Picture Quality Question on made DVD

[Superstar24]

I've noticed on dvd's i've made lately is that once I put the video onto dvd, the picture quality seems to drop somewhat, it's not as crisp and clear on the dvd i made as it is on the actual videotape, it's duller looking i think would be the best way to put it. What would possibly be the cause of this and what I can do/use to hopefully fix it?

[Abond]

What would possibly be the cause of this and what I can do/use to hopefully fix it?

Undoubtedly, the cause is the way you put the videotape onto DVD. You can use another approach to fix it hopefully.

[Cornucopia]

Offhand, not knowing ANY of the steps you took but just going by your description, I'd say the Mapping of analog 0--100%IRE levels to 16-235luminance got messed up somewhere along the way. No way to tell when or where (or even if that's truly the problem) without further info.

Scott

[Krispy Kritter]

If you could provide an outline of the steps you performed during the conversion, it would be very helpful.

[Superstar24]

Well, first I capture in Pinnacle Studio, then I make sure the sound is in sync with anohter program, then I take it to my editing and desiging software and design it, then i take it to another program and burn it..everything else on it is fine..it's just that the color loses it's sharpness and becomes dull looking somewhere along the process..

[Abond]

I am sure you mistakenly check Dull Colors field in your editing and design software.

[Superstar24]

No, I use DVDLab Pro to design with and it doesn't have that option on there, it wouldn't make much sense to me why any design prog, would have that option available actually.

[edDV]

Save a high bitrate MPeg2 at each intermediate step. Author these to a test DVD and see which step caused the video to degrade.

[Abond]

A-ha, great, now we have the name of the design software. But I am positive that you have such field in the editing software.

[lordsmurf]

Abond!

[MOVIEGEEK]

Are you capturing analog with a capturecard?
If so there is your problem,capturecards will give a dull "looking through glass" appearance.
I recommend using an analog to digital device or a camcorder to transfer via firewire.

[Superstar24]

well, to put the video onto my computer I have a vcr hooked up to the computer thru a dazzle digital video creator 150 box...i dont know anything about the firewall you suggested i use..do you think the dazzle box maybe the problem?

[MOVIEGEEK]

well, to put the video onto my computer I have a vcr hooked up to the computer thru a dazzle digital video creator 150 box...i dont know anything about the firewall you suggested i use..do you think the dazzle box maybe the problem?

Yes but all capturecards suffer from this.
BTW:I mentioned transfering DV via firewire.

[thecoalman]

do you think the dazzle box maybe the problem?

Could be that or a 100 other things.... As originally posted:

Offhand, not knowing ANY of the steps you took but just going by your description,

Need details, without them everyone is just going around in circles. Not trying to offend but I swear sometimes it's like pulling teeth. Let me analogize the information you have provided, it's like saying I fixed my car with some adjustable wrenches and now it's making a noise, What's wrong?

Have you tried what edDV suggested? Instead of going through all your steps, capture a short clip, author it and see if how looks. Nobody can help you unless you help yourself and do as suggested.

[turk690]

As edDV said, author in short clips all through to the DVD stage, burn to a DVD-RW then see how it looks like. Then change a parameter or setting then do it again. It might be tedious, but for a very important project, this is a must. We want to know the weak links of our systems so we can correct them. After some time, we know how each stage of our processes work and what influences they have on the final DVD so we can tweak them to the direction we want.
My workflow is I capture & edit with Premiere Pro 1.5, edit audio separately with Audition 1.0, then author with Encore 1.5. I encode with either CCEBasic 2.7 or TMPGEnc Express 3.
I know only too well how, as in your case, the edited video looks nice and sharp and correctly saturated when I output the final project via FireWire back to DV tape for archiving. But when I encode it, the final *.m2v (and therefore DVD) looks as if color sat has been pulled down a notch or two, together with sharpness. I know it's the encoder, therefore. But for $50 products that they are, I don't expect them to do better than what I'm already getting (when the next one up CCE SP is $2000...!). Indeed, tweaking them doesn't influence the sharpness or saturation in the direction that I want.
SO the compromise that I make is, in Premiere, I notch up the color saturation, as well as sharpness. Just a little, like +5 for color and perhaps +10 to +20 on sharpness to make up for the losses I expect in encoding to MPEG-2 later on. All along, a an ADSTech A/V link is connected between the PC FireWire port & a TV on its factory settings which will more or less give me an idea what the timeline quality really looks like, and visualizing what the *.m2v later on will look like also. After having done this several times I began to have a feel how much sharpness & saturation I should add in Premiere so that the end DVD looks as close as to the original tapes. Or looks like the effect I want (like when source DV tapes have horribly wrong white balance).
I learned a few things along the way. For example, initially, I thought that the MPEG encoder took the lion's share of time when outputting directly from Premiere (as with CCE) or through a frameserver program (debugmode with TMPGEnc). But when I test-encoded an untouched AVI, CCE encoded in, like 0.6x (it took 20mins to encode a 30min AVI), I realized all the filters I enabled in Premiere were the ones taking long render times (as much as 10x; a 1hr program on the timeline took 10hrs to encode!). In this case it's therefore a matter of using filters versus encoding time.
Some pairs of things in the chain also produce unpleasant results: a DV AVI originally shot with a Panasonic PV-GS85 produces subtle vertical lines (like moire, but vertical only up & down) in the final DVD. It took a while in experimenting until I found out TMPGEnc was causing it; when CCE was the encoder this effect wasn't produced.
When I assemble a project, I get given shots of the same program in both PAL & NTSC. After deciding what system the final DVD should be, I have to convert those that are not to it using FireStore DV system conversion. I eventually realized there is a subtle difference of a few frames in length between two clips that are, say, original NTSC, and originally PAL & now converted to NTSC. So I cut them in 15-20min segments and eventually sync them on the Premiere timeline, which is one very involving thing but the result is a DVD that had multiple NTSC & PAL camera sources & external audio pickup sources now all in PERFECT sync. So in this case it wasn't encoding or DVD-authoring, but in Premiere which needed correcting.
So it's a matter of having the time & patience to sit it out and tweak settings & parameters in the chain, plus delving in the relevant sections in this wonderful forum to see how it affects the final DVD. Every system and case is unique; a lot of advice & tips can be taken here but ultimately the solution you craft is yours alone.

[codecpage]

I encode it, the final *.m2v (and therefore DVD) looks as if color sat has been pulled down a notch or two, together with sharpness. I know it's the encoder, therefore. But for $50 products that they are, I don't expect them to do better than what I'm already getting (when the next one up CCE SP is $2000...!). Indeed, tweaking them doesn't influence the sharpness or saturation in the direction that I want.

There is not the slightest differnce between CCE Basic and SP for the same encoding mode. What you should always do is to UNcheck the "quality settings" box (in both versions). This item does nothing but to insert some filters that cause blurring.

I never noticed any brightness differences from encoding (many examples on my page). Maybe the color format (RGB, YUY2, YV12 ??) Premiere delivers to the encoder makes a difference ?

I realized all the filters I enabled in Premiere were the ones taking long render times (as much as 10x; a 1hr program on the timeline took 10hrs to encode!).

That's a horrible time for just crispness and color filters. Anyway editing programs may be good for just that - editing -, and any kind of 'effects', but for actually cleaning and quality improving pictures, Virtualdub for example has much better choices. You may want to add a gamma correction and a temporal noise filter, beneath color, as this is really improving almost any camera footage (examples here). Inserting a Virtualdub (or AVIsynth) filter stage after Premiere would be recommendable.

Cheers

[Superstar24]

Wow, that's quite a bit of info to take in and try to figure out what the best route is to fix it. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply, and give me their suggestions on what I can do..unfortunately for me most of the things that were suggested are things that I don't know about, here are the exact steps that I use in making a including cord setups...
I have my VCR hooked up to "the clarifier" the out video cord from the vcr to the in on the clairifer and the out on the clarifier goes to the in on the dazzle dvc 150, and the 2 audio cords go from the vcr to the dazzle box directly.
Next, I capture the video in Studio. The settings that I use are MPEG2, Custom Settings 352x480 (resolution), although Tech Support for Pinnacle just told me that I should use the "High Quality" (DVD) setting and chage the resolution to 720x480 which it automatically changes to when I select that option, should I maybe try that? The settings are High Quality DVD, Medium Quality SVCD, Low Quality Video CD, then Custom which is what I've always used. Then I adjust the bitrate accordingly, I usually use 3150 as I'm mostly capturing around 3 hr. videos, and then I capture the video.
After I capture, I then open the captured video in VideoRedo, and test the whole video and make sure the audio is in sync, I use this because they have a great audio tool that lets you adjust the audio as you want and make sure it's totally in sync. Then after I do that, I run a feature in VideoRedo called Quick Stream Fix if the audio was already in sync, if it wasn't in sync and I had to adjust it and make it in sync then I run Create Video from joiner list because it joins the new audio together and makes it all in sync but usually it's already in sync and I don't have to do this, the creator of VideoRedo told me to do it this way.
Next, I open the video in DVDLab Pro, and design, and add motion menus and stuff here..when you're done designing it the way you want it designed they have a option called "Compile DVD" that puts your new design on and makes it a new project. After that is all done, I open Nero and simply burn it onto a DVD. That is how I make my DVDs.
Could it be as simple as changing the one setting as the tech support from Pinnacle says or should I add something else to what I have just listed here? Thanks again in advance for anymore great suggestions.

[codecpage]

While 352 H theoretically resembles the resolution of an average NTSC VCR, it doesn't mean that it reproduces its signal entirely: The blurs add up and you'll get still less resolution in this case. Some VCR's may also deliver a bit more resolution.
So trying 720 H should be better if you want to retain the full quality. It doesn't require twice the bit rate but only a little more, as practically only a little fine detail is added.
You could also try to use a crispening filter and 352 H, but this causes artifacts and more noise as well and might annihilate the possible bitrate advantage.

Cheers

[Superstar24]

So, you pretty much think that everything that I listed that I do is good, and all I should try to do is change the Pinnacle settings? I notice that when I did change it to the high quality setting, it drops the available disk space abuot 30 min, right now on custom settings, i have 3 hrs and 30 min left and when I change it to the high quality setting I have 2 hrs and 50 min left, would I raise or lower the bitrate if I change the setting? Right now for the vids Im capturing I use a bitrate of about 48-4900 or so.

[thecoalman]

Unless you are having trouble with the tape the first thing i would do is take the "clarifier" out of the loop. Those really don't clarify anything but instead strip the macrovision signal. Unless you're having troubles with MV you don't need it.

As far as the resolution whether or not using 720x480 is beneficial is debateable, it certainly won't hurt. I'll disagree with codecpage about the bitrate though. VHS has a lot of noise and, to compensate for this you should use a higher bitrate. 6000 would be the minimum I would use, 8000 if you don't mind 1 hour on one DVD.

As far as bitrates in general you need to select the appropiate range for the resolution you are using. For 720x480 I'd suggest a min/max of 4000/8000, for 352x480 a min/max of 2000/4000.

Try a few different capture settings but as EdDV sugested capture it and burn it directly to disc without going through the rest of the steps. I don't see anything there after capture that would alter the file so it most likely is your card or poor capture settings. the trouble with that device is no one here that frequents this forum is going to have one, pinnacle products are not liked very much by most here.

[Superstar24]

Why aren't they liked by most? I've honestly never had much of a prob with it other then this pic quality thing and I can't for sure pinpoint that is the prob but as you and the others have said more then likely it is. What is the best device to capture with then?
I really don't want to split my projects up onto seperate discs mostly because of the costs of the discs..right now what Im making is about 1 hr and 45 min...I'm afraid that if I go too high on the bitrate then when I go to burn, it won't fit and then I won't know what to do other then re-capture and go thru the whole process again which will set me back several hours..I have about 35 seperate things I'm trying to capture and put on dvd so that's why I don't want to have to redo anything. All of them are about 1 hr and 45 min though. When you said it's possible it's my card, did you mean my video card? I too thought that could possibly be the problem, my computer is a few years old, and the video card that is in here is about 4 or 5 years old I think.

[codecpage]

If this 'clarifier' really is a Macrovision remover, then it will most probably replace the sync pulses of the signal and if there is any deviation in the size of these pulses it will affect brightness or black levels.
You should try without.
As to bitrates, they greatly depend on the encoder used, on the actual noise levels your VCR produces (in the worst case, even above the useful bandwidth) and so on. Using some of the advanced filter tools regularly covered here may greatly improve things. Anyway, you have to try out which settings are best.

Cheers

[turk690]

to codecpage, that was cool, but I wasn't really having problems with brightness or gamma in the final *.m2v elementary streams; I just noticed that the color saturation and sharpness went down somewhat compared with the original DV AVI. For now the most effective correction that I see works is by using the filters included in Premiere. It's just that, as I have observed, a filter activated increases rendering time by 10% or so. Maybe I should upgrade from my current Pentium D 3GHz to a Core 2 Duo but this is another topic.
Also, most present-day DV camcorders produce little or no noise in average indoor light so it's not an issue for me as well. I'm just using filters to adhere as close as I can to one of the tenets we have here: in an ideal world, an *.m2v file SHOULD look identical to the AVI it was encoded from, right?
Either way, I'm trying freeware HCencoder now (which means I should brush up on AVISynth) and see how it compares.

[Superstar24]

I saw that you talked about using some of the advanced filter tools that were mentioned here..I've never used any before, do they actually improve the picture quality? I listed the way I make a DVD and what tools I use step by step in an earlier post..what would be the best advanced filter to use, how do I use it and when should I use it? After I capture, after I run it thru videoredo to make sure the audio is ok, or after I design it in DVDLab Pro? Also, if I set Pinnacle for highest quality, it makes the bitrate 6000, there's no way most of the videos I capture will fit onto one dvd with that bitrate..I usually have to do around 3150, however for the ones I'm doing now I use a bitrate of about 48-4900, but I don't think it'd still fit....is there something I can use that will make it fit and still let me use the high quality setting with the 6000 bitrate?

[thecoalman]

Why aren't they liked by most?

Any external capture device that has continual sync issues as was pointed out by your own post would be one reason.

What is the best device to capture with then?

http://www.nepadigital.com/articles/analog-capture.php

When you said it's possible it's my card, did you mean my video card?

Sorry, I meant your capture card.

I saw that you talked about using some of the advanced filter tools that were mentioned here..I've never used any before, do they actually improve the picture quality?

You can make minor improvements but MPEG as source for filtering is not very suitable, be prepared to do a lot of reading and testing.

is there something I can use that will make it fit and still let me use the high quality setting with the 6000 bitrate?

High bitrate = bigger file, there's no way around that. If you want to use a lower bitrate use 352x480 @4000kbps, anything higher at that resolution just creates a bigger file.