Poor DVD quality: Computer screen recorded to DVD (mpeg1)

[MC123]

Hello,

I've recorded a piece of flash animation from my screen to quicktime format (1024x576) and saved as .mov no compression. Now the quality is as good as the original animation playing on the screen.

Now when i export this to mpeg2 to create a DVD I ALWAYS get a large amount of quality loss, I've tried a few compression programs and they all produce poor quality. Is this an issue with the mpg2 format for DVD or is there a way around this.

How do others produce a processionally sharp dvd?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Baldrick]

What tool(s) are you using? If you use a good mpeg2/dvd converter and high bitrate it should look prettyt good.

Moving you to our Mac forum section.

[MC123]

DVD studio pro to encode the .mov's to mpeg2

What would you suggest?

[terryj]

Use Compressor instead of DVD Studio Pro's built in.
This way you can adjust the Bitrate with the help of a
BitRate Calc, you can get your animation to encode better.

Adjust the Bitrate to reflect the end target and the type of motion
in the animation. For instance, say this is an animation of
Superman moving fast across the sky to smash a meteor;
The animation is 5 mins long, and you wnat that on a DVD.

You would use the Bitrate calc to figure out a 2 Pass VBR Bitrate
targeted towards a DVD-5, and you'll find you can set it pretty high
(about 7.0MBPS). You then go into compressor and set your
preset to match these settings and then encode your file.

DVDSP uses compressor as it's backbone, but it is targeted to
the overall Project size. So if your build is at 4.1GB, it will
"auto magically" try a One Pass VBR to get everything to fit to DVD-5.

Encoding your assets BEFORE you build your project will train you
on how to make adjustments on the fly to your projects assets
and ensure that the its the assets ( menus, buttons, etc) that get
"dialed down" NOT the movie file ( heart) of the DVD.

[rumplestiltskin]

It's the 1024x576 screen size that's the problem. No matter which tool you use, you'll never get good quality because DVD is intended for 640x480 screens. Change your screen size, adjust your Flash animation to fit within the TV-safe area and try encoding again.

Let us know what happens.

[MC123]

I think the issue here is that i'm used to working on screen where you have more res - I've check out a couple of professional dvds on my LCD TV and they have similar issues when you look close enough.

Thanks for the advice on encoding BEFORE DSP

[terryj]

u r welcome.

You'll find once you start working this way,
You'll wonder how you could have ever did it the other way....