About quality of resulting DVD

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Hello everybody,

I am experimenting with Procoder 2.0 to convert avi (Xvid) to DVD..

I tested various ways to convert avi into DVD (NTSC): CBR with high bitrate (7500); VBR 1 pass; VBR 2 pass with 9000/7000 . Never touched any filters as I have no idea how to use them and I believe in most cases the defaults are the most effective way to go.

I am confused about the resulting DVD. The picture looks definitely more stable than in avi. The colors are perfect, just the same as in the source file. But the DVD picture is too smooth. I would say it blurs but there is no such sharpness as the picture of the source avi has.

While watching the source avi, I see separate hairs, wrinkles and other details. On the resulting DVD, it is all too smooth.

Is it supposed to be this way? Is quality loss inevitable or there is a way to keep the quality of the source file?

Thank you!

[redwudz]

There is always some quality loss during encoding. Your MPEG bitrate doesn't need to be set too high, unless your source video is really high quality, like HD. If you have a 'standard' Xvid of about 700MB size or even one of 1500MB, you probably will not gain much by using a very high bitrate. But that's not causing any problems, it's just an observation.

If you are losing quality or the picture seems 'smoothed', maybe there is some filtering taking place. Were any other operations done during encoding such as framerate changes, resizing? That may be where the loses occur.

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Thank you for the reply and advice about bitrate.

During encoding, no any other operations were done to the best of my knowledge. I mean I did not set in Procoder any operations to be done.

Before encoding I had to resize the avi source file because I could not load it into Procoder. It gave me error message, something like: AVI reader: (some) graph cannot (take) canopus renderer. (Sorry I do not remember the exact wording and cannot reproduce the message).

I did not touch frame rate at all.

Actually I tried anoth avi file and again the picture is way smoothed comparing to the sourece avi file. The resulting DVD picture has black rames while the original avi picture does not.

[Nelson37]

Resizing could be the issue. Try something like TMPGENC and use the "center, keep aspect ratio" setting. This will put a black frame around the image rather than resize it. If that solves the problem, you can either live with the frame or find a better resizer.

[terjeber]

But the DVD picture is too smooth. I would say it blurs but there is no such sharpness as the picture of the source avi has.

This is an inevitble result of re-compressing highly compressed video files, going from DivX/Xvid to MPEG-2 is not going to be very pretty. Ever.

You will probably be better off getting a DVD player that plays DivX/Xvid.

[guns1inger]

I posted this response to another question regarding quality of output from downloaded avi to DVD conversions. It still holds here -> https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1579322#1579322

If you are serious about converting, then the defaults are rarely the way to go for quality. You need to start looking into avisynth filters. Use avisynth to resize for you before loading into ProCoder. FitCD is a great starting place for this. Then add filters to sharpen (because resizing up softens the image), and artifact removal.

But honestly, getting a Divx player is the better option.

[Wile_E]

Procoder has been known to filter and produce a smoother looking video than any other encoder. You can't turn off the filtering in Procoder. Some people prefer the smoothness, depending on the source. If you want control over filtering and sharpness, use a different encoder like CCE Basic. It has a 2D adaptive filter that you can turn off or on, and has some basic adjustments for it. Still not as good as using AviSynth and the Convolution3D filter.

[vertical]

Guys,

Thank you for your responses.

The bottomline is the picture I see on my TV screen. I have two standalones - a picky Panasonic that reads only NTSC and Philips that reads way more.

But the picture while playing a DVD on Panasonic is always better than while playing avi on Philips. That's the only factor that pushes me into the things that are totaly new to me.

Though I only compared NTSC as so far I am fighting to my first right conversion from PAL DVD to NTSC and after that to compare the pictures again.

Sorry, forgot to add that I have many Europen DVDs that I would like to be able to see in NTSC and to be able to swap.

[redwudz]

PAL DVD > NTSC DVD throws in a whole bunch more factors. Framerate and framesize conversion problems are two. But we have lots of guides for this: https://www.videohelp.com/convert#4;41 You may have to disassemble the DVD and totally reconstruct it, though. Good luck.

I would rather use a PAL+NTSC DVD player and not stress out.