I have finally crawled into the 21st Century and bought a DV camcorder, although for a couple of years I have been using Studio software and a Pinnacle analog capture card to make edit and write DVD's.
However I have never really understood the subtleties of different formats and codecs. This didnt seem to matter too much in my analogue days as the original quality was relatively poor to begin with, but now I have DV its a different story.
I'd therefore be grateful if anyone can either answer the following or point me to a FAQ or thread where it has been discussed. Trouble is it seems to be 'cross-forum' so I cant find all the answers in one place!
Q1 My camcoder resolution is supposedly 540 lines, do I derive any benefit from transferring to DVD rather than to SVCD both of which I believe have 576 line resolution (PAL)?
I realise that a DVD holds more data, ie a longer video, but if that isnt a consideration, is there any other advantage from an image quality point of view?
Q2 When rendering the finished project with Studio 9 I am offered a whole host of different codecs if I want to magk an MPEG file or an AVI file but only a few 'tweaks' if I burn directly to disc. is there a significant quality issue and does it matter which codec I use?
For example DivX encoder, Cinepack Codec by Radius, DV Video encoder, Indeo video 5.10., etc. I have no idea where these came from - presumably some with this software, some with WinXP and some with other stuff that came bundled with the camera etc.
Q3. Given that I am not looking to ever cram a huge amount of video onto a disc - 30 mins max probabaly, can anyone reccommend a disc format and codec that will achieve a quality that is equal or near equal to playing the camcorder back direcetly into the Tv[/b] etc., which will result in mimimum computer processing time
At the moment if I write a DVD it will take about 2 to 3 times realtime - ie to render 10 minutes of DV to a disc .iso image will take 30 minutes. there is no point in me buying some fancy codec if it takes my PC 4 hours to render 30 minutes of video, and the quality isnt improved at all!
I guess my bottom line question summary is how do I make the lowest quality-loss discs from my taped DV in the minimum time and can it be done with my exixting commercial software?
Many thanks in anticipation.
GC
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Originally Posted by Gcc2002
Originally Posted by Gcc2002
Originally Posted by Gcc2002
Hope this helpsThere are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those that understand binary... -
bugster is right on target but I would like to address some of your analog context assumptions.
Originally Posted by Gcc2002
"540 lines" refers to maximum horizontal eyeball resolution as read from a resolution test slide. Pixel resolution is either 352x576, 704x576 or 720x576 for DVD.
"540 lines" is the maximum horizontal resolution of the DV recording standard. The "corder" half of your camcorder can get close to that, the "cam" half is probably nowhere near full resolution. What model is it?
Are you encoding camcorder acquired material or recording off air to DV?
PAL-I broadcasting maximizes around "420 horizontal lines". This roughly translates to 524x576 pixel resolution. As such, SVCD at 480x576 comes close, DVD 352x576 may be good enough and 704x576 is more than enough.
Unlike SVCD, DVD offers a variety of bitrates. 8Mb/s CBR video w/PCM audio or 9.5 Mb/s CBR video with 224Kb/s compressed audio will get you best quality if record length isn't an issue.
For long record times, VBR with compressed audio is the best way to go. -
Originally Posted by Gcc2002
https://www.videohelp.com/dvd
Originally Posted by Gcc2002 -
Are you encoding camcorder acquired material or recording off air to DV?
I have spent the intervening hours since my first post, further trawling the forums for related info and am now a little better (not much) with the terminology etc.
I guess what I am really asking is simply whether "my mum" (ie Joe Average) is going to notice much difference if I send her one of the following:-
1) An SVCD produced with camera's bundled software
2) A DVD produced with Studio 9 using one of its 'own' MPEG-2 codecs [but which one]
3) A DVD produced with some 'stand alone' third party codec.
The corresponding advantages disadvantages of each of the above would seem to be
1) Quicker and cheaper
2) Softwanare is paid for, but boy is it slow!
3) Possibly quicker encoding but probably going to mean more cost!
Having said I want to maintain quality, I really meant I want to maintain discernible quality! I know many people here will be semi-professional video and DVD creators/producers and strive for the 100% perfection.
BUT if 95% of the population cant tell the difference between 'perfect' and '80% perfect' but '80% perfect' takes half the time to encode, I know which way I'd go!!
Thanks for your help so far. -
I would just encode to MPEG-2 for a DVD. SVCD is lower quality, and really just a waste of time if you have a DVD burner, IMO.
The 'brand' of MPEG-2 codec is not as important as the settings you use with the codec to encode the video. Lower bitrate=faster encode=lower quality. You don't need to use the SVCD format to speed up an encode, just lower the bitrate for your DVD MPEG-2 file until the quality is as low as the SVCD format.
Speed of encoding is almost entirely dependent on CPU speed. If it takes too long, you would need a faster CPU to speed it up. Or run it overnight as many of us did when using a slower CPU.
This is really not that confusing. If you want a DVD to be compatible and play on standalone DVD players, you have to adhere to the DVD format. See 'What is' DVD to the upper left.
If you want easy, just drop the DV into DivxToDVD and hit 'start'. -
First, not all DVD players will play SVCD. It is more fussy. DVD is more likely to play well.
Second - perceived quality depends on the TV quality and the eye of the beholder. The difference between 480x576 SVCD and 720x576 DVD will be small on cheap small TV sets, but large on a mid to upper range larger screen TV.
SVCD uses a 2600 Kbit/sec MPEG-2 (fixed)
DVD at 720x576 should be using 4000-9500 Kbit/sec MPeg2. The quality difference due to bitrate will be sustantial for hand held camcorder material. Tight MPeg compression relies on steady frame to frame motion. It doesn't perform well with typical shaky, overly zoomed home video at low bitrates. I'd use full 8000-9500 Kbit/sec (about an hour per DVD) for best quality. Best quality is mostly about lack of MPeg motion artifacts rather than resolution.
The JVC GR-DX307 is a good single CCD consumer model. It should easily surpass 352x576 resolution so 720x576 should be used.
The problem with SVCD is not so much resolution as indequate bitrate especially for camcorder material.
As for the MPeg2 encoder, Pinnacle is known for being slower than most. Those reported to be relatively faster (quality constant) use the Mainconcept encoder (ULead, Adobe, Sony). Their consumer products sell in the $60-99 range but often have rebate sales. -
If these are home movies, and you do not have a tripod, GET ONE.
Nothing else you can do will improve your movies, and most particularly subsequent encodes to MPG, as a tripod. NOTHING.
SVCD bitrate is not fixed. You can use VBR, and you can go lower than the max 2600. Not necessarily a good idea, but you can. -
Thanks everyone - this is all excelent info and I have just about got the hang of it now I hope.
I do use a tripod wherever practical, but not for example when ski-ing along beside my children filming at the same time!!
I partticulalry note the comment about reducing motion "cahnges" from frame to frame - now you point it out it's obvious (assuming you realise that encoding is about recording the changes from frame to frame), but it wasnt before that.
Fortunately I zoom then shoot, and almost never shoot then zoom!
Thanks again -
Just mount the tripod on the ski tips and ski VERY carefully!
Dead on about the motion changes, these are killers for good MPG quality.
There are "body mount" tripods, but they are fairly expensive and probably would not survive a good wipe-out, at least not one of mine.
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