Encoders

[Mont]

I was using Ulead Movie Factory to endcode and author to a DVD. I always read responses on forums that say that the quality using this method is not as good as other encoders. Can someone please tell me the encoder(s) with that would maintain the best quality

[rvl123]

Hey Mont,

The best way to encode your video would be with TMPGEnc.

You can get the shareware version of this software in the tools section of this website.

Once you get the software, select a guide from the guides on this site.

Follow the directions and you're all set!

[Mont]

I'm sorry, maybe I used the wrong terminology (I'm kinda new at this). But I already used TMPGenc to "encode". After that I needed to burn onto a DVD. What is the best software to use, to burn to a DVD (and add menu's and all that other good stuff). I was using Ulead Movie Factory, but everyone said that wasnt good. And also, how do I know can I figure out if the software requires mp2 or ac3 format

[Vejita-sama]

Encode/encoding - the process of taking a video source and converting the video into m2v and the audio into either mp2, ac3 or PCM (note that only ac3 and PCM are supported by the DVD standard, but most players will still play mp2 audio).

Author/authroing - the process of taking the elementary streams (video, audio, subtitles, menues, etc) and generating a VIDEO_TS folder which contains all the necessary IFO and VOB files.

Authoring software does not affect the quailty of your video, the quaility is affected by how you encode. However, some authoring programs are 'better' than others. You can add chapters, motion menus with sound, seamless branching, multiple PGC, multiple audio streams, subtitles, etc. etc.

I don't think that Ulead does the best job of encoding, I personally like CCE the best (to each their own). As for authoring I use DVD Maestro. Ulead is fine for authoring. But all things being equal I recommend DVD Lab more often. It's cheaper and more flexable, IMHO.