compression problems

[efiste2]

I have bought a DVD from a company that produces DVDs of steam trains across the country, there work is simply the best out there by mile , but I think they have compressed their video too much, so much so its nearly unwatchable on any more than a 19" monitor. The film is around 90 mins and is suplied on a DVDr5, and therefore its been compressed (in my humble knowledge). The effect as best i can describe it is like I had used DVD SHRINK to compress a film onto a dvd5 and its been compressed to much so the quality suffers and the picture is highly pixelated. My question to you learned chaps is what program can i use to check what the bitrate the video has been processed at ?
ie when I use TMPgenc to convert a video into DVD fomat it allows me to select a constant bitrate and therefore dictate what size of disc the video will fit onto (i always select the highest possible to preserve quality), so I think the bitrate of my purchased DVD is far too low to fit onto a dvd5 and hence the poor picture.

Hope this makes some sense

[poisondeathray]

gspot, bitrate viewer

[Case]

Total size divided by duration gives the average bitrate, although that doesn't account for peaks in VBR.
E.g. 4 GB/90 mins = ~6300 kbps.

DVD BitRate Viewer is a very nice diagnostic tool, with a graph and all.

[efiste2]

heres the graph and info from bitrate veiwer.....the ABR is 5871. Can you guys deduct any more info that can be causing the pixelating picture.....Thanks so much for the help

[poisondeathray]

It's difficult to say . Things like fast motion, high detail are harder to compress than static shots (like an interview sequence of a person talking). So moving trains could cause pixellation if the content was complex enough. If this is the case, then using a higher bitrate would have helped if they had room (or a DVD-9 for example)

They may have used a poor master sequence, or poor encoder. There could be many reasons for pixellation

[efiste2]

thanks for the advice.....Much appreciated