Best DV to DVD conversion tool

[whenloverageswild]

Hi everybody:

My first concern is quality. I want only the closest quality to original Handycam DV tape.
No matter time of processing or any other subject (as price, customer service, etc).
I've already tried several tools, but every one reduced DV original quality. I've noticed that from Nerovision to Main Concept Encoder. Also TMPGEnc use to wash a little the crispy original DV signal. Premmiere uses, as far as I know, the Main Concept core, so it is the same as the tool mentioned above.
Just looking for the best encoding tool available (and if you need to mention some thousand dollar software, go ahead and mention it).
Some say Procoder rules. Other ones hail to Cinema Craft Encoder. Many others compromise quality over price and choose free software. I am a little pissed of about diff. software.
Any comment will be appreciated.

[noki]

I still use Discreet (Terran Media) Cleaner v5.12 to produce QT videos from different original formats used as a plugin thru Premeire. IMHO output is cleaner (ha-ha) than that transcoded from Procoder 2.0.

The new version of Cleaner (XL) might be a consideration. check it out. understand this version is very slow compared to the other transcoders.

good luck.

[redwudz]

There are some small differences in the quality of the MPEG encoders you can use to convert DV>MPEG, but the encoder settings have the largest effects on quality. Try encoding at about 9500Kbps and you shouldn't have much quality loss. The MPEG is never going to look the same as the DV because you are compressing it more. But you should be able to minimize the losses.

[manono]

Best DV to DVD conversion tool

Your brain. Knowing how to take the video properly followed by knowing how to encode it properly is much more important than the encoder you're using.

Many others compromise quality over price and choose free software.

You don't know what you're talking about. Money isn't going to buy you a good encode.

[whenloverageswild]

Hi everybody:

To manono: I've already tried with my brain as encoder, but I only got a headache. So I am looking for an encoding software.
And, pls, do not be rude. I´ve already stated that money is not the question in this case. If you know something that could help (free or money charged), just do your comment and I will thank you. In other case, pls, silence is a nice word.

To Everybody: In any encoder I tried, I only try at his highest/mastering quality (8.000 kb, or 9.000 kb, or the highest the encoder allows).

To Noki: Thanks. I will check Discreet (Terran Media) Cleaner v5.12. burt is it a clenaer or an encoder? I do not want to even touch in any way original source. Just a kind of "DV in-DVD out" procedure.

[mats.hogberg]

every one reduced DV original quality. I've noticed that from Nerovision to Main Concept Encoder. Also TMPGEnc use to wash a little the crispy original DV signal.

Well, what did you expect? DVD video is much higher compressed than DV = is of lower quality. You're comparing CD Audio with a 128 kbps MP3.
So - use the encoder you're most satisfied (or least dissatisfied) with, learn that encoder to see if you can do some tweaks to further improve on quality, and - that's probably the best you're ever going to get.
As handy cam video is often shaky, and with fast pans and nasty stuff, it eats bitrate like h*ll. This kind of mtrl unfortunately doesn't lend itself very well to mpg compression (which basically relies on the fact that 2 adjacent frames (should) have very much in common). Using a tripod when shooting can improve things drastically.

/Mats

[alanpo]

I couldn't get decent DVD (mpeg2) conversion from my DV tape, as I mentioned in a recent post of mine. Dropped frames, bad colors, bad sound, screetchy sound, artifacts, etc. I got a $160 Samsung combo DVD Recorder and VCR, and it worked right away (but I will probably need to use the S-video inputs to be able to put timecode onto the DVD...that is another story). Via the Samsung, I couldn't tell the difference between the DVD and DV, on my TV. I never got good enough results on my computer when trying to make a DVD from the DV AVI, and this has been via various programs over the years, using both Win 2k and Win XP. Maybe w/ yet more time I could figure it out, but the recorder did it perfectly and brainlessly.

[manono]

To manono: I've already tried with my brain as encoder, but I only got a headache.

Touché, but I think you get my point. For example, mats.hogberg said:

As handy cam video is often shaky, and with fast pans and nasty stuff, it eats bitrate like h*ll.

which is why I said:

Knowing how to take the video properly...

If you have your camera moving all around and panning and jumping, then there's just not enough bitrate available in the DVD specs to make it look good. Using a tripod and not making newbie mistakes, like moving the camera too much, will go a long way towards getting a good result when converted to DVD.

And, pls, do not be rude. I´ve already stated that money is not the question in this case.

Yes, I was rude, but you had said:

Many others compromise quality over price and choose free software.

which says to me that you're looking down your nose at freeware. The free HCEnc is as good or better than most of the commercial software encoders. It's not a compromise in any way.

As for encoding tips, a small sample of both the source and one of your encodes might help as far as suggestions go. We'd need to see what you have and what you've done. We don't know what settings you're using for your encodes, or even if you're setting up the encoding properly, or what's wrong with the results you're getting.

[Soopafresh]

There are a lot of ways to make your video look really great when you encode to Mpeg2, and as manono mentioned, the $ isn't the issue when it comes to quality. At a high enough bitrate, all Mpeg2 encodes look the same.

That said, the most important part of your encode is the quality of your source file. Regular standard DV is a grainy looking format- and not in the pleasing manner that film is. The chroma channels are "compressed" to reduce the file size, but in doing so the quality of the image is affected. Finally, the video is interlaced, which looks okay on a regular TV set, but doesn't look that great on a computer monitor. All of those factors are present even before you consider the quality of lighting, the steadiness of the shot, the quality of the optics, etc.

There are several things you can do to prepare your video for encoding, including deshaking, chroma upsampling, denoising, fixing white balance, etc. This is all before you even feed the material into your Mpeg encoder.

[whenloverageswild]

Hi, everybody:

Yes. My handycam DV videos are -to simplify- of two kinds: familiar ones (so imagine, you shot while walking in the park, do spans and zoom to catch some of the action, for example, a rollercoaster ride or a merry-go-round. Some other videos are just birthday parties that use to be a little quiet). The other kind of videos are concerts. In this case, zoom is a "must", some shaky sometimes (while I had a great pulse, if the floor is vibrating due to extreme sound, you are acting like a "human SteadyCam" yourself trying to compensate vibrations). In all of these last cases -concerts-, I set my Sony cam to a special preset exposure which is represented by a "moon" draw (a "shot at night" mode, pls. do not confuse with "the greenish nightshot" feature) to avoid the extremely grainy picture when you have a obscure enviroment except for the lights of the stage. And that's it.

Soopafresh quote:

"There are several things you can do to prepare your video for encoding, including deshaking, chroma upsampling, denoising, fixing white balance, etc. This is all before you even feed the material into your Mpeg encoder".

I ask you:

All of this procedures implies re-renderign several times de original DV. Am I wrong?.
In any case, deshacking could really help?
Sorry, I will show my ignorance here, but how usefull is a chroma unsampling?.
Denoising supposed a re-render of the original source, as far as I know.

So must be a way to do all this procedures in one step all together. In other case I have to re-render the DV signal at least 2 or 3 times. That's looks excesive, right?

manono quotes:

"The free HCEnc is as good or better than most of the commercial software encoders. It's not a compromise in any way".

I ask:

Is as good as Procoder 3?. In a list, where you put this HCEncoder?. A read several guys who prefer this one over many others. But again the goal I 'm looking for is keep the cripsy clear quality of the original DV over time of processing, software price, and etc.

And to everybody:

Thanx to all for your attention.

Anybody knows which encoder is inside Nerovision? Why it produce so muddy and washed out quality?

Last question:
I do not know if I'm asking something stupid, but there ain't any software that could process DV to DV Disc with menues and everything (like nowadays DVDs), and a DVD standalone player that manages to playback DV codecs?.
With the introduction of high capacity disc (BR or HDDVD) I'm thinking of just do discs with master DV signal, with menus and everything and forget of any another processing to BR/HDDVD, DVD or whatever. That will be the Holy Grial for me.

[Vegito72]

Why didn't you say you have a blu-ray player? If quality is the concern for you, why not use that puppy? Of course that is IF you have a blu-ray burner. If so... actually to answer your first question, I've never heard of a player that plays back DV. Especially with menus. So why not convert to h.264. H.264 is far better compressed and less limited than DVD's mpeg2. Like most people said, not even mpeg2 at 9800kbps can cover some crazy movements on a camera.

So if money is no issue, buy yourself a blu-ray drive and convert to H.264 at a really high bitrate. Though H.264 is a lossy codec, I doubt any human can see the difference at a really high bitrate. And there's always the plus side of interative menu authoring. THere's my two cents, good night.

[whenloverageswild]

Hi

I do NOT have a BR/HDDVD burner....yet.

And, as you say, H.264 is a lossy codec -as every one I know.

That's why I asked for a DVD player with DV codec capability. In that case, wouldn't burn any DVD anymore, wait to buy a BR/HDDVD burner - at a reasonable price-, and just throw the master DV into the disc, and if I could put menues, best of the best. No losses, all gain.
Understand my point?.
Anyway, your solution will be the best up to this moment.


Thank for your input.

[manono]

Am I wrong?.

Yes, you're wrong. Soopafresh is referring to frameserving with an AviSynth script with the filtering taking place before the video enters the encoder. Everything is done in one step. You can do similar, if inferior, things by frameserving via VDub.

In any case, deshacking could really help?

Deshaking can help immeasurably by making the video much more compressible. And as I mentioned, none of this filtering (to answer the next question about the denoising) requires a separate rerendering. All filtering and encoding is done at the same time.

Is as good as Procoder 3?. In a list, where you put this HCEncoder?.

Personally, I would put Procoder at the bottom of any list, but it can be very useful with interlaced and/or hard-to-compress sources, and Procoder has some very loyal fans at this and other sites. It has a built-in softener that can't be disabled. If the goal is fidelity to the source - sometimes called transparency - it doesn't cut it, in my opinion. But like I said, if the material is hard to compress, it can be useful, although I'd rather do my filtering in my script or in the quantisation matrix I use (another area where it's crippled, unless Procoder3 finally allows you to add custom matrices, something you couldn't do with earlier versions)

I do not know if I'm asking something stupid, but there ain't any software that could process DV to DV Disc with menues and everything (like nowadays DVDs), and a DVD standalone player that manages to playback DV codecs?.

If you're asking if you can keep the video untouched at the same time making it into a DVD, then of course the answer's no, as DVD requires MPEG-2. If you were to burn the DV to disc, with the intention of playing it on your television, you'd have to feed the TV set through an HTPC, as no standalones with which I'm familiar can play DV.

[whenloverageswild]

Hi:

Thanx for the tips.
Now I downloaded Avysinth. My God! What is it?. Am I supposed to go back to school to learn to write?. I need a teacher twice a week just to begin......
Is out there any place where I can find some "ready to use" orders?.

I'm feeling like a 6 years old pupil again....

[redwudz]

You can get guides for AviSynth at their site. http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page

Or what I do, though I agree it's inferior, is to use VirtualDub instead. It can also frameserve to a MPEG encoder. Some Vdub filters available here: http://www.thedeemon.com/VirtualDubFilters/

Guides for VD are on the tool page for the program, at the bottom of the page.

[jg0001]

Personally, I've tried a bunch of stuff on the retail side (Ulead/Pinnacle/AdobePremiereElements/TMPGEnc) and I've found that I prefer to use CCE Basic over all of the others.

Even once you choose a DV-AVI -> MPEG2 converter you then need to get into the nuance of the different settings of each program (if any are offered).

I tend to set CCE to do as little as possible to the audio (i.e. just rip out a .wav file) and to convert the video to DVD compliant MPEG2 at 8000 kbps. You can go a bit higher on that video rate, but then you start to leave little room for the audio. I find it is quite hard to tell the difference from 6000->7000->8000... and nearly impossible from 8000 on up.

I usually do not tweak the rest of the settings too much, but they do serve a purpose -- primarily to try and tell the encoder what KIND of video it's looking at... whether there are a lot of complex details or a lot of smooth & solid areas (think, like a cartoon).

I've been very unhappy with the results I've gotten from other encoders and quite happy with CCE. TMPGEnc is a close 2nd for me in quality, but I find CCE's interface a little bit friendlier (both are quite unfriendly to begin with). That's my 2 cents.

[noki]

Cleaner is an encoder.

[ricardouk]

i convert a lot of dv footage and avisynth and Quenc are the tools i use

avisource("dv.avi")

open the script in Quenc, pick a "decent bitrate", select 16:9 aspect, 2 pass high quality, 224 ac3 bitrate and i always had very good results.

[thecoalman]

In any case, deshacking could really help?

Note that the deshaking option on a cam should only be used for hand-held operation or if the tripod is on a vibrating surface. Otherwise it should be turned off. From my understanding the deshaker effectively reduces the resolution of your cam, to achieve the deshaking it produces a safe area of resolution which is used to compensate for shakiness that is not used in a steady shot .

[stars]

Hi I have done a lot of DV -> DVD conversion and the best I have come up with...

Is Virutaldub and frameserve the video to HC encoder....

What can you do when you convert 25Mbps to 9Mbps (I use VBR) but for better quality CBR would be used..

With 9Mbps I can squeez 1h into a DVD5...

All programs are freeware and maybe you would get better result if you spend some money, maybe not...

About filtering.....I never do that....The filtered version cannot be better then the original..

Try HC encoder with different matrix....

stars....

[mats.hogberg]

9000Mbps (I use VBR) but for better quality CBR would be used..

...er... Usually, it's the other way around, but at max DVD bitrate (which 9000 kbps is very close to!) it really doesn't matter much.

/Mats

[stars]

You are right.....

stars...

[Soopafresh]

You can try this little experimental script which attempts to clean up the DV source a bit before encoding to Mpeg2.

Needs Avisynth, and if you don't already have a VFW DV codec installed, download

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Cedocida_DV_Codec.htm


Instructions:

1) Download

prepare_dv.zip

2) Unzip, place DV AVI in same folder, and click .BAT file



3) Feed AVS file to your Mpeg2 Encoder



* Note: I think this will only work with NTSC material, but I could be wrong.

* Note2: This isn't going to be fast, and the limitations of DV make it difficult to "polish a turd". Still, I think it looks pretty good, I'm just not sure

[ofalcon]

Please don't hijack topics. Please only post ONCE.
I moved your post to https://forum.videohelp.com/topic339435.html

/Admin Baldrick

[halsboss]

Maybe something useful here re conversions https://forum.videohelp.com/topic339205.html#1767076