Best CCE 2.70 settings for 8mm --> DV AVI --> DVD?

[sofakng]

I've used Sony Vegas 6.0d to transfer video from a MiniDV camera (which was connected to an 8mm camcorder) to capture some old 8mm footage.

So now I have a bunch of DVI AVI files that I want to put on a DVD using CCE. I've used a bitrate calculator to calculate a bitrate of 5931 but I've reduced it to 5700 (average bitrate, using 3-pass VBR).

1) Is that bitrate good enough? I've lowered it to 5700 from 5931 so I have some room on the DVD for the menus, etc.

2) Because the framerate is 29.97, CCE gives me various pulldown options: 2:3, 3:2, Inv 3:2 pulldown. Which should I use?

3) Should I enable 4:1:1 -> 4:2:2 interpolation?

Thanks for any help!

[guns1inger]

1. Subjective call. If the source is very noisy then it might not be enough. If it clean then it is probably OK. I would encode a few minutes as a sample at 5700 and higher bitrates, then see where the sweet spot is. Of course, higher bitrates would mean editing down and producing two discs.

2. Doesn't apply, as 29.976 doesn't require pulldown. This is a CCE quirk. Encoding for PAL (25 fps) also allows for pulldown to be selected, but it isn't used.

3. Don't know. Maybe Ed DV or Adam can comment on this one.

[sofakng]

Ok, what about the frameserver settings? (Debugmode's Framserver)

It gives the option for YUY12, RGB24, or RGB32. Which one should I use?

I've been using YUY12 and I'm also enabling "Write audio as PCM samples in signpost AVI" so that I can encode the audio (using MPEG-1?) in CCE. Does that sound normal to you?

YUY12 seems to be the best quality but it's so little of a difference that I can't really tell...

[guns1inger]

YUY12. RGB would be useful if you were frameserving to tmpgenc.

I wouldn't use CCE for encoding audio. It only does mpeg1-layer2 audio.

I edit in Vegas, frameserve to CCE for encoding only the video stream, then encode the audio to AC3 from Vegas. The streams are then brought together during authoring. Unless you must have a system/program stream as output, that is the way I would recommend.

[sofakng]

What should I render the audio as? (Dolby Digital AC-3 (*.ac3) ?)

Also, how can I remove a loud hiss from the audio? It's only present in the first few minutes of the tape but it's very annoying.

Sorry for all of the questions and thanks a TON for all of your help!!

[guns1inger]

Simplest solution is to right-click on the audio track, and select Cahnnels -> Combine from the menu. This will give you a mono audio track.

If you want to, you can then copy the audio track to a new audio track, so you have two version of the same audio. Apply a Pan envelope to each (right-click on the track header and select the appropriate envelope), and pan one left and one right. You will get joint stereo but with some seperation.

Render this out as 2 channel AC3 at 192 - 224kbps.

Before you do this, remove the hiss. I would use the graphic EQ, simple because it is easy. Right-click on the audio track and choose Apply Non-Realtime Event Fx. In the plugin chainer, select the Graphic EQ plugin. Have a play removing primarily in the 10 - 20 k area and see how you go. There is a default 'remove hiss' preset as well. Once you are happy with the level of hiss, you can do the combine and copy bit discuss at the start of this post.

Bear in mind, this is only one method. A tools like Vegas offers many ways to skin the same cat. There are several different EQ tools, for instance. I suggested Graphic EQ because it is the most straight forward to use, however better results might be had from one of the others if you have time to play.


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typos fixed
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[BJ_M]

3) Should I enable 4:1:1 -> 4:2:2 interpolation?

yes -- for DV