Must a group of movies for a DVD all have the same setting

[johnharlin]

If you are making a series of short movies for one standalone DVD, must they all be in exactly the same DVD Setting format. The reason is because some of the movies come in different quality settings. Some are mpeg 1 and some are mpeg 2.

Do I need to take the least common denominator and downgrade some of the movies so they are all the same? Or if I uprender from mpeg 1 to mpeg 2 will that make the mpeg 1 higher quality or will it never get any better than the original?

One film that I uprendered from mpeg 1 320 x 240 to DVD 720 by 480 did seem to have a finer smoother texture about it than the mpeg 1 320 x 240 viewed at full screen. Does the quality get any better when you render higher to the DVD format?

[ZippyP.]

Most decent authoring packages should let you put each movie as a different track even though they have different characteristics. TMPGEnc DVD Author for instance.

Upsizing a low res video is usually discouraged as it causes a quality loss due to re-encoding and gains nothing.

[guns1inger]

Quality wont improve simply because you increased from VCD to half-D1, however some players may play the higher res better, which might cause a perception of better quality. There is quite a good filter for virtualdub that can remove some of the VCD blockiness - http://www.compression.ru/video/deblocking/index_en.html

As to the mix and match question, it breaks down like this. The titles within a single titleset (VTS) must be of the same aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9, but not both), must have the same audio format (MP2 or AC3 or LPCM) in the first audio track. I'm not sure about mixing mpeg-1 and mpeg-2, but you can have different resolutions.

[lordsmurf]

In the same VTS, yes.
You need multi-VTS authoring software.
Ulead DVD Workshop 2, Sonic ReelDVD, DVD-Lab Pro, TMPG DVD Author

[johnharlin]

guns1inger,

I have a problem with your audio standards in that some movies will only allow me to encode in Layer Two while others will only allow LPCM. Is that OK? Or do I need to somehow convert all the Layer two ones to LPCM?

[funkguy4]

guns1inger,

I have a problem with your audio standards in that some movies will only allow me to encode in Layer Two while others will only allow LPCM. Is that OK? Or do I need to somehow convert all the Layer two ones to LPCM?

if you're in PAL land, then no

else, i'd recommend converting to AC3 instead of LPCM (LPCM is uncompressed = lotta space requirement)

[guns1inger]

I'd convert all the LPCM audio to MPeg1-Layer 2 to save space.

The audio restriction is only for titles within the same VTS, and the menu if it is not in a seperate VMG. Some players wont care, but many will play the menu audio, the not play the title audio if they are different in a single VTS structure.

Using something like Tmpgenc DVD Author or DVD Lab Pro to create multi-VTS structures will remove this restriction.

[solarfox]

funkguy4 -- actually, even here in NTSC-land, I have yet to encounter a DVD player that won't handle MPEG Layer-2 audio.

[funkguy4]

funkguy4 -- actually, even here in NTSC-land, I have yet to encounter a DVD player that won't handle MPEG Layer-2 audio.

i hear yah, and same here. but i was just sayin' it like that for the sake of keeping to the standards. also, ac3 is better