Is it harder to encode DV into MPEG2???

[edDV]

Great! Thanks a bunch for the advice!
One question though: can HDTV and progressive-enabled regular TVs display interlaced videos in a "backward compatible" manner (i.e., each field every 1/60th of a second for NTSC) or do they have to de-interlace the video. I'm guessing that they are backward compatible. If they are, is it normally better to display the native interlaced stream, or do you gain something by a high-quality de-interlacing and a progressive display?

jeanl

They do both.

Most CRT HDTV sets work well with interlace or progressive sources and usually give you a choice of display in interlace, upscaled interlace (more lines) or upscaled progressive.

LCD type sets usually convert everything to the native progressive resolution of the display (similar to what PowerDVD does on a computer). The difference is the HDTV will do this in hardware with more sophisticated algorithms optimized for that particular display.

Progressive DVD players create a 30 or 60 frame per second stream from 60 field per second interlaced video through various field reconstruction techniques. Film is treated differently per the link given above.

Some progressive DVD players will also upscale the 480i or 480p DVD video to 720p or 1080i digital streams with variable success.

[jeanl]

Thanks!
jeanl

[ubaddala]

This has been a great thread. Finally found someone who has the same problem as mine! Question for "jeanl" or others who had good results from CCE.

I currently have TEMPGnc and recently have upgraded to CCE 2.70.01 SP (trial, not upgraded to 2.70.02). The reason was to test really fast. I must also say that I've achived similar kind of results from both TEMPGnc & CCE. Hence this post.

A little background of my video source:
1. Captured video from SONY HC90 (NTSC 16:9 native format) as DV-AVI in Moviemaker.
2. Removed some unwanted scenes and finally saved the changes as DV-AVI.
3. Re-exported the edited video back to the camera.
4. The footage was shot with the kids playing on a carousel (has rich colors, with zebras, horses etal. and this is finally moving going round and round)

Following is the encoding and my troubles part:
1. When I play the video on the TV (regular Sony 27" TV), the quality is excellent. However when I've encoded the same (about 3 mins of footage) with TMPGEnc (at 6500 VBR) and the motion estimate at highest (on a 1.7GHz PC took about 1 hour), the results were poor (with unclear picutres and jaggy motion and was not comparable with the source).
2. Carefully followed this thread and also started experimenting with CCE (3 minutes of video, 3 pass VBR @ avg=6500, min=0, max=9000). I still do not get the quality that's comparable to the source ! BTW, CCE finishes encoding in under 20 min!
3. Choose audio also at 96 kbs. (tried both system and elementary)
4. Took the final video into TEMPGnc DVD Author to create the DVD structure and was stopped going further as the combined bitrate exceeds the DVD standards ! What's going wrong with me or CCE ?

I know that quality is relative but I'm just eager to find what settings were used with CCE to get to your "excellent quality". Also, I am not sure if you've used the AVISYTH script to swap the field order or not.

If you don't mind, can I ask you to post your EXACT settings (ecl) or even post it on one of your websites ?

Also, when I encoded the video with audio (with both the encoders, the audio was briefly (about 1 sec or 2 secs) was missing from playback and the source (DV-AVI plays fine, always).

Any help, please ?

Thanks,
Uday

[edDV]

Thanks, I think I said everything I know in that thread. I think I'll bronze it and retire .

I've used TMPenc, CCE and various AVISYNTH but claim no settings expertise. I'll defer to others.

I've chosen for productivity purposes to stay mostly in the Mainconcept encoder world (Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, ULead products) which work for what I'm doing.

I'm mostly working with DV 480i interlaced sources and producing mostly interlaced DVD. I'm starting to do HDTV work (1080i and 720p) but so far most of that is HDV in interlace 1440x1080. Mostly the same rules apply.

[junkmalle]

1. When I play the video on the TV (regular Sony 27" TV), the quality is excellent. However when I've encoded the same (about 3 mins of footage) with TMPGEnc (at 6500 VBR) and the motion estimate at highest (on a 1.7GHz PC took about 1 hour), the results were poor (with unclear picutres and jaggy motion and was not comparable with the source).

My guess is that TMPGEnc got the source field order incorrect. DV is bottom field first. Open Settings, go to the Advanced dialog, Video Source Type should be Interlaced, Field Order should be Bottom Field First. Do not use the deinterlace, Inverse Telecine, 3:2 pulldown options.

[slacker]

edDV,

With regard to Ulead products, is it safe to say that if you go out and purchase MediaStudio Pro you WON'T need Ulead Video Studio or Ulead DVD Workshop?

Is Video Studio a subset of MediaStudio Pro? And is the authoring component of MediaStudio Pro a subset of DVD Workshop?

I guess I'll download and experiment away!

[edDV]

edDV,

With regard to Ulead products, is it safe to say that if you go out and purchase MediaStudio Pro you WON'T need Ulead Video Studio or Ulead DVD Workshop?

Is Video Studio a subset of MediaStudio Pro? And is the authoring component of MediaStudio Pro a subset of DVD Workshop?

I guess I'll download and experiment away!

Ulead MediaStudio Pro is the prosumer version. I don't have it.

[ubaddala]

junkmalle:
I was just doing that: none of the filters were checked. TMPGEnc did correctly sense the field order (bff) and I encoded as de-interlaced.

Now, I am getting a doubt that what if I change the GOP sequence in CCE. According to the help, a P frame is the least compressed of of the 3 types. So, if I can repeat more P frames after every "i" frame, would'nt the quality improve. Any thoughts ?

I've just started that process of playing with the GOP structure and hope to post positive feedback soon.

Still, my question about the audio is still there. Even though, I'm not very keen on the "best" audio quality, atleast I should'nt get a stuttering audio ! Any help ?

Uday

[junkmalle]

I was just doing that: none of the filters were checked. TMPGEnc did correctly sense the field order (bff) and I encoded as de-interlaced.

Did you mean to type "interlaced" instead of "de-interlaced"? You should not deinterlace.

I doubt playing with the GOP sequence will help you much.

Try encoding a short problematic segment with TMPGEnc's Constant Bitrate mode at 8000 or 9000 kbps. If you see big differences between the input DV and the output MPEG when viewed on TV there is something set wrong.

[Cornucopia]

junkmalle:
I was just doing that: none of the filters were checked. TMPGEnc did correctly sense the field order (bff) and I encoded as de-interlaced.

Now, I am getting a doubt that what if I change the GOP sequence in CCE. According to the help, a P frame is the least compressed of of the 3 types. So, if I can repeat more P frames after every "i" frame, would'nt the quality improve. Any thoughts ?

I've just started that process of playing with the GOP structure and hope to post positive feedback soon.

Still, my question about the audio is still there. Even though, I'm not very keen on the "best" audio quality, atleast I should'nt get a stuttering audio ! Any help ?

Uday

I-frame is least efficiently compressed, then P-frame, then B-frame. That's why I-frame-only sequences need such a high bitrate to maintain quality.

IIWY, I'd use the standard [IBBPBBPBBPBBPBB] Open-type of GOP structure. It is the most efficient, quality-wise.

VBR max rates may vary from what is selected. How long is the program?
If less than 1Hr, you ought to try CBR at 9000kbps.

Audio shouldn't be that low (unless it's a special speech effect, or unless it's silent in which case it should be eliminated). 192, 224, 256, 384 kbps are standard.

HTH,

Scott

[blafarm]

Sorry to resurrect this thread with a slightly OT post after so many months - but of these two options, which would the experts agree would most likely provide the maximum quality MPEG2 encoding quality.


1. Hi8 Master -to- Canopus "Amber" MVR-D2000 MPEG2 Hardware Encoding Card

Or

2. Hi8 Master -to- DV (via DV Camera Pass Through) then DV to MPEG2 via Procoder 1.5 or 2.0
And, where can one find a copy of 1.5 to buy?


Thanks for your feedback.

[rhegedus]

I'm puzzled by the fact that even with a high bitrate like that (7500 kb/s) there is a very substantial degradation between the original DV movie and the MPEG2 result no matter how I tweak video quality etc.

7500kbp/s is not really that high......

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tutorial/bitrate.html



You might gain more with VBR 8000 average and max set to 9000.

[zoobie]

VS & WS have authoring.
MSP doesn't