Toast-ready MPEG-2 files

[vaj]

What is the best way to convert a file to MPEG-2 and maintain the highest quality image, without compression artifacts? I often add titles via DV output from iMovie. When I try to convert the DV stream to MPEG-2 in ffmpeg it creates a blocky, jagged title no matter how high I place the settings.

Suggestions?

[major]

The best way to convert DV to mpeg-2 is currently Apple Compressor. Otherwise use mpeg2enc engine, though current version of ffmpegX does not support encoding to mpeg-2 from an interlaced source (this support will be added later, however).

[vaj]

The best way to convert DV to mpeg-2 is currently Apple Compressor. Otherwise use mpeg2enc engine, though current version of ffmpegX does not support encoding to mpeg-2 from an interlaced source (this support will be added later, however).

Well that is good to know, but an expensive option (unless Compressor is also included with Final Cut Express...). If that's the case, I will just continue with the engine that Toast with Jam uses, which seems sloooow to me...but does a real nice job nonetheless.

[Kryton]

Sorry to bump this up from the depths but I'm on dial-up and after reading through 18 pages of threads this seemed the closest topic to my question.

I have some DV footage (44 mins - PAL) that went into iMovie 5 was edited (titles, short soundtrack etc) and exported via iMovie's maximum quality setting. I got an 8GB DV file that I thought I could convert to MPEG2 while retaining good quality.

Firstly, I thought the quickest route would be to let Toast pick up the iMovie project file and do its stuff. I carted everything off to a friend who has both Toast 6 and 7.

Toast 6 would not recognise the iMovie project from within the 'Add' button but when we dragged the project into Toast's window it was accepted, only for Toast to then tuen around and say that some elements could not be imported. The problem was Toast didn't give any info on exactly what elements these were.

Toast 7 would not let us add the iMovie project via the 'Add' button either but would accept the file by dragging it into its window (this time everything was accepted). We chose the automatic DVD settings at highest quality and let the app do its thing. We chose to save as a disc image. A few hours later (much too quick IMO as this is an old G4/400) the file was ready but the quality was extremely poor in Apple's DVD player, VLC and MPEG Streamclip. I had expected Toast to take a day or more to encode it on a machine this old but it only took around 6 hours. The video is very pixelated and jerky. We tried again this time with custom settings and got the same results.

The source DV file looks very good in iMovie (using the highest level playback options) and the DV file exported by iMovie looks great in MPEG Streamclip too. It seems the fault is with the MPEG-2 encoding.

So it was time to bring the project back to my Mac and give FFmpegX a run. I've tried MPEG2enc and the ffmpeg engines but although the pixelation has virtually disappeared there are very visible combing lines all over the place. Interlacing issues I'm sure.

In the ffmpeg options tab I selected all the options except Quicktime decoding and I-frames.

I've already spent two weeks trying different options with no luck so it was time to look for some help here.

So, after the lengthy expanation my question is: Is Major's answer to the original poster's question (posted in Nov 2004) still valid or have newer versions of FFmpegX corrected those issues?

Or, alternatively can someone give me some tips on what settings to use to get this DV file into MPEG2 with decent quality or is it simply not possible using the apps I've mentioned (I don't have the cash for Compressor either). The final destination will be a DVD for my grandparents. I do not have iDVD installed BTW as my system requirements fall short.

I am using Tiger for this project.

Thanks

[vaj]

IIRC using MPEGStreamClip is your fastest and easiest way: export as "demux to M2V and AC3" option and if you have the Dolby option in Toast, it will just burn them without re-encoding them. Again, I am going on memory here. There IS a way to do it that you won't have to re-encode it, and it gives excellent results. I have made a number of DVD's that way, letting Toast add menus if I wanted them.

[Kryton]

Thanks vaj but the problem is that I must re-encode. The source file is a DV file and the destination is DVD. The resulting MPEGs are of extremely poor quality.

I tried again using ffmpeg and I must be doing something wrong.

The DV source file is 8.14GB in size. FFmpegx says the destination size should fit on a 4GB image. The resulting VIDEO_TS folder is only 1.29GB.

I recorded this without any new compression or re-encoding just to see how it would look on a standard CRT TV and the DVD looks absolutely awful. Square blocks covering the entire screen (it's like watching the video through frosted glass that has a square pattern on it).

The audio is fine and appears to be in sync.

On this test I used ffmpegX 0.0.9u to convert to mpeg2 (ffmpeg) and selected all the options except decode with QuickTime. The profile was set to DVD authoring as DVD (VIDEO_TS). QMin was 2 QMax was 15. I didn't use any image filters.

Am I wasting my time trying this in ffmpegX? I found another thread at Videohelp in the DV section that started off saying that DV to MPEG was almost a mission impossible unless you used ProCoder. I cannot believe that as iMovie users seem to have been getting adequate quality for years simply sending their projects through iDVD. This is the first time I've tried this sort of thing and to be honest I think I underestimated the task.

Is there anything else I can try? Maybe exporting to something other than DV in iMovie and going to MPEG2 from another format?

And has anyone actually used Toast 7 to create a DV file from an iMovie project? I was shocked at how bad the quality was even though everything was set to automatic/high quality.

[Roger jonsson]

My guess is that you have set too low bitrate or if your video is noisy, there will be problems compressing it to DVD. Noise is always a pain when it comes to compression.

I have encoded several things from my little DV camera (PAL) and I think the result is pretty nice, when kepping the bitrate high (8000kbit/s=a little bit over an hour on one disc).
Even on bitrates as low as 4000kbit/s the result can be pretty nice too, but when panning fast, zooming or when there is much happening (like crowds, rain etc which has the same effect as noise in the encoder) it collapses into blocks.

As the ffmepg encoding engine does not work perfectly on my DVD-players I have been using mpeg2enc.

Here is how I would do it on a one hour DV film:
I export my film as DV PAL from Imovie.

I select the ffmpeg "Summary" tab:
I Drag the .dv file to the ("drop file here")
I then select "DVD mpeg2enc" under "target format"

Under "Video" tab:
I set the "video bitrate" to 8000kbit/s which gives you a bit more than an hour on a DVD disc. Higher than 8000kbit/s proved to be a bit too high for some DVD players.
I then set "framerate" to PAL(25) and then set the "autosize" to DVD. Even if it was set before. If you look at "Video size" you should now have 720*576 resolution.

Audio tab:
The audio in the DV-file is probably stereo, so I set "channels" to stereo and leave the rest.

Filters:
No changes

Options:
I check only GOP headers, Altivec and bicubic, the rest is unchecked. No need to have the "Author as" checked if you burn with Toast 6.

The resulting .mpg file can be dragged to Toast 6 which will multiplexe the file but not re-encode. So it starts the burning process directly after multiplexing, whihc doesn't take long.

Hope this helps.
(If I could have found a description like this, step by step, to start with. It would have saved me weeks of experimenting...)

[Kryton]

Thanks Roger.

Your help has been invaluable. I have finally got a DVD that is more than good enough.

It took a fair bit longer to encode than my previous attempts but that was what I'd expected from the outset. I left it overnight and when I woke up the progress window said 'failed'. I checked the log briefly and it appears that whatever went wrong happened during the mulpiplexing stage. The video itself was OK.

I think I'll be able to experiment a bit more to increase the quality even more.

One thing I have noticed is that in the options section for mpeg2enc, there is an option in a pull down menu on the right hand side for 'interlacing' and the default selection was 'non-entrelazados' (as I use a Spanish language system) which would be 'deinterlaced' in English. The other two options were 'field' and 'frame' if I'm translating correctly.

I left the default selection of 'deinterlaced' which was probably not the best option. Playback of the finished MPEG shows combing on the computer but not on the TV (although the still image jumps up and down on the TV screen when the dvd is paused. Which one of the three would be the correct choice?

Thanks again for the helping hand.

[Roger jonsson]

I left the default selection of 'deinterlaced' which was probably not the best option. Playback of the finished MPEG shows combing on the computer but not on the TV (although the still image jumps up and down on the TV screen when the dvd is paused. Which one of the three would be the correct choice?

I do not want to de-interlace when it is for watching on a TV, since the DV-material is interlaced from start. Not changing anything gives the best quality on a TV as it is the same (interlace) as recorded by the DV-camera. The standard setting seems to do it right.

Combing on the computer screen is normal when the video is interlaced, since the computer graphics/screen are normally not capable of 50Hz interlace. It seem to show both fields at the same time.
If your video is for watching on a computer screen, there is a point in de-interlacing, but not for watching on a TV, since it lowers the quality.
As I have not had any need to de-interlace I did not spend any time figuring out how those settings are supposed to be...

It took a fair bit longer to encode than my previous attempts but that was what I'd expected from the outset. I left it overnight and when I woke up the progress window said 'failed'.

The mpeg2enc engine is quite slower than ffmpeg, but it is compatible and works well on any DVD-player i tried.
I too get the "failed". Every time! -But it has never been anything wrong with the files.