pixelization and blockiness problem

[ascot]

I am having a problem with pixelization and some blockiness in my DVD tests. I am transferring basketball games on VHS to DVD.

I have captured AVI's at 720x480. The signal is routed through a Canopus box so it's DV coming in. The AVI files look great on the PC. I did some test DVD-RW's using Sonic's MyDVD which looked great, too. Unfortunately I cannot squeeze the whole program, about 95 minutes, onto one disc.

I had planned all along on using TMPGenc Plus for the final encoding, which is what I'm using now. I configured TMPGenc using Lord Smurf's recommended settings and CQ set at 65. I used DVD Shrink to reduce everything 85% and burned to CD-RW. That's when I started seeing the problems.

I had the Motion Search Precision option set on "motion estimate search (fast)". I realize that changing this to High or Highest will significantly increase the encoding time. In fact, I tried one clip using the Highest setting and it took 90 minutes to do one nine-minute clip.

So before I get into lengthy experimentation with different settings, I thought it would be best to ask for help. I need to get rid of the blockiness and minimize, if not eliminate, the pixelization.

Do I only need to change the Motion Search Precision and accept the lengthy encode times? I had used a 7000 or 8000 bit-rate with the CQ test and I thought that was overkill.

Any recommendations or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[WuphonsReach]

1) Why recompress with DVD Shrink to get the file size down 85% of what it was? Why not adjust your CQ settings (or switch to VBR with the appropriate bitrates) to get the proper size on the first pass? -- This is probably one of your problems with regards to noise/blockiness.

2) "High" quality should take around 50% longer then "Motion Estimate" according to a test that I did today. "Highest" was more like 2.5x as long as "Motion Estimate". (Personally, I'm giving "High Quality" a shot for a while...)