Video Rendering/Encoding

[d00ku]

Hello, firstly i'm not sure if this is the correct forum but its the one that seemed to suit my question the most...

I have made an animation in 3DS Max and i would like to put this onto a PAL DVD. Its only a small animation (5 minutes) so I can use the maximum bitrate for a DVD (9,800k/s (i think)). Basically, all I want to do is render this animation so it looks optimal.

My questions are these:

1. Should I render in image format (tga) and then join them later or should I render to uncompressed avi.

2. When encoding to DVD Mpeg2 should I use CBR at 9,800 or should I use VBR and what settings should I use in tmpgenc. (I have been through 90% of the guides on here and various other sites and have tried many ways to get my animation looking crystal but i just cant seem to get it right)

3. Should i render my animation to 720*576 or should i do it larger and then resize it when encoding?

thanks for any help

[daamon]

Hi

1. Should I render in image format (tga) and then join them later or should I render to uncompressed avi.

I don't know "tga", so would lean towards the uncompressed avi - purely because it's uncompressed and will therefore retain all / most of the original quality.

2. When encoding to DVD Mpeg2 should I use CBR at 9,800 or should I use VBR and what settings should I use in tmpgenc.

This guide:

http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

Is REALLY good for the settings in TMPGEnc and makes specific reference to settings for animation footage.

Not sure about the CBR vs VBR. I've not done animation, but would guess CBR as VBR is more for footage that has a mixture of still / slow moving (not requiring such a high bitrate during encoding) and faster action (requiring higher bitrates during encoding). I may be totally wrong - just an educatde guess. (Constructive) Comments anyone?

3. Should i render my animation to 720*576 or should i do it larger and then resize it when encoding?

I can't see the need to go bigger only to go smaller during the encoding - I guess it will just take longer. Again, only an educated guess so don't flame me if I'm wrong.

Hope that helps. Good luck...