Seeking Standalone DVD to take the load off of my DV camera

[jbLACKtd]

Thanks everyone in advance.

Situation:
I Videotape in DV8mm (DV) about a one hour show ten times a year. Approximately 8 people need a DVD copy each race. Breaking even expense wise ain't gonna happin, I know.

I dont know crap about burners, (hoping you point out my ignorances)until this year, happy to distribute productions on VHS. Times change, eh?

Mission:

Seek a standalone DVD burner (recorder) that (in order of priority):

1) Best image quality,
2) Durable as possible,
3) DVDs that will play in everybodys standalone DVD player- DVD-R, DVD+R. (this killed Toshiba as a contender, right?)
4) Will burn faster than 1x, in 16:9 (as an older Sony Handicam creates 16:9) (this eliminated the Pany DMR EH55S, right?)
5) It would be nice to be able to firewire-firewire from Studio 10 to standalone. (in the PC, a video editing program with burn software), but not mandatory.
6) I assume a HDD is required, and I prefer its potential to post-edit while at the track (crude credits, insert premade fancy ones, for example) HDD size is not real important, I think.

People, I have looked, for weeks recently, and years too, for the very best standalone for the money. Its a whirlwind of fine points. I suspect that as time passes, the opportunities DIMINISH to get the best recorder-burner, agree? (Everything seems to be getting so cheezy!)

Execution:

Your mission, should you decide.. is to reveal to this humble videographer the best sub-1500 dollar (or thereabouts) DVD burner recorder solution presently available. Though I did read many of your opinions already, the market is dynamic, so perhaps this question need be asked again in this late month of 2006.

Last: The Liteon burners seem to create really bad image quality. Imagine all the effort made by moi to make a broadcast quality show, just to be tossed by a cheap DVD burner. This is PARTLY why I gave up burning from PC. Many state (and many of you differ) that any burning done by PC is gonna be crap. Agree or disagree?

Control:
The one thing that recurs repeatedly while searching is there are some smart MoFos posting at Videohelp.com. More than enough control for this venture. Only site found thus far like it.

Salutations:
Sincere, appreciative thanks!
Mike aka JBlackTD

[ZippyP.]

Point one - If you want it faster than 1X than you must have a recorder with a HDD. Only from HDD to disk can you go any faster, as camcorder to recorder is only real time. Still only 1X getting it on the HDD in the first place though.

Point two - If you edit on your computer then it's better to get a DVD burner and put it to disk that way, instead of trying to hook a PC up to a standalone. (edit - I see you have one)

[bobkart]

If the Pioneer 640 had DV input I would recommend that one (mid-$300 price range).

So Panasonic would be my next choice. Offhand I don't know which models have DV input and HDD, but if you get a current model with those features I'm pretty sure it will give good results.

Since you are only putting an hour on the disc, Picture Quality is less of an issue. Most quality recorders do a good job at maximum recording quality.

Regarding burning on a PC, you can get excellent results that way, I have, using TMPGEnc and TDA. That route will have more up-front involvement (authording the final product) but repeating the burns will be easier, on a standalone DVD recorder you are re-authoring each time you make a disc from the HDD (except on a recorder like the 640 that has a disc-copying function), and so must choose the disc name and menu each time you make another copy.

[thecoalman]

3) DVDs that will play in everybodys standalone DVD player- DVD-R, DVD+R. (this killed Toshiba as a contender, right?)

That would be relevant to their DVD player. Look under DVD Players to the left for disc compatibility. Search for bit-setting to get the most compatible discs. Short of getting them pressed they will never play in all DVD players.

Imagine all the effort made by moi to make a broadcast quality show, just to be tossed by a cheap DVD burner. This is PARTLY why I gave up burning from PC. Many state (and many of you differ) that any burning done by PC is gonna be crap. Agree or disagree?

Completely disagree, you have ultimate control over every aspect with decent software when you do it on a PC. Final result is dependant on your skills and the software you are using. The DVD burner itself in a PC will have no affect on the quality of the video. It may however produce bad discs if it's a piece of crap but that is different issue altogether. Video going from DV-Cam>PC>authored DVD>Played on TV should be almost indistinguishable compared to the original footage played on TV directly from the cam. Either your software or whatever steps you are going through is degrading the quality if it's that noticeable.

[bobkart]

Video going from DV-Cam>PC>authored DVD>Played on TV should be almost indistinguishable compared to the original footage played on TV directly from the cam.

That's been my experience as well.

[jbLACKtd]

Thanks everyone, I KNEW you all could come through, when reading the days away online wasnt getting me far at all!!!

1)

"DV-Cam>PC>authored DVD>Played on TV should be almost indistinguishable compared to the original footage played on TV directly from the cam."

Could you repeat your statement, considering the camera sits way up, watching these cars go around the track (at night under light, so hot, cold, lighting constantly) and the camera goes left-right, left-right, and EVERY pixel constantly is changing... I am GUESSING this is somewhat of a special case for (what MPEG2?) compression? Your take, please?

I recommend the firewired standalone (LG RC199H) when contrasted with the PC Liteon burner (using the Studio 10 burner software) it is so far above it... Having said that, it is a FAR cry from "almost indistinguishable from the original" so your point remains strong. I practically gave out a WHOOO! to hear I might be able to retain something approximating the original DV quality once I get my head out.... I am as good at making a clear picture as I am bad understanding DVDR and MPEG burning.. (any REALLY good books I can buy???)

2) I had a suspicion I was being yanked around... with the "Standalones are better than PC" bit at the stores and online... THANKS for correcting me.. after all, arent the hardware parts the same in many instances tween standalone and PC?

3) Sorry for ignorance, some questions arent researchable: Once a person burns a DVD-R or DVD+R to disc, after finalization, doesnt it turn into DVD-Video format, thus playable (OSTENSIBLY) in all players? Or perhaps is it a two-layer problem a) Plus versus minus R, b) simple compatibility, like between Sansui burners and...(guessing) Sony?) What a nightmare if your answer is "Both problems exist when other players view my discs"!!!

4) I am torn between the Standalone, despite the losses, because an hour after each event, like at one am, we all sit down and watch the show, and it would be so Kewl to burn them all in one, two, or three viewings, so I dont need to go home and do it.

The question here is: If I bought a duplicator (a PC type tower, I think) with 3, 6, 8 burners, could it have firewire, internal HDD, so that, WITHOUT a PC, I could PREMAKE the credits at home, and then lay the DV content onto the HDD in series, (and lightscribe the blanks in advance) so as people leave the viewing area, I could hand them finished products?

Again, during the race, no editing is necessary, except what is done "on the fly" as the camera rolls, that is easy for me. Thus, I create the beginning, end, credits at home, a day before the race, put on the DV tape, shoot the race, play it back in the coach, simultaneously burning a couple, or 8, discs so the "bigwigs" can walk out with a disc in their hands? That is the unattainable dream, that which justifies spending.... a big chunk of change, considering my income (as much as 1500 dollars)

5) TMPGEnc. This looks like something I really gotta get. The truth is much of what I try to read about it is waaaay over my head.. just found out yesterday there are two DV formats, for example... But I did print out the info, and will study at length after Christmas.

Thanks to everyone. REALLY!!!!

[jbLACKtd]

Hi Coalman!

Sorry I did not immediately get your point, to wit:

Final result is dependant on your skills and the software you are using. The DVD burner itself in a PC will have no affect on the quality of the video. It may however produce bad discs

This is a very valuable piece of info, it took some time to sink in, evidently.

Thanks, look forward to your comments on the just previous post of mine.

JblackTD aka Mike

[edDV]

For the type of video you are describing, use the higher bitrate settings. You won't get much motion compression.

[thecoalman]

Could you repeat your statement, considering the camera sits way up, watching these cars go around the track (at night under light, so hot, cold, lighting constantly) and the camera goes left-right, left-right, and EVERY pixel constantly is changing...

As EdDV suggested use a higher bitrate, it may help if you list step by step what you are doing. The most common mistake is not transferring the footage as DV-AVI from your cam or encoding it multiple times... Motion will affect quality but again loss of quality should be minimal, in the following example you can only see a faint difference along the edges of the blue light... the blue lights in the background are moving strobe lights. Flash for about 5 frames at the most. I'd imagine that's much more motion that you are dealing with.

The raw DV:


8000kbps MPEG:


This BTW was encoded with Ulead Media Studio Pron 7, it and the other Ulead products use a version of Mainconcepts encoder.

[jbLACKtd]

Thank you EdDV and Coalman, will do as you say (making notes)
Coalman: Spent about five minutes studying your two images, I can see no difference... at all... between them. Hope it's my monitor, really, nothing different about blue edges of strobe. Of Course, I CAN see the field-frame effect in both, appears you grabbed a field rather than a frame?

For your edification, and to clarify, see this youtube one minute clip (my brother is the lead car) but KNOW the quality of finished or raw video is so ridiculously far beyond that portrayed after upload... it is very close to the image quality of the frames you posted, COMPARATIVELY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iG4pZFaha0

Am directing you to the youtube also so you see what I do with DV, day in, day out, and half at night.

"List step by step what I am doing" (in postproduction)... will do that in next post. Likely with some actual frame grabs. Am already wondering why there are no real adjustments in Studio 10 for burning to DVD.. not really... but at some point you will realize I have almost zero practice with burning, don't even know if burn speed affects image quality. Need a book that is REALLY well written, then can ask more intelligent questions.

Thanks so much, everyone!! I feel ....the Power!!!!!
JblackTD aka Mike

[edDV]

Those pictures are showing severe effects of blend deinterlace. This causes objects moving relative to the camera to be shown in double vision as artifacts from both fields are displayed. They would probably look better just as a single field or as a bob (tougher).

[bobkart]

Spent about five minutes studying your two images, I can see no difference... at all... between them. Hope it's my monitor, really, nothing different about blue edges of strobe.

In response to your post, I spent (okay a little more than 5 minutes, but not much more) writing an application that can take the difference between two images (no need to rely on the eyes or the monitor that way), here is the result given the two images in question:



EDIT: Unfortunately we can't tell how much of those differences were caused by turning the captured frames into JPEGs before I got them. For that I'd need the original BMPs for the two captured frames.

[bobkart]

Here are those same differences, multiplied by 10, to make them more obvious:



(Apologies for the large file sizes, I am keeping them as BMPs in order to avoid introducing yet more artifacts.)

[jbLACKtd]

Holy Crap! You know your stuff! Are you saying you subtracted one image from another, and that is the remainder???? WOW.

Since last post, have been getting NON YOUTUBE images from last production... Raw, Master, inside Studio10, and of course, off the DVD. Am trying to transfer over now, should be posted in 3-15 minutes.... not good at this. THANK YOU.

PS, since I can see the difference in my monitor (your last posted image) it means I got a lot less ability to discriminate than you.. hit me with it.. is this true?
JblackTD

[jbLACKtd]

First image: Raw footage
Second image: AVI inside Studio,
Third image, off the DVD (burnt on standalone LG recorder)

Note: Took the best still of thirty given frames. Was unable to frame grab from a single application, ie, PowerDVD off of computer, disc, Studio, etc.

The Raw, AVI, DVD still images will repeat three times, so nine image total.



robdrkdvraw%202.bmp

[bobkart]

Holy Crap! You know your stuff! Are you saying you subtracted one image from another, and that is the remainder???? WOW.

Yes, that's what I did. And it's really trivial once you can read and write BMP files.

And to your last question, no I could not see any difference in the original images either. Hence the application(s) to help bring them out. I suspect they would be completely undetectable in any watching of the two videos. But there they are anyway.

[jbLACKtd]

Sorry, dont know how to insert multiple images, let me try again.

robdrkavi1.bmp

[jbLACKtd]

Since you are there, could you tell me how to insert multiple images from my hard drive? Thanks Bobkart!!!

[jbLACKtd]

here is DVD image

robdrkdvstudmast%202.bmp

[bobkart]

I'm not using the upload images function (hosting them on my own server).

Just insert one image per post, and make several posts as necessary.

[bobkart]

For me to be able to show the differences between the DV-AVI and the DVD, I'd need the corresponding *same* frames from each version of the video (as was posted by thecoalman).

[jbLACKtd]

EdDV: Thank you very much for your help, I should not have shown the Youtube bit... it is just vanishingly worse quality than the DVD, which is what I SHOULD be concentrating on.. Thank you VERY much for your efforts... Can you see the three images actually grabbed from Raw, AVI (in studio10) and DVD?

[jbLACKtd]

Coalman, and Bobkart:

Happy to do as you say, but it will take some time, especially to find the exact same frame in Raw, Studio (avi) and Master DVD, guessing an hour or more... Dont wanna keep you that long.

[bobkart]

No problem, take your time, I'll get to them when I can.

Or I could just give you the little command-line utilities I wrote, one that takes the difference of two BMPs, the other that amplifies a given BMP, then you could create the difference images yourself.

[jbLACKtd]

Okay here are the same images from first, the Raw, second the Studio, and third, the DVD (but had to use PowerDVD to view and grab the DVD still, AND! the still is faulty, when I save it, the (for example) posts are doubled (the retainer wall posts)
Mike aka JBlackTD

[jbLACKtd]

Raw footage but in fact it is through the Studio10 frame grabber as ZBMP

sameframestudiobmp.bmp

[jbLACKtd]

The DVD image is below, as grabbed through PowerDVD. Now, keep in mind, when I look at the image about to be grabbed, there are half as many retaining wall posts (it looks like four in this image, looks like two in the Studio version, and ...ahem.. Surprise! there is only one wall or fencepost.

sameframedvdoop.bmp

[jbLACKtd]

Sorry, the images are one frame away from each other. DANG.

Will start again, with a different picture about 20 frames downstream

[bobkart]

The Studio10 image is not really useful. Just the DV-AVI and the DVD versions, preferably from the same capturing mechanism (PowerDVD for example), since then the images will be of the same size. The Studio10 version, for example was being stretched horizontally to 853x480 as opposed to the native resolution of 720x480. Yes I could squeeze it back to that size before doing the comparison, but that process introduces its own differences potentially.

[thecoalman]

Coalman: Spent about five minutes studying your two images, I can see no difference... at all... between them.

If you focus your attention on the middle light, especially along the right edge. The difference doesn't really become apparent until you blow it up, as mentioned you probably wouldn't notice this at all while playing:

EDIT: Unfortunately we can't tell how much of those differences were caused by turning the captured frames into JPEGs before I got them.

They are .jpg's but both have gone through the same identical processing so any artifacts caused by jpeg compression will have been created in both. Anyhow there is links to the original video here : https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=257651