I've been searching this site and the net learning how to convert videos to NTSC MPEG-2 properly. I have several applications and currently using for my projects:
TMPGEnc Xpress 4.7.3.292 (to encode using Nvidia CUDA)
Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5 (to author)
1) I noticed that the default output settings are determined by the souce file. Sometimes the output is Interlaced and in other times 3:2 pulldown. The outcome always show 59.94fps (which I believe is the right output).
Question: Does it matter whether I set the video output to Progressive, Interlaced or 3:2 pulldown? What is the better setting for a NTSC DVD?
2) For the audio I have the choice of Linear PCM, Dolby Digital and MPEG-1 Audio Layer II. If I do a non-standard setting MPEG-1 Audio Layer III is available. Sony DVD Architect only recognizes the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II. If I choose to encode the audio to Linear PCM or Dolby Digital the video loads but not the audio.
Question: Is the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II good or can you recommend a better option?
Question: When I load audio CDs or DVD videos with 2.0 audio they play correctly. Why is it when I encode the audio for 2.0 playback my DVD player still uses the center channel? Is there a way to tell the DVD player to play it as 2.0? (by method of encoding)
My questions are a bit long-winded. Suggestions are appreciated.
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Originally Posted by Quamatek
Question: Does it matter whether I set the video output to Progressive, Interlaced or 3:2 pulldown? What is the better setting for a NTSC DVD?
Question: Is the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II good or can you recommend a better option?
When I load audio CDs or DVD videos with 2.0 audio they play correctly. Why is it when I encode the audio for 2.0 playback my DVD player still uses the center channel? Is there a way to tell the DVD player to play it as 2.0? (by method of encoding) -
Thank you manono for the reply.
Sorry I did not specify the FPS. I did mean Fields per second.
TMPGEnc Xpress is so far setting the outputs correctly by default I believe. If the source is Progressive 29.97fps do I set the output as Interlaced?
Sony DVD Architect Studio supports AC3 format. I'd like to go with that format. In TMPGEnc Xpress, one of the audio output options is Dolby Digital. Would that be considered AC3? I'm asking because Sony DVD Architect Studio supports the AC3 extension but it doesn't recognize the audio encoded in Dolby Digital. It looks as if I need to load the video and audio separately. For instance, encode the video using TMPGEnc Xpress and extract the audio to AC3.
When I play the DVDs the left and right speakers are playing along with the center channel. However, the center channel seems to be the dominant speaker, as if the audio was encoded to 5.1. The thing is when I encode it says Stereo 2.0. I can always set the receiver to Stereo mode but that's a hassle. I'd like the DVD player to automatically recognize the DVD as 2.0. Is that possible?
Thank you again for the help. -
Update:
DVD Architect Studio Supported Formats
Video: .avi,** .mov,* .mp4,** .mpeg,** .mpg,** .qt,* .wmv**
Audio: .aa3, .ac3, .aif, .ogg, .oma, .sfa, .vox, .w64, .wma
I didn't know TMPGEnc Xpress could output separate files (m2v + ac3). It's part of the ES mode. The upside is now I can use AC3 audio. The downside is that Sony DVD Architect Studio doesn't support m2v format. So for now I'll load the AC3 file and the MPEG-2 video format into Sony DVD Architect. It looks like I'll have to encode twice now (one for video and one for audio).
:P -
Originally Posted by Quamatek
In TMPGEnc Xpress, one of the audio output options is Dolby Digital. Would that be considered AC3?
When I play the DVDs the left and right speakers are playing along with the center channel.
If DVD Architect doesn't accept M2V as a source for authoring, make darned sure that it doesn't go ahead and reencode DVD compliant video. That sounds very strange to me, an authoring app not accepting an elementary video stream. -
Hello,
If the source is Progressive 29.97fps do I set the output as Interlaced?
Interlaced video is made out of a set of 2 sets of horizontal lines
The first set is the odd number of lines and the second one is the even number of lines.
Imagine a picture and you slice it horizontally with a knife.
Lets say that you end up with 10 pieces of the picture.
Now if you take the pieces 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. That would be the first group.
Pieces 2, 4, 6 ,8 10 would be the second group.
When a normal TV (not HD) just regular TV is showing you the videos,
The internal tube shows you for every frame, first the first group of slices and then the second.
But it's so fast the we can't notice.
But if you are playing from a VCR and you press pause,
you wil notice and you will see the jagged edges of the slices.
That's interlaced video.
Progressive is like still pictures, there's no slices, no flickering.
If you pause a progressive video playing on a Progressive capable TV, it will look as just one frame.
Progressive means no interlace, it means each frame is not made up of two sets of slices,
also known as fields.
So if you convert an interlaced video to a Progressive one, it will grab the two slices (or fields) and make
one frame out of it.
It will look more smooth, especially if you play it in a computer.
In TMPGEnc Xpress, one of the audio output options is Dolby Digital. Would that be considered AC3?
The main advantage with AC3 is that it uses a whole lot "less" space than WAV.
MPG audio also doesn't take as much space as WAV.
So, let's imagine that you have a 2 hour video that you want to convert to DVD format.
if you use WAV audio, your maximum bitrate left for the video would probably be les than
4MB/s, so it would look like crap.
So normally I never use WAV.
AC3 can be played even with super old DVD players,
MPG audio can be played with any player this days.
I hope this helps you.
Regards -
Latest update: :P *Posted before I saw last_registered_user post. Will reply...
1) I'll address the audio first. I did a bit of experimenting and it turns out the DVD Player (A/V receiver) was playing Dolby Digital 2.0 as 5.1 due to two things: The way I was encoding the audio and my A/V receiver settings. It turns out that I had set Analog/PCM and Dolby Digital (2.0) to play as Pro Logic II. By doing so it turns my 2.0 audio tracks to surround sound.
I have commercial DVDs that are coded in Dolby Digital 2.0 and play in Pro Logic II. I didn't want to change that setting. I noticed that most of my commercial music video DVDs were encoded in PCM full stereo. So I changed the A/V receiver setting to play Analog/PCM audio as stereo. With TMPGEnc Xpress I encoded an audio track to PCM stereo and it worked! The DVD player read it as PCM full stereo!
2) Video encoding still baffles me. I have a few source videos that are Progressive 23.976fps. When I encoded them to 3:2 pulldown Sony DVD Architect Studio read as a non-compliant DVD video in 24fps. I decided to encode these videos in Interlaced and not only did the videos played smoothly, Sony DVD Architect Studio read them as compliant DVD videos and didn't need recompressing. I'll provide some screenshots to show the settings and results:
Source file shown (Progressive 23.976fps):
Video settings #1 in TMPGEnc Xpress:
Results for #1 in Sony DVD Architect Studio:
---------------------------
Video settings #2 in TMPGEnc Xpress:
Results for #2 in Sony DVD Architect Studio:
---------------------------
Results: Settings #1 non-compliant and Settings #2 compliant.
I'm wondering why Sony DVD Architect Studio showed the encoded Interlaced videos as compliant (without the need for recompression) while encoded videos in 3:2 pulldown showed as non-compliant 24fps? Should I stick with the Interlaced settings?
*Source files of Progressive 23.976, Progressive 29.97 and Progressive 59.94 are responding to Interlaced encoding.
Video editing is fun and confusing at the same time. -
Oops! I didn't see your post, last_registered_user. Please allow me to read it and I'll address it. Sorry about that.
A few minutes later...
Thank you for the explanation between Progressive and Interlaced. That made sense.
I'll need to experiment more between Progressive and Interlaced. I'm trying to figure out why the Interlaced encoded videos were compliant while the 3:2 pulldown weren't. I'll try to encode them in Progressive and see if it makes a difference.
As for the audio I'm able to encode in either Dolby Digital AC3 or PCM and they have been compliant in the latest tests without the need for recompression when I author the videos to DVD. I'm quite relieved!
-------------------------
I saw this thread: Best way to get 29.97fps progressive video onto NTSC DVD. Posting it here for reference.
--------------------------
Update again!
I encoded the source above (Progressive 23.976 fps) to Progressive 29.97 fps and the video is DVD compliant. Looks good too. I'm trying to compare between the Interlaced and Progressive videos. Both look good.
I understand there is a right way and a wrong way to encode the files. I'm trying to make sense of it all. -
Originally Posted by last_registered_user
So if you convert an interlaced video to a Progressive one, it will grab the two slices (or fields) and make
one frame out of it.
It will look more smooth, especially if you play it in a computer.
Quamatek, you want the settings from that 23.976 fps (internally 29.97) picture, but I have no idea why your authoring app doesn't like it. Like I said, I don't use either one. You might open the resulting M2V in Muxman and see if it's rejected or not. It will accept only DVD compliant video. Unless you need menus, you might let it author the entire thing. You don't want to encode it at 29.97fps, either as interlaced or as progressive.
As for your progressive 23.976fps source encoded as progressive 29.97fps, just open it in a player that can pause and advance a frame at a time. You'll notice duplicate frames every 5th frame, which will make for choppy playback, especially during certain kinds of movement. -
Originally Posted by manono
Originally Posted by manono
However, when I clicked to optimize the project it showed as non-compliant:
Even with the error I went ahead and authored the video. I loaded it into PowerDVD and it played quite well. There were no duplicated frames.
----------------------------
My settings for one of the projects using a bitrate calculator:
---------------------------
Questions (What do I encode these videos as?):
1. Progressive 23.976 fps --> 3:2 pulldown 23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)
2. Progressive 59.94 -->
3. Progressive 29.97 --> Progressive or Interlaced
Do I have #1 and #3 correct? What about #2?
4. Is my understanding correct that the maximum bitrate of a compliant DVD is 9800? Is that why when I encode PCM audio 1536 kb/s that the max video bitrate must be set at 8000? -
In addition to the questions in my last post :P ...
5. In my last post for the #2 question (source Progressive 59.94), TMPGEnc Xpress default encode setting is Interlaced 29.97. Is that correct?
6. If I'm able to encode using the bitrate of 8000 should I use CBR? Or should I go ahead and use VBR average bitrate and set the maximum to 8000 with a low and average bitrates? I read somewhere that macroblocking can occur using CBR.
I found these links below and they were helpful:
Bitrate Calculator #1 --- Bitrate & GOP calculator #2
How to calculate bitrates for DVD production
High-quality MPEG-2 Conversion
About Deinterlacing
AVI 2 DVD
CBR vs VBR -
Even with the error I went ahead and authored the video. I loaded it into PowerDVD and it played quite well. There were no duplicated frames.
I'm wondering why Sony DVD Architect Studio showed the encoded Interlaced videos as compliant (without the need for recompression) while encoded videos in 3:2 pulldown showed as non-compliant 24fps?
Do I have #1 and #3 correct? What about #2?
These things are done using AviSynth scripts. Since that hasn't come up so far, I'll assume you know nothing about it yet. I have no idea whether or not TMPGEnc can do what has to be done. I feed AviSynth scripts into CCE. There are probably some all-in-one programs out there that can do these things (XviD4PSP or AviDemux?), but I don't use any of them. If you're going to become a serious video encoding enthusiast, it's in your best interests to learn AviSynth.
4. Is my understanding correct that the maximum bitrate of a compliant DVD is 9800? Is that why when I encode PCM audio 1536 kb/s that the max video bitrate must be set at 8000?
5. In my last post for the #2 question (source Progressive 59.94), TMPGEnc Xpress default encode setting is Interlaced 29.97. Is that correct?
6. If I'm able to encode using the bitrate of 8000 should I use CBR? Or should I go ahead and use VBR average bitrate and set the maximum to 8000 with a low and average bitrates? I read somewhere that macroblocking can occur using CBR. -
Thank you again for helping me.
Originally Posted by manono
I'm looking into TMPGEnc Authoring Works. From what I've read it has a smart engine that'll disable re-encode if the video/audio are DVD compliant (Click here to see demo). Since I use TMPGEnc Xpress anyway, the two programs should compliment each other.
Is there an authoring program with a good set of menu options, pay or freeware, that you can recommend? One that can accept video elementary streams too.
Originally Posted by manono
Originally Posted by manono
Originally Posted by manono
Originally Posted by manono -
Originally Posted by Quamatek
As of now one of the projects have over 1 gb of headroom so I do have the option of setting the bitrate at the highest quallity at 9800. I haven't tested it against a bitrate of 8000 max. -
TMPGEnc Xpress has a setting where it'll max the bitrate to 8000 when PCM audio is used to meet DVD compliance. The setting can be unlocked if need to be. It also has padding for the minimum and maximum settings in case of peaks.
Originally Posted by manono
As for DVDlab Pro and even the ES edition, that is one of the better authoring programs I've seen. The capabilities seem endless. DVDlab Pro2 ES has video encoders I don't need so DVDlab Pro2 and DVDlab Studio may be what I'm looking for too.
I'm looking in the DVD Authoring forum to see what's the buzz if any.
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