Confused with steps DV to DVD

[Samadams30]

It's been a while since I have tried to copy my Dv tapes to DVD and I am confused by some of the steps. After trying to take in much of the info on this site I understand some and I am more confused by others.

Basically I am confused with when to edit, encode, burn (I understand thats last), what formats to do it in and things of that nature. Here is what I am doing now:
Capture with Pinnacle Studio 9.4.3
Then edit and add menus and transitions
Then burn to disc
Pretty simple but I would like a little better quality as the videos are very grainy on our 52" TV. I am looking at about 50-55 min. of video per disc.
Software I have:Pinnacle Studio 9.4.3, Nero Ultra, WinDV, TMPEGEnc Express 3.0, Mainconcept MPEG Encoder, Mainconcept DV codec, Panasonic DV Codec, VirtualDub

Here are my questions.
IS capture with Pinnacle Studio or WinDV any diferent I have heard of capture with the Panasonic DV Codec but see no options in WinDv or PStudio.

Now I have the AVI file If I use PStudio should I add transitions and titles or cut it into smaller clips and what do I export them as?

At what point should I be working with Mpeg-2 clips from my AVI file?

And at what point should I be adding menus?

I hope someone understands what I am getting at basically I am looking for when to do each step and what software/codecs come into play for each step. Thank you.

[Rudyard]

Until the experts around here chip in with more technical know how this is what I have gathered:

You should capture in pinnicle and you should get DV AVI files.
Do all your editing with this file, dont compress to MPEG2 and then edit as you will then have to compress again, loosing quality and DV AVI is better for editing (I think DV AVI is 5:1 compressed whereas MPEG2 is something like 20:1 compressed).

Once you have your editing done render/encode to an MPEG2 file that is DVD compliant:

NTSC i think is 720x480 and PAL is 720x576.

Your quality may be different depending on what bit rate you are encoding at.

The best way to test is by encoding a portion of you project at different bit rates, then burn them to a rewritable disc and check the difference to see when you are happy.

The different encoding options are:
Constant Bit Rate (CBR)
Single Pass Variable bit rate (VBR)
and 2 pass variable bit rate (VBR)

Constant will encode every frame at the bit rate you set (8mbs is about the highest for DVD compliacne, for exact numbers refer to guide on the left).

Variable bit rate will pick and average bit rate, maximum and minimum. It will give more bitrate to scenes that need it and less to thos that dont.

A two pass encode will give you a closer output to the average than a single pass.

A common setting is for Max 8mbs Age 6mbs and min 2mbs. Your video will avergae about 6mbs but when higher bit rate is needed it will get it and when it isnt needed it will be lower.

This will give you a smaller file size than a constant bit rate of 8mbs where everything will just get max bit rate which can bloat a file. However depending on the amount of movement it may be needed.

Ive never used pinnicale but here is my process using vegas and dvd architect.

Capture in vegas.
Edit in vegas
render to MPEG 2 in vegas
Take rendered MPEG2 file into DVD architect and add menus and buttons (as these are just for the menu it doesnt effect the movie file)
Burn in DVD architect.

Hope it helps.

[redwudz]

If you are transferring DV from a camera to a computer, no installed codec is needed for that. A DV codec like the Panasonic DV codec is for viewing and re-encoding the DV file. The program used to transfer doesn't matter either. Any will do the same. I use WinDV.

You would want to edit in DV format. It's 'made' to edit with. After that you encode to MPEG-2 format. The quality depends on the bitrate used. Best quality with DV is about an hour of MPEG. But 2 hours on a DVD can be good quality with the right settings. Transitions, cuts, adds are done during editing.

After you have encoded the DV to MPEG-2, you author to the DVD format. That's when menus are added.

I just use WinDV to transfer, VirtualDub Mod with the Panasonic DV Codec added to edit, filter, cut and paste. Then I save out the audio as a WAV and encode that to AC3 with ffmpeggui. I frameserve the edited video directly to TMPGEnc encoder and encode video only to DVD compliant MPEG-2. I author with TMPGEnc DVD Author and add the audio and video together, along with creating the menus, etc. This is just my method, you seem to have most of the software needed, if Pinnacle can author.

The most important part of all this is the encoding of the DV to MPEG-2. That is where the quality is kept or lost. Plenty of guides for this. See 'CONVERT' to the left. <<<<<<

[edDV]

I'll add the following in "cliff notes" mode.

Both WinDV and Pinnacle Studio 9 should be acquiring an identical DV-AVI file if Pinnacle settings are correct. WinDV is more mistake proof.

It is easy to capture to MPeg2 in Pinnacle which will downgrade the video.

Camcorder video is the worse case for DVD MPeg2 encoding because it is both noisy and shaky* (if hand held). The only recourse is to use highest MPeg2 encoding bitrates.

Assuming other things are done right, the quality limitation of Pinnacle Studio is it's MPeg2 encoder. If you must use it try to specify near maximum bitrates per the DVD spec.
https://www.videohelp.com/dvd
(e.g. >8Mb/s video CBR or ave VBR).

Other MPeg2 encoders will probably get better video quality and other DVD authoring programs will give more creative control of menus and DVD structure. If you need to export from Pinnacle to another encoder or authoring program, export as a DV-AVI file.

Most encoders and authoring programs offer demo versions where you can evaluate performance before you buy.


* MPeg compression relies on identical pixels over sequential frames. This often is the case when a tripod is used. Handheld video adds a X-Y and circular displacement between frames that causes the encoder to stop trying interframe compression. Since bitrate is specified, the only recourse for the encoder is to further compress the I frames which causes video quality to drop substantially. Noise (especially in low light) has similar effect.

[Samadams30]

Thanks for everyones quick responses!
Using everyones replies I have come up with this and would like your opinions if possible.
I guess my only hangup with Pinnacle Studio is the transitions and titles and ease of use. So with that said would a workflow like this work.
-Capture with WinDV
-Pinnacle studio to edit and add transitions and titles
-Export as a DV-AVI file using Studio and I have numerous codecs listed (Mainconcept, Panasonic, Regular DV codec)
-Encode with either TMPGEnc express 3.0 or Mainconcept MPEG Encoder(Any suggestions to which one)
-Then add menus with a program to be determined.
-Burn with a program to be determined(Nero Ultra possibly

Are there any unnecessary steps here?

Will there be a quality loss when exporting to DV-AVI with Studio after editing and adding transitions?

I also have acces to Adobe Premiere 6.0 would this be useful?
Again thanks for the info it has already been very helpful.

[Wile_E]

WinDV is okay, but if you want something that can control the camera, there is ScenalyzerLive which I now use. Pinnacle in my books has always been associated with bloatware and used to be unstable. If you don't find it easy to use, you may want to try Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit DV and add transitions and effects. TMPGEnc is awfully slow compared to all others. I very rarely use it anymore. CCE, Mainconcept encoder, or Canopus Procoder is much faster with just as good of results. TMPGEnc DVD Author is really easy to use for authoring DVD's and making menus. It has templates and a bunch of different layouts to customize menus and make a DVD fast. If you are making DVD DL discs, use ImgBurn to burn the folders. It does the layerbreak properly unlike Nero. In fact, use it to burn all your discs, as it is just a drag and drop program.

Everytime you edit a DV-AVI file, and save it back out as DV-AVI, there is very slight loss, but it is not noticeable. In fact you can probably edit the file a dozen times and save it a dozen times over, and you won't see any loss. With MPEG, there is much more loss.

[edDV]

Thanks for everyones quick responses!
Using everyones replies I have come up with this and would like your opinions if possible.
I guess my only hangup with Pinnacle Studio is the transitions and titles and ease of use. So with that said would a workflow like this work.
-Capture with WinDV
-Pinnacle studio to edit and add transitions and titles
-Export as a DV-AVI file using Studio and I have numerous codecs listed (Mainconcept, Panasonic, Regular DV codec)
-Encode with either TMPGEnc express 3.0 or Mainconcept MPEG Encoder(Any suggestions to which one)
-Then add menus with a program to be determined.
-Burn with a program to be determined(Nero Ultra possibly

Are there any unnecessary steps here?

That all seems to be a good sequence if you want to stay wit Studio 9 for editing. Otherwise you could skip the export to DV-AVI step if you moved to something like Adobe Elements, Sony Movie Studio or ULead Video Studio. All three of those offer the Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder built in and matched for DV to interlace DVD MPeg2 encoding.

I'm not sure what Pinnacle ships for DV codec but all are similar. If the Mainconcept DV codec is avialable, use that. The Panasonic is for older VFW apps like Virtualdub. The MS-DV codec is mostly intended for monitoring.

As for MPeg2 encoders, try both demos. It should be noted that the Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder is heavily favored by application developers for interlace DVD work like DV -> DVD. Adobe, Sony (old SonicFoundry), ULead and many broadcast infrastructure companied like Anystream and Telestream have gone the Mainconcept route and if there was something better, you would expect one to jump over and use it as a selling point. I'm happy with Mainconcept in my Vegas and Premiere packages.

Will there be a quality loss when exporting to DV-AVI with Studio after editing and adding transitions?

I also have acces to Adobe Premiere 6.0 would this be useful?
Again thanks for the info it has already been very helpful.

There are two types of DV editors. "Native" DV editors will copy unprocessed frames from the input file to the export file without decoding. Only the frames that are processed with transitions or filters will be decoded to RGB and then re-encoded after processing. The DV-codec is only used for those frames which have been processed.

If done correctly, the unprocessed frames in the export file will be identical to the frames on the camcorder tape, that is first generation.

Other editors like Virtualdub and I think Pinnacle Studio will decode all frames used to uncompressed RGB (or YUV) so the codec gets used on all frames. This also generates huge uncompressed temp files.

Adobe Premiere 6.0 works for DV editing but did not have an MPeg2 encoder. I recall that it shipped with a dumbed down version of Sonic DVD-IT. Premiere v6.5 was the first to include the Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder.

[edDV]

...

Everytime you edit a DV-AVI file, and save it back out as DV-AVI, there is very slight loss, but it is not noticeable. In fact you can probably edit the file a dozen times and save it a dozen times over, and you won't see any loss. With MPEG, there is much more loss.

That is true for "NTSC" 4:1:1 DV and I should have mentioned that. "PAL" 4:2:0 DV suffers more from generation loss due to the need to reinterpolate chroma each generation.

[redwudz]

Should work OK. The Mainconcept DV codec is maybe a slight bit better than the Panasonic DV codec, but it's hard for me to see a difference. I'm not sure what you mean by 'titles' but if those are on-screen titles, then they would be done during editing. 'Titles' often refer to parts of a DVD which would be done during authoring.

No real preference on encoders. I use TMPGEnc, but Mainconcept does fine, also, and is a fair bit faster. The important part is the settings and the bitrate, no matter which encoder you use. You can always cut out a short representative clip of about ten minutes and try different encoders and settings to see what the results are.

Authoring is a whole different thing. It depends on how fancy you want the menus and how much work you want to do. TMPGEnc DVD Author is pretty basic, but easy to use. If you want something at the next level, DVD Lab Pro will do it for you. Even the freeware GUI for dvdauthor does a good job, but requires a little more work.

For burning, it's hard to beat ImgBurn. It will burn the authored VIDEO_TS folders to DVD. And it's freeware.

I tend to use the individual tools for each step for these type of conversions. I prefer the control and having lots of options.

But try it a few different ways and learn your encoder settings . Understanding all this is the key to the best quality output.

[daamon]

I am looking at about 50-55 min. of video per disc.

Every point made and piece of advice given so far has been accurate and relevant. There's two things that have been overlooked:

1) The running time of your video per disc.

2) The relationship between audio, video, running time and quality.

I'll cover both in turn:

1) The running time of your video per disc:

You say, as quoted above, you're looking at 50 - 55 minutes per disc. Plugging this into the VideoHelp Bitrate Calculator assuming WAV audio (uncompressed therefore 1536kbps) gives you a video bitrate of around 8,200kbps - this is plenty for good quality DV AVI to MPEG2 for DVD.

Because 8,200kbps is pretty close to the max, you can get away with using a Constant BitRate (CBR) and WAV audio. Only you can decide what the lowest bitrate (and hence quality) is before you move over to using VBR, as described in an earlier post.

2) The relationship between audio and video bitrates, running time and quality:

If you compress the audio, using either AC3 (valid for both PAL and NTSC) or MP2 (valid for PAL, usually OK for NTSC), then you'll end up with a smaller audio file maintaining good quality. An audio bitrate of 224 or 256 usually does the trick.

A smaller audio file means more room on the disc, meaning you can have a larger video file, meaning you can use a higher bitrate or a longer video running time (or both) - especially if the running time goes over an hour. Have a play with the VideoHelp Bitrate Calculator to see what I mean.

If the time ever comes where your video runs over an hour, look into compressing your audio (ffmpeggui is good for either MP2 or AC3), and either using CBR for bitrates of around 6,000kbps upwards, or VBR for bitrates below that - as described earlier.

If the bitrates get down below around 4,500 then you'll need to start looking at lower resolutions - but that's a different kettle of fish that, with 50 - 55 minutes of video, you won't need to worry about.

All bitrates are approximate - there's too many variable factors for it to be an exact statement.