How do you lower bitrate but maintain quality?

[zanos]

Everytime I greatly reduce the bitrates of my dvd mpegs to 2200-2300 kbps I get bad pixelation problems during scenes with movement. I just use tmpgenc express 4 and nothing else. What exactly am I doing wrong? What other programs should I use? Reducing resolution down to 352x480 helps a little but is hardly a solution.

[jagabo]

How do you lower bitrate but maintain quality?

You don't. Not unless you use a codec that can compress better than MPEG2 -- like h.264.

[guns1inger]

Everytime I greatly reduce the bitrates of my dvd mpegs to 2200-2300 kbps I get bad pixelation problems during scenes with movement. I just use tmpgenc express 4 and nothing else. What exactly am I doing wrong? What other programs should I use? Reducing resolution down to 352x480 helps a little but is hardly a solution.

Actually, that is the solution. If you want to maintain quality and DVD compliance then you have to use higher bitrates and keep your running time to around 120 minutes or less. Anything after that is a compromise. You can reduce the bitrate, maintain resolution and lose quality quickly, or reduce bitrate, reduce resolution, and get a softer image with less artifacts.

Otherwise, as was pointed out, you have to look at a non-DVD codec such as Divx or H264. Divx will give you high quality at bitrates of around 1500 - 1800 and will be playable on most Divx compatible DVD players.

[lordsmurf]

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/intro.htm#mpegbitrate

[PuzZLeR]

Ever try CCE? The Basic version is only $60 and worth every penny even if it was priced like the professional version, which is $2000.

It gives you incredible MPEG-2 encodes at lower bitrates (without having to resort to non-DvD codecs).

However, achieving excellent quality at 2200-2300kbps with MPEG-2 isn't possible for all sources but CCE is your best shot IMO (over TMPGEnc).

I would recommend you use quality based encoding to get the minimum possible bitrate for good quality.

Good settings for high quality DvD video at low bitrates in one pass:
-1-pass VBR
-enable "for DvD"
-In "Quantization factor and Bitrate" select
Q=35, Min=1500, Max=8000 (or you can experiment with Max=7500 and lower)

You will get even smaller files (at a similar level of quality) if you use AviSynth with proper deinterlacing and some noise reducers, as well as MSU filters for Smart DeBlocking.

[PuzZLeR]

EDIT: Deleted my post here. Disregard.

[Starkian]

Don't forget that mpeg2 can be decoded more easily than mpeg4 and every player that handle mpeg2 shouldn't have any problem with it but with mpeg4, output can vary a lot from players (really like night and day!)

I don't know if it was during an update but some of my mpeg4 videos that looks blocky in VLC, now looks nice after a re-install to latest version.

Color will also vary in different players , in quicktime colors are more fade but i never had a blocky problem in quicktime.

Quality is subjective !

Personally , I often pass my mpeg2 through a serie of filters in Ulead that sharpen my videos (sharpen filter in Ulead goes to 1 to 5 , i can go up to 2-3 ! ) before sending them to Megui.

It's sure that a more sharpen video will need more bitrate but that's the way i like it!

[AlanHK]

Everytime I greatly reduce the bitrates of my dvd mpegs to 2200-2300 kbps I get bad pixelation problems during scenes with movement. I just use tmpgenc express 4 and nothing else. What exactly am I doing wrong? What other programs should I use? Reducing resolution down to 352x480 helps a little but is hardly a solution.

I use HCEnc. I've gone down to 1600 kb/s at full size (720x480 or 576) without noticeable pixellation, though it's not as sharp as higher rates.
It has to be something special before I'll use a rate over 2500.

Otherwise, you can reduce the detail a bit by smoothing the image, e.g. applying a little blur, before encoding. (I assume you're using Avisynth; you have to for HCEnc anyway.)

-- This is for standard drama TV shows and movies. If you're doing something like sport, lots of sweeping pans and fast movement, you really do need a higher rate to do it justice.