Best settings in TMPGen for AVI to DVD

[Bstansbury]

The Wizard in TMPGen can tell you how much disk space you will take up once you select a frame size, format, and select the MPeg process you want and set the bit rate.

In doing SVCD, and reading many posts on this web site, and doing the testing myself, I'm very happy using the Automatic mode (CQ-VBR), or Constant Quality with Varible Bit rate. The main problem with it is that it is almost inpossible to predict the final size.

The question is, in converting a 1 hour or 2 hour movie from edited AVI to DVD format, what is the best compression option.

I have VideoStudio 7.0 and just tested a "very difficult movie" on their MPeg compressor. It was 2 Hr 20 Min long and the encoding was a 8 MBs which gave me about 7+ GB file. Of course this was not going to fit on 1 DVD and I knew that before. After it finished, I used DVD2ONE to compress it back to fit on 1 DVD+R. The quality was better than I expect, but in some of the very fast scenes there was clearly some ragged edges. At least it worked. )The movie was Matrix copied from TV in S-video format, converted via to DV .avi using my DV camera and firewire passthrough.

TMPGen is clearly a better encoder,... so what is the best format to use, CBR, VBR, CQ-VBR, and at what bit rate.

Thanks in advance for you input.

[ZippyP.]

. so what is the best format to use, CBR, VBR, CQ-VBR, and at what bit rate.

2-pass VBR with the min and max bitrates set at the DVD min and max, and with an average bitrate set to fill up your disk.

BTW since you're encoding from a TV capture then you might want to try 352x480 resolution.

[Bstansbury]

Help me out a little bit more,... there are all kinds of mins-max. What numbers do you use.

352x480 is half D1 and sure that is what a tv can produce,... but, the DV input pass through comes in at 702x480,... so if I use 1/2 D1 what does TMPGen do,... drop one of the fields and encode the other. Clearly there is additional information in the second frame. Also, this is supposed to be a DVD video,... I would think that Nero-burning would reject the input as 'non-standard'.

Everyone has their own "IMHO" about the best way,... is there some place or report where this is reduced to facts or example images.

[johns0]

I agree with ZippyP that 352x480 would be a better choice,tmpgence just reduces the frame size and doesnt touch the fields if you didnt choose de-interlace.

[ZippyP.]

Help me out a little bit more,... there are all kinds of mins-max. What numbers do you use.

352x480 is half D1 and sure that is what a tv can produce,... but, the DV input pass through comes in at 702x480,... so if I use 1/2 D1 what does TMPGen do,... drop one of the fields and encode the other. Clearly there is additional information in the second frame. Also, this is supposed to be a DVD video,... I would think that Nero-burning would reject the input as 'non-standard'.

Everyone has their own "IMHO" about the best way,... is there some place or report where this is reduced to facts or example images.

1,000 minimum and 9,000 maximum are about as far as you should go. It doesn't drop a field, just reduces the resolution of the video. 1/2 D1 is perfectly acceptable for DVD video, if Nero rejects it then get another Authoring prog like TMPGEnc DVD Author. There is no "Best DVD Settings", all that you will get is varied opinions. You'll just have to do some trial and error to see what looks best to your eyes.