Need tips - DV footage to DVD

[roushb]

I'm getting started converting my DV footage from my camcorder to DVDs. So far, I've been met with less than adequate quality in the end. I've tried using Ulead VideoStudio6 as well as Sonic My DVD (came packaged w/ Sony DVD burner), and ArcSoft Showbiz 2. I need help selecting the right software and settings to get the job done. I have trouble believing it's my hardware (see specs below), so it must be user error or wrong software/methods.

Essentially, the footage has lots of motion artifacts, and generally just isn't very sharp - it looks barely as good or even worse than just playing the footage from the camcorder hookep up to the tv using a composite video cable.

I'm not sure where I could be introducing the quality degredation. I'm capturing via firewire to AVI, and selecting all the highest quality settings when encoding, but it still comes out looking like crap.

I've read as much as possible but just get more confused. Here's my current list of questions:

Should it make a difference what CODEC is used when transferring DV to AVI using firewire?

Does it make a difference what program does the capture? IE will scenalyzer capture with better quality than Ulead, Sonic, etc?

If I encode with something like TMPGenc, then author and burn with another application (showbiz, sonic, etc) will I lose any quality?

What have you used to do these same things? I'm trying to keep cost for software <$100.

My hardware (if this helps):
Sony DCR-TRV27 mini-dv camcorder
HP m300y media center pc
P4 2.4GHz HT, 800Mhz fsb, 512k PC3200 RAM
200GB 7200 8MB cache
HP DVD+R burner

[redwudz]

Basically, the codec is in the camera. DV is AVI. The codec in the computer is for playback. The program for transfer doesn't really make any differnence, it's just a data transfer. If the quality of your DV is OK, the quality of your MPG is mostly dependent on the encoder. TMPGEnc is one of the better encoders. You can get a trial version of this software. You can author with TMPGEnc Author or there are freeware programs to do this. There is a lot more to the process, but there are good guides here on this site. Try encoding short pieces of DV, say 5 minutes and burning to DVD-RW to work on finding the best quality settings.

[roushb]

One of the things I'm confused about is the DV codecs that some programs allow you to select. For example, in Ulead, you can select MS-DV, No Compression, AVI1, AVI2, etc.

In the tools section of this site, there's also links to the Canopus, HuffyUV, etc.

Why are all these codecs available if it doesn't make a difference which one you capture with?

[Holden]

Forget about Arcsoft Showbiz and Sonic MyDVD. Arcsoft Showbiz does a poor job of encoding the AVI/DV file to MPEG2 and there's no setting to fix it. Sonic MyDVD is easy to use, but will transcode your MPEG files every time you author a DVD and decrease quality. Plus it is fairly limited (e.g. You can't move an item from one menu to another.)

I had both of these and ended up being very happy with the following chain of software:

- WinDV to capture.
- TMPGEnc to encode to MPEG2.
- DVDLab to author the DVD.
- ImageTool Classic v0.90b to create an ISO Image file. (DVD-R only. DVDLab burns directly to DVD-RW successfully, but creates coasters trying to do DVD-Rs on my PC).
- DVD Decrypter to burn the image to DVD.

TMPGEnc and DVDLab are the only one's you have to pay for, and both have a 30 day free trial period.

Greg

[adam]

The codec you capture with can make a difference. Yes the codecs are used for playback but more specifically they are used for decoding, which is done both during playback as well as prior to encoding.

The reason it can make a difference is because different codecs do different things to your source. Many apply light noise reduction, and compress your luminence ranges. Does your encoded output look darker than when you play the footage directly off the camcorder? If so, this is something you need to address. If you do some google searches on the codec you use then you can find out what codecs do what to your source. There is also a very good DV->DVD faq on doom9's DV forum which talks about the different nuances of DV codecs and gives some overall good advice.

If you want good quality DV than there are three things that you MUST do.

1) use a tripod. The little jerks that you get wreak havoc on mpeg based encoding. Regardless of what bitrate you use, if your footage is jerky then you will probably never get it to look as good the source if you are encoding to mpg.

2) Either make sure your shooting is very well lit, or get familiar with using noise reduction filters. As soon as your surroundings get the slightest bit dark, DV captures turn very grainy. It looks like the pixels are jumping around and this is very noticable after you encode to mpg. Slight noise reduction blends these together making a much cleaner, though slightly softer, image.

3) As others suggested, you need to use a high quality standalone mpg encoder. Most of the capture + encode all in one suites don't do a very good job. TMPGenc does a fairly good job with DV. CCE is probably not quite as good, and in my opinion Procoder is the absolute best encoder for pure interlaced sources such as DV.

[roushb]

Thank you for the tips - this is the type of info I'm looking for. My footage does turn significantly darker in the process. At first I just thought I had the LCD screen brightness turned up too high, but even after reducing it and previewing the footage using the tv-out function on my pc, the resulting dvd turned out much darker. I'll take a look at the forums for more info on codecs.

I guess I'm going to end up doing a series of comparison tests for capturing using different codecs, then using various software to burn the files.

Has anyone performed capturing tests using the various codecs?

It seems safe to say that tmpgenc is the best tool for the cost with respect to encoding.

Is there other software that allows authoring without reencoding other than DVDLab and TMPEG Author(I'm assuming). I'd like something that would give me a GUI to build menus, etc, and that is inexpensive. (This is a hobby, not a profession, but I do want good results).

[jgandara]

This is the steps you must follow (I do this, and anybody can do something different, but you can get the idea):
+ Capture. Usually is DV-Avi video. DV has 2 type 1 and 2. Type 2 is more compatible, type one is an old format. It's same encoding quality, but the audio is saved separately in type 2. Use type 2 if you can
+ Editing. Keep DV avi. Type 2 if you can. You can use virtualdub. Just remember to close all programs that you can when capturing to avoid lost frames. You can try different codecs, but remember that what you see in the PC sometimes is not what you get in TV
+ Encoding. Use tmpgenc, there are a few setting for highest quality, Usually higher bittrate gives better quality. There is a guide in doom9 for high quality video.
+ Author. After the video is encoded to mpeg2, create menus, chapters and titles
+ Burn. You can use your DVD author program or use other like Nero. I don't think it makes a big difference in using another program, if you can do it in your authoring software

[yodel]

I have good results using:

WinDV for capturing,
Open AVI in Studio8 (encodes better than TmpgEnc. according tests, only
CCE basic encodes better, but i like what i can edit/do in Studio8)
In Studio8 i set the video bitrate at a high(er) rate,
Use the function "make MPEG file"
I use this result to author in DVDLab or TmpgEnc DVD Autor,
if the end-result is too big i use DVD2one to make it fit,
I check with IfoEdit if it all works and burn it with Nero to DVD.