WinPVR 150 to DVD. For best quality?

[EAO]

With apologies if posted in the wrong forum. I had trouble deciding where to put this since it involves capping, shrinking, and editing. Please move it if you think it best.

I picked up a WINPVR 150 to stop transcoding.

I capture from TV to put on DVD.

I'm currently using 4800 to 8000 vbr and 256 audio to get 2 hours of unedited MPEG2 - works out to about 4.3GB depending on action - onto one DVD.

Is there a better way to the improve the final DVD product?

FWIW. When I cap a smaller file at CBR 13000 (looks beautiful), it imports into DVD Author AND the DVD plays fine on my Panasonic DVD player. But I was concerned that these out of compliant DVD's would not play on everyones player if I lent one out. If it wasn't an issue I would cap this large, author and then shrink the file using DVD Shrink... assuming the quality was better than the current settings I'm using now.

How to you get the best DVD quality end result with this kind of card?

[Matt D]

IMO, TV captures don't even need 8000kbps and 13000 is surely overkill. The source just doesn't need that kind of bitrate even if it's satellite.
Also, capping huge and shrinking is a bad idea even if it were compliant. DVD Shrink is not some magic tool, it causes quality loss, and it's better to capture to the right size in the first place.

[EAO]

-deleted-

Since I use VBR I'm not certain what I am seeing at any given moment, but i can tell the difference between 4800 and 8000.

Is there a better way to improve DVD quality?

[tipstir]

I got the same card, did you tweak the sharpness yet?

[lordsmurf]

Most video is low resolution, and will appear "softer" on the monitor, but not the tv.

Do not alter "sharpness" too much.

[EAO]

I haven't felt the need to tweak the sharpness. It looks good to my eyes on TV.

For instance on Standard Long Play after quick editing an hour of TV with DVD author I have 45 minutes of video totaling 1.7 gig. I would prefer to know what optimal settings would take up 2.1 or 2.2gig and perhaps produce better image quality.

I'd like to know what methods others are using to cap, edit and burn to DVD so I can optimise the currently available settings

And can anyone explain to me what may happen if I set up an out of compliant DVD setting of say 4800 to 13000 with 256 audio? Can it ruin some DVD players? Or will it just not play? My DVD player will play it, so I want to know if I'm damaging it.

Does anyone use the sharpness trick? What setting did you settle on?

[tipstir]

Doing the Sharpness Trick with the PVR 150 is the way to go. Hauppauge! WinTV PVR250/350 is set to the default of 0, and the Max is 7. Once you put it on 7 there's a big difference on both PC Monitor and HTTV (Home Theater TV).

The output picture is not fuzzy or grainy; it's a sharp smooth richer output! Looks like a high end TV/Monitor display.

I use GB-PVR, also tried Beyond TV 3.5x both do the same thing with EPG (electronic program guide information) overlays, but the GB-PVR has a network server for and works with my other Hauppauge! Product the Media MVP 1000 (2) I can watch, record, rew/ff/pause/change channels/skip to and skip-back to LIVE TV buffered my PC to MVP 1000 from WinTV PVR-150 and more!

[SHS]

Stand alone DVD Play can only take MAX CBR or VBR 9800
Our PC Soft DVD player can take any

[Matt D]

As far as I know, you will not damage your player doing this, but some players will refuse to play such a disc. I would also point out that just because you set the max bitrate to 13000 doesn't mean that it actually gets that high. Maybe that's why your player plays the disc you tried.

[EAO]

When I pulled it into DVD Author, it protested being out of compliance so I had to be over standard levels.

At any rate I don't see a reason to try to cap at 13000, if most people think that reducing using Shrink is not as good as capping within the bitrate the media allows.

I'll try the sharpness trick but as long as my source is good, the cap is looking good at the 4800 to 8000 settings.

[tipstir]

Which DVD Authoring program are you using? Sounds like TMPGENC DVD Author that's one acts up and the one from ULEAD DVD Author Workshop can take anything you open to it.

[EAO]

Sorry about not being clear. TMPGenc DVD Author protested about the bitrate, but it took it and burned perfectly.

[MacFast]

Tipstir,

Could you please detail the PVR-150 "sharpness trick" you are using. I've used the registry changes recommended on Cask of Amontillado, and also the graphedit fixes recommended elsewhere. Neither has any effect on the sharpness.

On the other hand I'm not having the audio problems described elsewhere.

I got the card recently. Maybe Hauppauge fixed the audio issue and in the process disabled the sharpness tweak?

[BSR]

MacFast,
Your not alone, I've tried the sharpness/audio/blur tricks also and did not notice any change.
Got my board about 1 month ago and also do not have distortion in my audio.

Hopefully with the new driver Hauppauge is suppose to release within the next few weeks, they will give users the tools to change some of these settings, like a real time software capture encoder does(i.e. Mainconcept)