Encoding with Moviefactory 2 :(

[illini19]

Have wedding reception as DV AVI straight from VHS via the DV cam.

File is 1:11:42 and is 16 GB.

Added chapters in MF2 and burned to DVD. It came pretty grainy, even the VHS tape was much better.

Thought I read some posts that others had the same problem with MF2.

Any better ideas for encoding it but with still having the ability to add chapters?

Video :
MPEG-2 Video - 4:3 Ratio - 720 x 480 - 128799 Frames
6000 Kbits/sec

Audio :
Linear PCM audio Audio - stereo Mode - 48.00 kHz - 2 Channel(s)
1536 Kbits/sec

I still have the original AVI's.

Any ideas?

[bunyip]

The ulead MPEG encoder has not yet been able to match the quality of the good encoders like TMPGenc, CCE or MainConcept.

MF2 is OK though at capturing and authoring so I recommend that you encode the captured AVI using one of the other encoders then load the MPG file into MF2 to do the final authoring.

MF2 can be told not to re-encode the MPG file.

[illini19]

thanks bunyip, thats what I thought.

Have used TMPG in the past for DVD to DVD encoding. Never have used it using original DV AVI's. Have to check quides again huh?

Any ideas on the best encoder to use to keep the quality from the AVI's?

Thanks a bunch!

[bunyip]

Well, there has been, still is, and ever shall be, a lot of debate on this site about that, it's largely a matter of personal preference.

But as a general guide, for speed and options most favour CCE, its ability to do fast multi-passes at variable bit rate produces excellent quality.

I suggest you do some trials of each product and pick the one that pleases you.

[CubDukat]

I was surprised to find out that Ulead's MPEG.now codec was actually developed by MainConcept!

I've tried MC's standalone encoder, and the results are like night and day. Capturing directly into MPEG2 from my 8500DV in VideoStudio 6.0 produces absolutely abysmal results--even worse than using ATI's MMC 7.5.

I haven't tried DVDMovieFactory 2.x, but it's good to have a warning. I was beginning to think that the quality problems were with the 8500DV's codec.

[nerdboy69]

Capturing directly into MPEG2 from my 8500DV in VideoStudio 6.0 produces absolutely abysmal results

Capturing direct to MPEG2 is not a great idea at the moment. Unless you have dedicated hardware for the encoding, you are better off biting the bullet and wearing the fact that it will take 16 odd Gb for 60 minutes of uncompressed AVI. Then re-encode from there.

Added chapters in MF2 and burned to DVD. It came pretty grainy, even the VHS tape was much better.

The final DVD will never be better than the source VHS because ... well ... it is the source. GIGO. Sure you can apply various filters etc, but they actually sacrifice clarity and take the end result further from the original. The best you can hope for is something that doesn't look much worse.


Go with the bunyip's suggestion and encode to MPG before loading into MF. That is what I do and I am generally happy with the results. As for what to use, TMPGEnc ... CCE ... whatever makes you happy.

[illini19]

Thanks all. I appreciate it.

I will try CCE next. Had some trouble opening edited AVI's from Premiere.

Get the error in TMPG, ".file.avi can not open, or unsupported" when trying to open the 2 final edited AVI's that were exported out of Premiere as Microsoft DV AVI.

Kind of strange.

Thanks again.