Ultimate TMPGEnc settings?

[I J Walton]

Help, can someone please give me settings to achieve the best quality DVD results with TMPGEnc. I have a 33 min film and have tried encoding using, what are supposed to be the best settings (in the tutorials), and moving parts of the finished thing were all blocky and smeary looking, I was very dissapointed because i have heared so much praise for this program.

Can someone please help, thanks.

[Treebeard]

Well what is the source like? tmpgenc wont make the film look better than it already is.

[CubDukat]

As the previous post said, a lot is dependent on the quality of the source.

Apart from that, however, you might want to take a look at what your motion estimation settings are. They should never be any lower than Normal is you have fast motion, and preferrably Very Slow for the best quality.

Also, what format are you encoding to--VCD, SVCD or DVD? If you're using VCD, it's almost impossible to get a blockless encode. SVCD is trickier, and it would all be in the bitrate. DVD is much easier, and I think you could drop to around 4.0 MBits and keep a decent picture if the source is excellent.

So, again, take a look at the source material.

[I J Walton]

Thanks for the reply's. The source footage is DV avi from a very good MiniDV camcorder, the picture quality is exelent. Here is the setting i have tried for the VBR (it was reccomended by a tutorial):

Average bitrate: 6000

Maximum bitrate: 8000

Minimum bitrate: 2000

2 pass

Are these really the best settings or can you reccomend others for better looking results?

Oh yeah, my final audio is Dolby Digital, I don't know if this will allow for a higher bitrare of not?

[Shannafey]

If it's only 33 Min., why not just make an mpeg with a CBR of 8000. Some might think it wasteful, but it will consistantly be a high bitrate throughout, and you can get an hour on one dvd with a bitrate of 8000.

[lordsmurf]

If it's only 33 Min., why not just make an mpeg with a CBR of 8000. Some might think it wasteful, but it will consistantly be a high bitrate throughout, and you can get an hour on one dvd with a bitrate of 8000.

I'd even jump to 9800 for a shortie

[vettesea]

LordSmurf

I am assuming that by bumping it up to 9800 you would require the sound to be included in the original avi format and not a separate file. Would picture quality be improved further in this scenario if they were separated prior to encoding.

[lordsmurf]

LordSmurf

I am assuming that by bumping it up to 9800 you would require the sound to be included in the original avi format and not a separate file. Would picture quality be improved further in this scenario if they were separated prior to encoding.

It'll support 10080k total (10.08 a/v max for DVD, 9.8 video max)