MPEG2 formats...Is there a rock-solid STD?

[ScootTec]

I'm encoding videos mostly for DVDs and was wanting to know if there's going to be compatability issues if I use one encoder over another? Mostly over time...say ten+ yrs down the road, will what we're using still work or will what we have need to be transfered to a new format or type of MPEG2 etc?
I know certain MPEG2 encoders have issues and am looking for longevity and quality answers. I use Pinnacles Pro-ONE with Adobe Premiere6.01-Pinnacle DV MPEG2 encoder.

[markums2k]

Excellent question. Very few people think about what may happen if they have to buy a new DVD player, or if new technology comes along. Will your XVCDs be compatible? Maybe. Maybe not.

If you want to be sure your stuff is 100% compliant, do not alter the resolution (480x480 is standard)... and the bit rate is important as well, but I don't have a clear-cut answer for that one.

Just from my own player-to-player tests, I've noticed that when you start altering the resolution, you start eliminating players from your compatibility list. Media brand is also important. However (in theory), if you burn to a TDK CDR now, and your next DVD player only plays Memorex CDRWs, you can simply copy the disc on your PC without losing any video or sound quality, since you aren't re-encoding the video or anything. You're just copying data.

Hope I answered some questions.

[bugster]

I agree with markums2k but I think you were asking about the making of DVD's rather than SVCD's. Whatever it was, i doubt that any company that markets an mpeg-encoder can guarantee (software or hardware) that it will be 100% standards complian 100% of the time. In the same way I doubt that the decoders used in DVD players can be guaranteed to be 100% standards compliant at all times.

the best we can do is stick to the parts of the specs we all know about (bitrates, resolutions etc) and be guided by the many users on this (and other) sites as to how well the resulting video plays in a wide variety of consumer players.

If you look at the recent history of the PC, backward compatibility has always been important to manufacturers, thats why DVD-rom drives also read CD's, thats why we still use x-86 instruction set processors and that why your DVD's will still be valid formats in 10 years from now.

Just my opinion.

Bugster

[ScootTec]

Ok, thanks for the replies.
Ok, so what are the standards to stick with? For DVDs you choose the bit rate according to the best quality to file size able to fit on a disc. Say 6-8mbps for video, leaving room for the audio. What about the resolution? Are you talking about the GOP structure?
Would saving an edited project from my Premiere6.01 as an MP2 file(s) RAW (without dvd authoring) be the safest way to reasonably save my videos? Obviously saving as AVI would be out of the question seeing as an analog capture of 90min uses about 20gigs of HD space...but compressed at CBR-6mbps bit rate yeilds about a video MP2 of 1.78gig and wav-MP2 of 468mb. It looks good. Stills are sharp. AT 1/9th to 1/10th the size of the AVI file.

Any info would be a great help,
Thanks!

Scoot
PS. How can you grab a video file off a DVD to rework/edit it? They don't import into Adobe Premiere.