Opinions wanted: Best way to get 3+ hours on DVD

[phinsman]

I've read a lot on this site's forums and guides, and also some info on other sites. I've tried a few things and gotten mixed results, with the most successful method being the use of (S)VCD2DVDMPG to convert VCD mpegs for use in DVD Movie Factory.

Here is what I want to do:

I am a big football fan, and I want to archive games this year on DVD, the entire game, possibly even the commercials (I am a sucker for nostalgia and love seeing old commercials). Therefore I need 3 to 3.5 hours of space.

From what I have seen, SVCD is good enough quality. VCD is a little blurry at times during a game. With SVCD I should be able to get both the quality and small enough size.

I always capture at either 640 X 480 or 720 X 480, compressed to MJPEG. It's always worked for me and I'd like to stick with that.

I usually use TMPGenc to encode to MPEG.

So until someone tells me a better way, here is what I must do:

1. Capture.
2. TMPGenc encode to SVCD mpegs.
3. Use SVCD2DVDMPG to "fool" DVD Movie Factory into thinking the mpegs are DVD-compliant.
4. DVD Movie Factory -- author the DVD.
5. Patch the VOBs with SVCD2DVDMPG.
6. Burn it!

So...Is there a better way? Specifically, I'd like to use TMPGenc to encode to a more DVD-compliant method at the start, without using the DVD template, which uses too much space.

Thanks to all,
Dale

[bugster]

According to my calculatiosn, you can get 3.5 hours on a DVD with a bitrate of 2600. This is slightly above the SVCD bitrate, but with the higher resolution of full D1 you get less 'bits per pixel' so it would probably look slightly poorer than SVCD. Another option is to encode at 358*480 (576 for Pal). This is DVD compliant, should give at least as good quality as SVCD and will play on any DVD player.

Hope this helps.

[BJ_M]

1/2 D1 will get you 3+ hours on a dvd at good quality with 2500-3300 bit rate

[phinsman]

Thanks guys.

How do I do this, half-D1? Do I use the TMPGenc template for DVD and select a lower bitrate, or is it done in a different program?

Thanks,
Dale

[Baldrick]

In tmpgenc, open the dvd template and then open the unlock template in the template\extra folder. Under settings, change the resolution to 352 x 480 and change the bitrate CBR and to around 3000 if you want 3 hours on one dvd with 224 kbits ac3 or mpeg audio ( use a bitrate calculator to calculate the size).

You can also try www.kvcd.net dvd tmpgenc templates.

[Luis Neves]

I use the same approach, I think its a good way to keep films and other programs captured from TV. Its a waste to use standard DVD since the original source has no such resolution.

You can fit 3.5 hours at the standard svcd bitrate (2520 kbps). If you need some more space, you can go down to 2000 kbps average, and use 2 pass vbr to keep quality. I have a few DVD´s with more than 5 hours of film, if there is no much action you can use low average bitrates without loosing too much quality (down to 1600-1800).

The only suggestion I have is that you can speed up quite a lot the encoding process using CCE instead of TMPGenc (frameserving with avisynth if needed). Using 2 pass VBR with TMPGEnc takes me 8 hours to encode 1 hour of video, with CCE just takes 3 hours. I also capture audio immediatly at 48 Khz to avoid later conversion. The other difference is that I use DVD Maestro to author and DVD patcher to the header trick, but your solution should be so good as this one.

[frizb]

If you use any of the above bitrates for a football game, your quality will suck. With the high motion it will require a lot higher bitrates to keep the quality high & avoid pixelization. If you are planning on keeping all commercials & everything you will need to use 2 DVDs. Otherwise, your results will stink.

[Xtasy2002]

If you use any of the above bitrates for a football game, your quality will suck. With the high motion it will require a lot higher bitrates to keep the quality high & avoid pixelization. If you are planning on keeping all commercials & everything you will need to use 2 DVDs. Otherwise, your results will stink.

This is entirely incorrect.

I use 1/2 D1 at 2000 bitrate and the quality is great while I get 4 hours per DVD. You just have to know what you are doing. "Soften Block Noise" setting works great with a very small amount of blurring you will have no block noise at all 'refered to as pixelization above'. There are other fine tunings you can make in TMPGEng settings to achieve the maximum video quality at low bitrates that look great. Do some more research and you will get the hang of it.

[Bob W]

That's easy to do using NeoDVD Plus. The program has three levels during capture which are Best, Better, and good. With a setting of Better I can get 3 hours and using the "Good" setting I can capture 5.5 hours of DVD complient mpeg2 and go directly to DVD files after capture.
http://www.mediostream.com/products/neodvdplus/index.html

[phinsman]

Thanks to everyone.

I have tried a short clip I just captured and done it a couple of ways using TMPGenc's built-in filters, unlocked and modified. The quality is great and the disc space is definitely there.

frizb...Thanks for the tip. I have noticed blurry plays before, usually on pass plays, using VCD. What I will probably do is kill the commercials. I still need around 2.5 hours though, so I'll keep the resolution at 352X480 and take the bitrate as high as possible.

Bob W...I haven't heard of NeoDVD...is it one of those that encodes MPEG on the fly, like PowerVCR? I had bad results with PowerVCR. I like to use VirtualVCR for capture (http://www.digtv.ws/).

Thanks again to everyone.

Dale

[Bob W]

No NeoDVD is just an authoring program that actually works unlike a lot of the others out there that seem to be full of bugs. I capture to a hardware PCI AVer capture card. Sadly there is no demo available for the program but they do offer a no questions asked 30 day refund if not satisfied.

[i_am_dave]

I've had a lot of luck using TMPGenc to generate 1/2 D1, but instead of using two-pass VBR, I use CQ instead with a quality of around 60, min bitrate of 500 and max bitrate of 6000.
I've been able to fit around 3-4 hours onto a DVD using this. However, there was not as much motion as would be present in a football game.

[phinsman]

Here's a dumb question about TMPGenc's CQ bitrate settings:

If the bitrate is constant (isn't that what CQ means, Constant Quality?), then why is there a MIN and MAX? Should they be set to the same value?

Dale

[VidGuy]

CQ is constant quality, not constant bitrate - i.e. the bitrate goes up and down trying to keep the quality constant so moving frames use more bits than nonmoving frames - that's why CQ encodes look so good. The downsize is that it's hard to be sure what the final size will be.

[FulciLives]

Hello

I haven't fooled around much with the so-called half D1 resolution of 352x480 on DVD but I often use Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 which does have this setting ... however it gives the following information:

MPEG files
24 Bits, 352 x 480, 29.97 fps
(DVD-NTSC)
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 2400 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

Does this mean that you shouldn't go over a Max bitrate of 2400 kbps if you want it to be 100% compliant?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 says that using that setting you can fit approximately 4 hours on a single DVD recordable.

[phinsman]

Oh.

That makes sense...I've had it all backwards...thanks!

Dale

[bugster]

Another tip is to do an inverse telecine and encode at 23.97fps with 3:2 pulldown, instead of the normal 29.97fps used for NTSC. This means the video will be played at 29.97fps by your DVD player but you only actually encode 23.97 and add flags telling it repeat enough fields to make up the difference. Any commercial DVD transferred from film will be encoded this way and the advantage is that you get an increase in the number of 'bits per pixel' or 'bit per frame' if you prefer. You are encoding 20% les frames so it is equivalent to a 20% increase in bitrate for free!

[Cornucopia]

Couple of important things:

*Football has lots of moments with low motion (huddle, timeouts, count before the snap) mixed with lots of moments with high motion (this part's obvious). USE VBR (2 pass)-you want to make the most of the quality and the most of the available size. Set your max high--6000 to 8000 kbps, your average to what the calc sez, and your min to 300/500/600 something.

*Unless you've got stereo music or "surround" stadium football FX going on, you can save a bunch of space by lowering the audio bitrate. Lower it from Stereo-192/224/384 to Mono-64/96/128. Then recalc (this will give more of the available space to the video, increasing quality). If you can do AC3 for compatibility, do so. Otherwise, use Mp2.

*DO NOT USE LPCM.---FulciLives:take note of that. LPCM will needlessly soak up the valuable available space so much so that you won't get to use a bitrate of higher than ~1300kbps for the 3.5 hour video. Make sure you can use a compressed stream--AC3 or MP2. And make sure you're using an authoring app that can accept these, without Re-Encoding.

*If this football stuff is standard broadcast/cable footage--DO NOT change the framerate to 23.976. Standard Analog or SDTV video sports footage uses regular video cameras which runs interlaced at 29.97fps (NTSC) or 25fps (PAL). This includes 90% of the games done from c.1972-c.1999. Before then, stuff may have been shot on 16mm film and telecined. Then, MAYBE, you might be able to IVTC to 23.976. But more than likely, the 16mm film cam would have been cranked to run at 30/25fps to make the telecine smoother and so would be of no help to you. If you try to use IVTC on stuff that was meant to be 29.97 interlaced, I promise, you will regret it. The motion will be forever screwed up!

*If you REEEAALLLY want to maximize your stuff and want to take the time to get it right--do what the studios do. Chop your program into sections (credits/intro/game/commercial/game/lockerroom/credits) and encode each video separately-giving highest bitrate/quality priority to the game, and least to the credits... Then join the segments back together (this works well only when you use closed GOPs). It'll be harder to calculate, but the results are worth it if you value the games' quality. Of course, leave audio alone as 1 contiguous stream, encoding only video.

And I agree, 1/2 D1 would be the way to go for a program of this length.

Let us know how it turns out...
Scott

[Cornucopia]

FulciLives:

That 2400 kbps setting is just what that preset gives. Going above or below is still DVD-compliant (1000 min - 9800kbps max).

BTW, they are totally wrong about the length. 4 hours on a DVD with LPCM audio will allow only an average bitrate of ~1000kbps (less than that of a VCD). If you keep LPCM audio and make video bitrate 2400kbps, you'll only get ~2 hours and 35 minutes on the disc. You can verify this with any good bitrate calc (like I did just now with this sites java calc).

Otherwise, that preset could be a good middle-of-the-road setting for episodic stuff. I'd still avoid LPCM though, unless you want to maintain that uncompressed pristine quality, or your program is very short (<1hr), or you don't have an authoring app that uses anything else.

Hope that didn't sound like I was trying to rag on you...

Scott

[ktnwin]

Hi Bob W,
you already know by now that I am a fan of neoDVD (Plus) too. The issue I have with neoDVD is the "better" and "good" modes. Since the bit rate drop quite low for better and really low for good at 720x480 frame sizes, I do not see good quality DVD with these two settings. I always use "best" which is about 6500kbps and get 90mins on one DVD-R.
I have to use other approach to get 3 hours on a single DVD-R. No, I am not trying to save the cost of the blank disc (one 1$ per disc). I just want to conveniently put say an entire 3 hour program (coming from 3 separate VHS tapes !!!) on a single DVD.

I truly wish neoDVD Plus to support
1) other valid DVD frame size (352x480), that would be a blessing for many many users like me (to archive VHS tapes)
2) automatically determine the max bit rate to fit the entire user video. Right now, there are only 3 choices. Only the "best" setting fits my taste.
3) more chapter points (not limited to 6)
I wrote to the company that make neoDVD and they told just keep watching new upgrades, but have no idea about what new features to expect.

[jtoolman2000]

Dude, if you want to do this ALL the time just get yourself one of those standalone DVD recorders like the Phillips ( which I have ) or the Panasonic. They have built in TV tuners which can accept a cable or satelite imput. You can put up to 4 hour of video recorded directly on the fly as you watch the game. I use my for everything. They have RCA, S-video, Composite video (RGB) and FireWire imputs.

[phinsman]

Cornucopia...thanks for all the info. I did a capture of a game I had on VHS, in EP format even, and it turned out great. I used CQ, with quality of 65, and max at 6000. I went through it and checked fast-action scenes, such as deep passes and punts, and there is zero blurring.

Great idea about splitting things up. I will do that if I keep all the extra stuff like commercials.

I'm using MPEG audio at 224. I'm not that big on audio for a game...anyway, my capture card (WinTV) is mono only.

jtoolman2000...A good point about the standalone recorder, but I can't keep spending money on this stuff (just got the Sony DVD burner), plus I really enjoy the versatility of the PC approach. It's just a pain to get it right at first.

Thanks to all...everything is great so far. I can't wait until the Fall for real games that I can capture right off the Satellite.

Very happy here. Dvdrhelp.com has come through again!

Dale

[ktnwin]

hi jtoolman2000,
I have tried the Panasonic E30S to put 2 hours on a single DVD, it looks good (but not excellent). At 3 hours per DVD , the quality does not fit my taste and when it comes to the MENU, I really dislike it.
The reason I go with the computer is I can encode to 352x480 (half D1), even at 4500kpbs the DVD looks excellent like the original tapes, I can also create my own menu.
The only advantage of the stand alone recorder is IT'S FAST and EASY TO USE. But it's no fun...

[thxkid]

ktwin - you must have been doing something wrong with the E30 cause my E20 at 2 hours looks perfect and will be better looking than 352x480 at 4500, for 2 reason 1st it will be 720x480 at 4000 to 5200 and have the HUGE advantage of a Time Base Corrector that none of the capture cards have, and a good TBC like panasonic has is a very big plus, specially when using inferior stuff like VHS or a low quality dishnet signal. The only way a capture card and copmuter source is even gonna out preform a panasonic is if you buy a $300-$500 TBC and put it inline.
I must say the menu's on a panasonic do suck, but I'll take suck menu's over better menu's from a computer, when the standalone can outpreform it in picture (stable) quality. The only time I use a capture card and computer is when I can capture full DVD and at least 5000, I try to do it most of time whan I can use 6500 or higher for my taste.
Plus I have compared the quality from my PVR capture card and my E20 when a VHS tape was involved and the E20 had much better and stable picture, I would have preferred to have used the capture but the quality was lacking from the E20 recording.

[borghe]

I love this forum. I have some old Duckula episodes on videotape that I have been wanting to encode. I didn't realize I have other options besides 720x480 at like 6Mbps... Reading this I will give Half-D1 a try at around 2.5Mbps. Does it sound like that should be at least comparable to the video tape they are stored on (recorded back around 1988) and at the same time give me around 227 minutes (just under 4 hours). If so I should be able to back up my entire video tape in excellent quality on 2 DVDs, 80's kids commercials and all.

[ktnwin]

hi thxkid,

I appreciate your comments. FYI, I always capture analog video via my Dig8 camcorder in pass thru mode and therefore never had any capturing issue at all. I got the feeling that the Dig8 camcorder must do some kind of filtering to preserve (if not improving) the capture quality.

I do have a DVD disc (2 hours) recorded on the Pan-E30, and the same movie on a DVD disc made with capturing/encoding/authoring (352x480, 4700 kbps), to my eyes on the 65" HDTV wide screen, the second disc looks much cleaner, the first one is grainy in a lot of scenes.
As far as the recording mode on the E-30, I selected SP recording mode which is 2 hour per DVD and I guess there is nothing else to setup. My guess is in SP mode, the E30 recordeding is done at 720x480, bitrate around 4500 kbps. Correct me if I am wrong.