What's the best setting for miniDV -> DVD?

[jaeshin]

Hi! What is the best setting for making DVD from DV home movie?

I've been trying to transfer DV home movies of son to DVDs but I am confused with many variables.

1) What's the difference between "variable" and "constant" video data rate? "Constant" data rate of course requires a lot more disk space but is it worth it?

2) Talking about data rate... what's the best setting for regular home movie? Videofactory and DVD workshop tell 8000 best, 6000 good, and 4000 fair. Do I need to go with 8000 in order to make it as good as commercial DVDs? 8000 only puts an hour of video on a DVD when 6000 puts 90 minutes.

3) What's that quality bar in Videofactory setting? It was set for 70 but when I changed it 100, the file size remained the same? What is it?

4) Is DVD format as good as DV? I tried to make a short DVD from one of my DV movies but it wasn't as good as the original. (I think with Videofactory with 6000 data rate...) In fact, it was far worse than commercial DVD movies. So is that what I should expect or am I missing something here?

5) Let's go to audio setting. What's the best setting for audio for a home movie? LPCM, MPEG, frequency???

6) Oh... last one. How long does it take to convert 1:30 of DV to MPEG2 for DVD? This afternoon, I tried to use DVD workshop to convert one and it took almost 8-9 hours. Unfortunately the movie was too long to fit in one DVD. Generally speaking?

Your answers will be much appreciated. By the way, if you can email me, it will be super! jaeshin@msn.com

Thank you!!!

[Neishaverse]

your looking for too many answers all at once.
All of your questions are answered in the left green bar of this page.
get a bunch of RW discs and do lots of tests.

Wasting huge amounts of time getting things right is something everyone who comes here has done. Enjoy the adventure, and if read whats on this web page, you will be a pro.

[bugster]

Lets "Try" and answer your questions one by one, but first I would agree with Neishaverse, you need to do lots of reading and experimenting to get the 'best' results. And remember, quality is very subjective, whats 'best' for you may not be 'best' to someone else.

1) It's what it says on the tin! To be more exact, an mpeg is made up of GOP's (Groups of pictures) which contain 3 different kinds of frame with varying compression methods. Constant Bitrate means each GOP will get the same number of bits allocated to it as all the others. Variable bitrate allows this to vary throughout the movie. This allows the encoder to allocate more data to the 'difficult' to encode scenes where there is lots of movement, and less data to the easier to encode scenes with little movement. Generally a VBR encode should be higher quality than a CBR encode, assuming the average bitrate of the VBR is the same as rthe CBR value used.

2) Home movies are notoriously difficult to encode. This is because handheld cameras frequently used for this purpose means camera shake, which in turn means movement, which eats up bitrate. Use a high(ish) bitrate. Personally I use TmpGenc to encode home DV movies, 2-pass VBR with an average af about 5500 and max 9000. The qulaity is mostly pretty good.

3) Dunno, sorry.

4) 1st, see my answers to 1 and 2. Secondly, is the encoder in Moviefactory any good? The encoder used can have a lot of impact on the final quality. As I said, I personally use TmpGenc and many others love Cinema Craft encoder (CCE). Built in encoders areareley as fgood or as flexible as standalone ones but they do seem to be improving.

5) If you are targetting DVD, use 48Khz sample rate when recording. This is required for DVD so try to avoid resampling. If your DV cam can't do 48khz, the closer the better (44.1khz). As for LPCM Vs mp2. Quality shouldn't vary much between these but mp2 is not caompatible with many US (or NTSC) DVD players. Pal players should be ok. The main drawback with LPCM is that it is uncompressed and so takes up loads of disk space. This reduces the space available for video and so forces you to use a lower bitrate or put less video on each disk.

6) How long is a piece of string? This depends on your CPU, the encoder used, the source material format and probably lots of other thinsg.


Hope this helps.

[suerpflysocal]

for beginners, try mainconcept encoder.

you can download demo, all it adds is a small watermark on the corner but all other functions are the same as retail.

it is a standalone decoder much faster than tmpeg.

also, remember to play with software dvd player to test, not windows media player!! else, you will think you did something wrong.
you may also experience jagged edges on the computer which is not seen on your tv once burned.