too much compression

[clashradio]

I have an 8G AVI file and when I bring it into Pinnacle in knocks it down to 300M and that is with the best possible "custom" quality. Since the video is only 5 minutes, is there a way to only shrink it to 4G to fill a single layer disc? Or is that MPEG2 working it's magic?

[Scorpion King]

I think uncompressed AVI 720x480 with PCM 16bit audio is about 1.25GB per minute. I would assume your 8GB - 5 minute video is uncompressed.

4.7GB MPEG-2 DVD at best quality is around 60 minutes at about 9800Kbps video and 384Kbps audio. At those settings your 5 minutes at best DVD quality should be somewhere around 380MB.

5 minutes at 300MB with 256Kbps audio the bitrate is around 8000Kbps.

A bitrate calculator is nice when figuring up all this stuff but you can also do it with a normal calculator if you like.

Good luck.

[FulciLives]

In other words that is as good as it gets for MPEG-2 DVD spec. You can't really make it any better. You need about an hour of video and audio to get to the point where you would fill the DVD disc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[edDV]

If you want to max quality (lossless compression) to knock it down 1/2x size, try huffyuv.

[clashradio]

Hey John, thanks for the info. I'm not really worried about filling the disc up it is just that since the time lenth is so short (5 minutes) and the orginal file is so big (8G) and the disc hold approx 4.7G I figured why have so much compression. The file is a Super 8mm short movie and is grainy enough as it is. It looks incredable when I watch it via Quicktime ( I had to make a 100M file for upload it to You Tube) and I want it to look that good on my dvd.

[clashradio]

Hey thanks, I'll try that!

[edDV]

Hey John, thanks for the info. I'm not really worried about filling the disc up it is just that since the time lenth is so short (5 minutes) and the orginal file is so big (8G) and the disc hold approx 4.7G I figured why have so much compression. The file is a Super 8mm short movie and is grainy enough as it is. It looks incredable when I watch it via Quicktime ( I had to make a 100M file for upload it to You Tube) and I want it to look that good on my dvd.

Huh?

Is this an uncompressed capture or not?

Are you trying to store at minimum compression or are you trying to make a DVD?

Must the DVD play on a hardware player? Or are you just saving it as data?

"I watch it via Quicktime" ?
You need to be more specific about what you have done and what you are trying to do.

[clashradio]

My goal is to burn a dvd of the 8G file with as little compression as possible. Since a single layer disc can only hold 4.7G, obviously there has to be some compression. With the "best" output mode chosen the time space is aprox 65 minutes. Even if the vid is 1 second you still only choose what I believe is called "excellent play" mode. I would understand if the vid was 2 hours but it's only 5 min. How come even on the best mode it still knocks the file down to 300M. Is there a way to only cut it down to 4.7G? The vid is Super 8 footage so I figured the bigger the file would help how the grain looks. When I said can view the video in Quicktime, that was for uploading it to You Tube, They have a 100M file limit. So once it was converted to a MP4 file I double clicked on the file and it opened up with Quicktime and the vid looked awesome and that doesnt make sense because the file is only 100M. The dvd I burnt didn't look as good as the MP4 version. I guess what I'm asking is....is there a better mode of burning other than the "excellent play" mode? Maybe a mode that can only hold 20 minutes of Extremly great video. Sorry if I didn't make it clear to what I was asking. I just had to throw what my questions and hope to get a bite. Thanks.

[bobkart]

You still haven't answered whether you want the resulting disc to be playable in a standalone DVD Player.

If yes, then that ~300MB file is as large as you'll get without using too much bitrate for DVD Compliance.

If no, then there are plenty of options including the HuffYUV one edDV gave.

[Scorpion King]

Huh?

lmao

[edDV]

Right, assuming you captured YUV uncompressed, then the huffYUV codec can squeeze about 50% of the datarate without loss.

I recall this was possible with Pinnacle Studio as an alternate codec. Maybe not. I suggest VirtualdubMod.

[FulciLives]

The short answer is if you want a standard DVD Video that will play on any DVD player then no you can't really get any better (no less compression) that what you got.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[clashradio]

I forgot to mention that yes, this file is uncompressed. Yes, I want to be able to play this disc in any set top player. I just don't understand why there is that much compression. Someone mentioned "too much bitrate for dvd compliance". I'm guessing that even if my uncompressed 5 minute video was only 3G, well within the 4.7G of the capacity, that whatever program I used would still have to compress. I just don't understand why. edDV said "assuming I capurted YUV" I had my super 8 film transfered to mini-dv tape and then I ran that via firewire as an AVI file to my computer so I'm not sure if it is YUV? Thanks guys for your help. I would like to see if I can use HUFFY. Maybe that too much bitrate thing has got me down.

[bobkart]

It's very simple, if you want it to play in a standalone DVD Player then you are constrained by DVD Compliance. There are maximum bitrates you can use (and it must be MPEG1/MPEG2) and still be DVD Compliant. It's around 10Mb/s all told (audio and video). So 5 minutes of that will come to no more than 375MB.

HuffYUV will not help you as it does not even create MPEG2 let alone DVD Compliant MPEG2.

[FulciLives]

It is fine as it is.

Just leave it.

You have maxed out the bitrate that a DVD can handle. It should look stellar.

OK I just realized something ... if you captured DV AVI and your original file is 8 GB in size yet only 5 minutes then that is impossible. DV AVI is like 13 GB give or take per hour. So 5 minutes can't be as big as 8 GB ... it's impossible. Unless maybe it is totally uncompressed video in which case you probably screwed up along the way somehow.

I think that is what edDV was getting at.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[bobkart]

I just don't understand why.

Then you haven't read What Is DVD?

[FulciLives]

I edited the last post I made above this one. Please read it carefully.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[bobkart]

Uncompressed 720x480 24-bit RGB video is right at 30MB per second. So 300 seconds of that (5 minutes) would come to 9GB.

[edDV]

edDV said "assuming I capurted YUV" I had my super 8 film transfered to mini-dv tape and then I ran that via firewire as an AVI file to my computer so I'm not sure if it is YUV? Thanks guys for your help. I would like to see if I can use HUFFY. Maybe that too much bitrate thing has got me down.

1. You should have captured to DV format not AVI. A DV format transfer is identical to the compressed data on your DV tape. A good way to capture identical DV data to a DV-AVI file is to use WinDV and the firewire port.

2. By capturing to uncompressed AVI, you decompressed the DV data without increasing quality. A 5 min DV format transfer would be ~ 1GB and you wouldn't have a problem backing that to a DVDR as data.

3. DVD Players have stiff requirements. See here "What is a DVD?".
https://www.videohelp.com/dvd

4. To get from uncompressed or DV format to a playable DVD, you need to re-encode the video and audio to DVD spec. Then you need to author the DVD.

[FulciLives]

Uncompressed 720x480 24-bit RGB video is right at 30MB per second. So 300 seconds of that (5 minutes) would come to 9GB.

Well OK that makes sense BUT what doesn't make sense is that he said it was a DV AVI FireWire capture.

So he screwed up if he got uncompressed video from that i.e., what would be the point of that?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

It's Saturday night for heaven's sake.

Why are we all here trying to post at the same time.

We should be out partying or something LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[bobkart]

Well OK that makes sense BUT what doesn't make sense is that he said it was a DV AVI FireWire capture.

Yes he does eventually mention that doesn't he (and not a moment too soon!).

[edDV]

Not yet 6PM here

[clashradio]

Sorry to bug you guys again I really do appreciate the help. The 8G file was not the captured file, it is the file that I save to the computer after all of the editing was done in my non-linear editing program (Pinnacle) . I burnt the file to disc (300M size) and I saved the same editied project to "my videos" and that file was 8G. And again I'm guessing that even if that file was only three gig that once I ran it back into Pinnacle it would compress it to somewhere in the 200-400M. Maybe I'm too anal but I'm starting with Super 8 film so I can't afford to lose any quality.

[FulciLives]

Not yet 6PM here

Damn West Coast people LOL

OK so now everyone knows I'm home alone on a Saturday night with laundry down the block at the local laundromat.

I still would like to hear how clashradio ended up with uncompressed video because he is probably doing more steps than he needs to be doing which of course will just **** things up quality wise LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

*** EDIT ***
We need real time chat the way this thread is progressing LOL

[edDV]

Pinnacle what? Studio?
What is your Pinnacle project setting? It should be DV format.

Take your edited project and save the timeline to DV format as your master. This can be saved as data to a DVDR as an archive. Save the original capture files too. The Pinnacle program will degrade them.

If you insist on using the Pinnacle program to author your DVD, then go ahead and follow the directions. Pinnacle Studio has a poor quality and slow MPeg2 encoder. Use the highest bitrate they allow. It should be >8Mbit /s. The spec allows up to ~9.6Mb/s allowing some room for audio.

[bobkart]

I can't afford to lose any quality.

Like edDV said, keep it as DV format video and you won't lose any quality. Going from that to uncompressed just takes up more space (5X) with no quality improvement. DV format video can be edited frame-accurately with no re-encoding required.

The only time you will lose quality is going to DVD-Compliant video. Then it has to happen due to the restrictions on what is DVD Compliant. It's the third time you mentioned "guessing" that even a 3GB file would be compressed to go to DVD, and in response, it's now the third time someone has referrred you to What is DVD?, if you ever decide to actually read that, you would be able to stop with the guessing. No offense intended, it's just when you keep asking the same question that is answered by that link, it's hard not to point it out.

[clashradio]

Thanks edDV. Yes, I have Studio 10.6. I do use the "output to DV", even though the program says "best for mini-dv tape" and MPG2 is "best for outputting to dvd" the file is a little bigger with DV so I assume that it would look better. I know.....assume. It doesn't make sense to me if a file is under 4.7G that any compression is needed. I am on the East Coast John.

[bobkart]

It doesn't make sense to me if a file is under 4.7G that any compression is needed.

Only because you are completely ignoring any attempts to help you understand it.

What Is DVD? <-- CLICK HERE!!!

[clashradio]

Sorry bobkart, I haven't had a chance to. I will read it. Thank you. I sorry for not reading it first before asking all of the questions. I had a couple replys to my questions and went with that. Thanks for the link.