BEST way to convert HD video to standard DVD?

[senorroboto2k5]

I have a bunch of HD videos (they're mostly .mp4's already, 720p) and I'm looking to burn them to a standard DVD for use in a regular DVD player.

I've already successfully done it using TMPGEnc Xpress (it looked average), but I was wondering the BEST way to do it as to retain the maximum quality possible in the standard MPEG2 video.

I know that some quality will be lost; I was wondering how to lose the least amount. The 720p file looks super sharp, but the DVD video looks noticeably more blurry; is this ALWAYS going to be a result of downgrading, or is there a way to retain at least some of the sharpness?

Are there certain settings that I should focus on? Does a higher bitrate really make a difference (I tried encoding twice with different bitrates and there wasn't much of a difference)?

Thanks for your time. I did try searching for similar topics but couldn't find the answer.

[whatsmyname]

Do you have Adobe Premier?

Use avisynth and some of the sharpen filters (test the to see which works best for the video), feed the video to Premier (the avs script file). The 'motion' function in Premier gives you great control over the whole video, such as how much you want to crop (or expand or rotate) , which part of the video you want to crop etc.

[Nelson37]

There is no BEST.

Critical factors are the resizing, cropping, de-interlacing, and IVTC or framerate change. Many of these are inter-dependent.

More bitrate is generally better than less bitrate.

Your target should be a 23.975 progressive framerate.

There are lots of variations in these files, and lots of ways to handle them. It's a trial and error process.

[jagabo]

I don't know if TMPGEnc Express has improved their resizing filters. But TMPGEnc Plus uses a simple bilinear algorithm that is not very sharp. But I suspect you have something worse going on.

How are you comparing sharpness? Pixel-for-pixel on a computer monitor (ie, 1280x720 in a window and 720x480 in a window)? Both full screen on the monitor? Full screen display on an HDTV? Are you encoding anamorphic 16:9 or letterboxed 4:3?

Post un-resized before and after PNG files and we can tell you if what you see is normal.

[pepegot1]

Try Convertx2DVD

[jman98]

If you can write AviSynth scripts, you can do it this way. I did it once with a 720p video, but it was animation. It looked great on DVD though. I encoded with HCEnc, which is free. TMPGenc is OK and easy to use, but it's not the best MPEG-2 encoder. Scene changes sometimes lead to horrible macroblocks with TMPGenc, even if only briefly. I'd advise trying the AviSynth method with HCEnc if you're willing to spend the time to learn how to do it that way. You'll need to use LanczosResize to get down to the desired size and add borders if your downsized video is less than 720x480 so that the borders bring it up to 720x480 for encoding. Many 720p videos have 23.98 fps and progressive frames, so it's just a simple case of resizing down and adding borders prior to encoding for DVD.

[senorroboto2k5]

I think this is about as close as it will get, but I'll post it up to make sure.

SOURCE


DVD


Again, I know that the quality will be noticeably lower. Just making sure this is about as low as it's supposed to be.

[edDV]

Can't tell without motion but you are in the ball park.

[senorroboto2k5]

Yeah, those screens pretty much tell the story... the essence is there.

[lacywest]

interesting info

[FulciLives]

Here is a before and after I did myself:

720p (1280x720) H.264 video frame capture (raw frame at 1280x720 which is 1:1 16x9 WS):



480p (720x480) MPEG-2 DVD spec video frame capture (resized to 852x480 for 1:1 16x9 WS):



480p (720x480) MPEG-2 DVD spec video frame capture (raw frame at 720x480 anamorphic 16x9 WS):



The MPEG-2 DVD spec encoding was done using DGAVCDec, AviSynth and HCenc and here is the AviSynth script I used:

LoadPlugin("C:\VIDEO\dgavcdec100a35\DGAVCDecode.dll")
AVCSource("C:\TRUEBLOOD\video.dga")
Lanczos4Resize(720,480,0,0,1280,720)

Pretty simple, right? I guess it helped that the file was already 23.976fps and I was going for NTSC DVD so I didn't need to do much of anything.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I used Gimp to do the 720x480 to 852x480 resizing.

[jagabo]

I think this is about as close as it will get, but I'll post it up to make sure...
SOURCE...
DVD...
Again, I know that the quality will be noticeably lower. Just making sure this is about as low as it's supposed to be.

Both of those images have been resized by whatever software you used to make the snapshots. Displaying high resolution video at a smaller size will give a very sharp picture. Displaying a low resolution video at a higher size will give a blurry picture. So we don't know how much of the damage was done by the encoding and how much was done by the snapshot program.

That said, I suspect the fuzzy results you are getting from TMPGEnc are worse than what results from the programs bilinear resizing filter. You may have some other problem.

[lordsmurf]

That is one weird looking guy.

[Delta2]

I think this is about as close as it will get, but I'll post it up to make sure.

SOURCE


DVD


Again, I know that the quality will be noticeably lower. Just making sure this is about as low as it's supposed to be.

A lot of quality loss, awful, what soft did you use for that, VSO ?

Can you give a sample of that movie to compare it with CCE ? I bet would be a lot better

[Delta2]

Original HD - Sample - ERAGON.MKV





DVD with CCE - CinemaCraft




I used a darked image with grass to evaluate detail loss, with a colored image like the one above is better to evaluate fading

CCE is not free, whatsoever

But HCEnc I think it will produce good results also

If someone has some other images to compare...should be interesting to see quality results

[robjv1]

I've had this same question. I have a Phillips 3576 DVD recorder and sometimes I will go to a high-def channel on my tuner and then switch over to my 3576 tuner (which scales all the high-def channels down to standard def) and the quality difference is pretty surprising and interesting. The obvious loss of sharpness is there, but more startling to me is the loss of the color information. You just see so much less difference between colors that are easily distinguishable on the HD feed.

[senorroboto2k5]

The quality doesn't have much to do with the snapshot program or video player. That's the difference.

[senorroboto2k5]

Also, my original HD files are .mp4 format already... does that change my options from if they were in another format?

[Delta2]

The quality doesn't have much to do with the snapshot program or video player. That's the difference.

the difference relies on the conversion method, what method did you use to produce that quality loss ?

[senorroboto2k5]

I just used TMPGEnc. I know it's not the best, but I don't really know any alternatives in this case

[Delta2]

I just used TMPGEnc. I know it's not the best, but I don't really know any alternatives in this case

You can, for example :

use CCE + Avisynth

If you give me your sample MKV, I will put in here the results

but it is not free, whatsoever

http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/sp2.html

[FulciLives]

I just used TMPGEnc. I know it's not the best, but I don't really know any alternatives in this case

What are you talking about?

I already suggested an alternate free method using HCenc etc.

As for the file being MP4 instead of MKV ... it makes no difference. You should be able to feed the MP4 into DGAVCDec although if it gives you trouble then just first DEMUX the MP4 using YAMB. Then feed the video only file into DGAVCDec.

That is one weird looking guy.

LOL I hear you ... I don't know what possessed me to pick that particular screen shot. I guess I was looking for something with a lot of detail and that "shot" seemed "busy" to me so I picked it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

Even if you continue to use TMPGEnc you should do your resizing in AviSynth. Try LanczosResize(). The MPEG encoder in TMPGEnc is not the cause of your problems.

[Soopafresh]

Even sharper resize, use LimitedSharpenFaster

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic310509.html

LimitedSharpenFaster(smode=4, ss_x=1.2, ss_y=1.2, dest_x=720, dest_y=480)

[senorroboto2k5]

I know, I mentioned that I used TMPGEnc to answer why the quality loss was so noticeable in my existing example. I haven't redone it yet.

I haven't tried HCenc yet because it didn't accept the .mp4 but thanks for the tip on demuxing it...

[FulciLives]

I know, I mentioned that I used TMPGEnc to answer why the quality loss was so noticeable in my existing example. I haven't redone it yet.

I haven't tried HCenc yet because it didn't accept the .mp4 but thanks for the tip on demuxing it...

You run either the MP4 or the demuxed video of the MP4 through DGAVCDec. This will create a project file. It will look like this ---> filename.dga

That is then used as a referrence in your AviSynth script.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[senorroboto2k5]

Cool, thanks... I'll try it in a bit

[senorroboto2k5]

OK nvm, editing out a stupid question

[poisondeathray]

Well I guess I can edit out my reply then

[senorroboto2k5]

OK here are the results from using DGAVCDec, Avisynth scripts to resize, and HCenc to encode.

Original source



.mkv encoded


Same diff, eh? It was much faster than TMPGEnc though.

Any settings I should focus on within HCenc?

Avg bitrate = 5000, max bitrate = 8000, matrix = mpeg...

Or should I just be focusing my attention on LimitedSharpen now?