomes blocky

I've also downloaded TDA which seems real easy to use - the menu feature is better than MovieFactory. Is there any way to adjust sound though - 2 of the videos are at a much higher level volume than the 3rd.

[thegeeman]

TDA will not let you adjust audio volume. I do believe that TDA successor Tsunami DVD Author Pro will. There is a 30 day trial but not sure of limitations-it may not let you adjust audio-full version should though.

[monkeybrains]

Thanks geeman - will have a look.