Help authoring widescreen without loss of picture quality

[cobra jet]

I was hoping someone can tell me the best settings to use to make DVD’s to play on my new wide screen HD TV (Mitsubishi WD-52628). In the past I have made several home DVD’s using a Sony DCR-HC 40. I then capture the clips through my firewire card into Premiere 6.5. Once I have made my cuts and placed my transitions using Premier, I do an “Export Movie” as an uncompressed AVI file. Once that file has been built, I have been using ULead DVD Movie Factory 2SE (I know this is extremely old) to author the DVD and make simple menus. This has worked well for me in the past, even though I suspect that Movie Factory is degrading the end product and does not seem to provide a way to keep the picture quality as high as the AVI file. I have switched the Sony camcorder to shoot in “16:9 Wide” mode and when I started my latest Premiere project I chose the preset DV-NTSC, Widescreen 32khz. In the timeline, the clips have the correct aspect ratio but when I tried to author a DVD using Movie Factory it did not seem to have an option for widescreen and the end product did not come up as widescreen on my new TV. In searching this web site it looks like I will need to upgrade Movie Factory to at least ver 4 to be able to author in widescreen. I would like to start authoring all my new DVD’s so that they will play correctly on a widescreen TV and show in letterbox on older TV.

So here are my questions:
1. Am I using the correct settings in Premiere to start to create widescreen DVD’s with out much loss in picture quality?
2. Is Movie Factory down grading the picture quality of my end product and if so how can I avoid this?
3. What is an easy to use authoring program that will allow me to do the things I would like to do (widescreen or letterbox with minimal loss in picture quality)? I was thinking of using TMPGEnc DVD Author, or DVD-lab.
4. Would I get better picture quality if I used separate video conversion software like Canopus Procoder Express before authoring my DVD?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[neomaine]

Number 4 is your answer. Don't use ULead MF2 (I use it too...) as both the encoder and authoring tool. Just make sure that you set MF2 to 'Do not convert if compliant' mode, or something to that effect. Don't remember what it is off hand...

Have something else like TMPGenc (I use 2.5) to do the encoding from the avi file to DVD specs. I'm sure you could setup a widescreen template for these purposes. Maybe there's one already built in or you could find one.

[edDV]

So here are my questions:
1. Am I using the correct settings in Premiere to start to create widescreen DVD’s with out much loss in picture quality?

DV-NTSC Wide is the correct project setting. I'd suggest switching the camera to 16bit 48KHz audio in the future unless you are using the 4 channels.

You should be either exporting to DV-AVI or encoding MPeg2 (16:9 mode) in Premiere 6.5. Make sure you update the MPeg2 encoder to v1.2 or v1.3 (works fine).

Once you have the MPeg2 file, you'll need an authoring program

2. Is Movie Factory down grading the picture quality of my end product and if so how can I avoid this?

Encode MPeg2 in Premiere 6.5. It has a more full featured and later version encoder available.

3. What is an easy to use authoring program that will allow me to do the things I would like to do (widescreen or letterbox with minimal loss in picture quality)? I was thinking of using TMPGEnc DVD Author, or DVD-lab.

TMPGEnc DVD Author is good
DVD MovieFactory 5 is also good in the low price range

4. Would I get better picture quality if I used separate video conversion software like Canopus Procoder Express before authoring my DVD?

Yes, the Mainconcept MPeg2 v1.3 encoder upgrade available for Premiere 6.5 is good but later versions are better. See the $49 offer for for the latest 1.5.1 full encoder upgrade.
http://www.mainconcept.com/adobepromo.html

Canopus and CCE are also good.

[cobra jet]

Thanks for the help so far. I have downloaded the trial version of MainConcepts MPEG Encoder 1.5. I also found that I had the Premiere plug in version 1.1. First I tried to convert the AVI file of a timeline that I exported in Premiere using MPEG Encoder 1.5. When I opened the “Video Source” file I accepted all of the output settings that MPEG Encoder suggested. I then took the MPG file created by MPEG Encoder and used Movie Factory 2SE to make a DVD, making sure that I changed the “Resample Quality” to best (the highest setting) as well as making sure that “Do not convert Compliant MPEG Files” was selected. The resulting DVD looked like it may be slightly better in picture quality but it is almost unnoticeable. I have yet to play with the Premiere plug in version 1.1 to see if I get better results.
Below are two screen prints. One of the settings I used to convert my AVI to MPG using MPEG Encoder & the other is a screen print from G Spot of my converted MPG file
Can anyone tell me what settings I should use to convert the highest quality picture from my AVI file using MPEG Encoder?

[edDV]

On first look all is in order

720x480, 8000Kb/s video LPCM 48KHz. audio

Did it come out 16:9 as planned? No, I see 4:3 in G-Spot. Aspect ratio and bitrates are set under that "Details" button.

I'm still uncomfortable using Movie Factory 2SE which is older than the hills. Current version is v5 and it also comes with a version of the Mainconcept MPeg2 encoder.

[cobra jet]

I used an older timeline that I shot and edited in 4:3. I use it as a test to see if I could get a better picture quality then I did using Movie Factory 2 alone. I still feel I am not getting close to the quality of my video if I play it straight from my camcorder through my TV using the S video connector. Am I expecting too much, or should I upgrade my Authoring software to Movie Factory 5 or TMPGEnc DVD Author. I am still a bit unclear of the settings I should use for best picture quality in MPEG Encoder.
Thanks for your help

[edDV]

720x480, 8000Kb/s video LPCM 48KHz. audio is getting up there. You could go to compressed audio and add bitrate to video, but I'm thinking something else must be wrong. I can barely see the difference from say steady TV captures to DV to DVD.

Handheld stuff will fall apart during the shaky bits or in bad lighting.

[dipstick]

I'm responding to your post because I like the name Cobra Jet. It reminds me of my old 67 Mustang Fastback that had a 428 Cobra Jet. That car was real cool and very quick! One of my favorate cars Ive owned through the years.

Anyways, back to your questions. MainConcept is a great encoder when you use the correct settings, but you need to learn them. Here is some old settings I used to use for 30i (you'll have to change the AR to 16:9 and used 2-passes for VBR or 1-pass CBR):

[cobra jet]

Dipstick, Thanks for the info. I use the settings you suggested with MPEG Encoder and I was pleased with the results. I do have one more question. I did my conversion using 2-pass VBR but I was wondering what reasons I would use VBR verses CBR.

BTW if your Mustang was a 68 428 Cobra Jet the prices are now completely through the roof.

[edDV]

cobra jet,

CBR is constant bitrate

Think of it as peddle to the metal full time at high bitrate. It is useful for handheld camcorder or noisy sources where fast bitrates are forced for maximum quality, one pass encoding and predictable file size. Minutes per DVD are sacraficed.

VBR is variable bitrate where the encoder attempts to distribute bitrate more to fast action sequences and less to stationary locked scenes. VBR will work well for low noise professionally shot scenes (i.e tripod, good exposure, low noise).

VBR does not work as well for handheld camcorder material where all pixels are in constant motion, so the VBR analysis always wants highest bitrate, but must compromise to achieve average specified bitrate. In extreme cases, the only way VBR analysis can succeed is to vary intraframe compression in a somewhat arbitrary manner causing the image compression to fluctuate not based on motion but on the need to achieve average bitrate.

Two pass VBR runs the analysis in the first pass and applies it to the video in the second pass. The goal of two pass is to exactly fit a predicted file size. Picture quality is not necessarily improved.

[cobra jet]

If I encode using CBR is there an upper level rate that I should not go over. I thought I read somewhere that over 8,000 may make my DVD incompatible with some DVD players

Tnanks for your help