I need a little help obtaining best picture quality.

[Vreport]

Hello!

This is my first post.

I have a 2 hours 720X480 NTSC video project I must encode in a regular DVD-R.

Which of those 2 options should provide me with the best picture quality?

1. Encode the Mpeg2 with a bitrate of 4500 Kb/s (a number optained with the Bitrate Calculator on VideoHelp.com), author, and burn.

or

2. Encode the Mpeg 2 with a much higher bitrate (6000 - 8000 Kb/s), author, compress with DVD Shrink and burn.


I'm sorry if my question is stupid but I am still learning the fine art of video encoding
I did a little research before porting, but didn't find any answer...

Thank you very much in advance!

[guns1inger]

The best result would be obtained by a multi-pass variable bitrate encode. If you source has a lot of action, add in motion compensation as well. You could be look at several hours for the encode to complete. Most professional encoders will be able to give you an estimate of the final file size as you tweak the average, max and min bit rates in their settings. Just remember to leave room for menus etc if you are going to use them.

[Vreport]

So DVD Shrink is not a good idea, right?

[adam]

Transcoding (what programs like DVD Shrink use) is inherantly much less efficient then encoding. You will always achieve better results encoding directly to your desired size then encoding using a higher bitrate and then transcoding back down to your target size.

[Progenator]

This is a bit dry of an answer, but I would take a small sample of your video, and try both.
I don't know what encoder you are using, whether it is CCE or Tmpgenc or something else. I used Mainconcept encoder and with a standard NTSC DVD at a CBR bitrate of 4550 (2:01:45 lenth) was satisfied. At that bitrate also, you might want to encode with a multipass VBR if possible.
If you are using somthing like WinDVD creator where the formats and bitrates are set, I would go with the second of your options.

[jimmalenko]

Which of those 2 options should provide me with the best picture quality?

1. Encode the Mpeg2 with a bitrate of 4500 Kb/s (a number optained with the Bitrate Calculator on VideoHelp.com), author, and burn.

or

2. Encode the Mpeg 2 with a much higher bitrate (6000 - 8000 Kb/s), author, compress with DVD Shrink and burn.

I'm sorry if my question is stupid but I am still learning the fine art of video encoding
I did a little research before porting, but didn't find any answer...

bravo !

that is one of the better virgin posts I have seen in quite a while.

As mentioned by the rest, encoding directly to your target size will be much better than shrinking down. I would suggest that you use an average of 4500, Max 7000, Min 2000. Provided your video is not 7200RPM action the entire time, this should be fine. As mentioned by Progenator though, mock up a couple of 1 minute samples of different parts of the movie and include the scene with the most action. Give the different methods a test run and possibly burn to a RW to view on your TV, because the computer screen can lie.