HDV to DVD poor quality

[McBNQ]

I am trying to burn my HDV project to DVD using premiere elements 7. Its not important that the final product be in HD but it must be a nice quality dvd. Everything I burn looks aweful. I have approx 2 hours of HDV video.
Any info would be great.
Thanks.

[guns1inger]

What output settings are you using when you export from elements ?

also remember that in choosing DVD for your output format you are effectively cutting you resolution by around 70%, which will make a noticeable difference.

[McBNQ]

Its a pretty basic menu. I select NTSC widescreen dvd and best quality 8.0mbps. The quality is unacceptable.
I also have vegas 8 but havent yet tried using it.

[guns1inger]

@ hours is about the max at reasonable quality on a single layer disc. You can go more, but you really need to be able to finesse the encoder settings or start making sacrifices. At 2 hours you are hitting an average bitrate of around 4880 kbps. If your source is hand held and/or full of motion then you are making it hard on the encoder. Also, at that bitrate, I would suggest a 2-pass variable bitrate encode.

[McBNQ]

gunslinger, I fooled around with different video editing stuff over the years, alot of birthday/anniversary stuff for family and friends and never had any problems, it was actually rather easy. So I took on a project of filming a concert and passing out about 20 dvds. Now im at a stand still and past the due date. Im a beginner at all of this HDV stuff. I have been trying to read up to gain enough knowledge that I can get this simple project done. I assume that the first step is to convert HDV to SD. (I have Vegas 8 to do this. However, the quality when i render to new track is just not good enough to pass out to people.) If I have to use 2 dvds for the entire show that is fine as long as the quality is nice. Am i on the right track? Are there any steps or information im missing.
Thanks for your help.

[TBoneit]

if it were me I'd use a target size to fill a Dual Layer DVD which would give you more bitrate to play with.

I recently did a 1080i .ts to DVD encode 2 pass using TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress encoder to encode and the using TMPGEnc DVD Author to author. No fancy menus and it took 12 hours to encode on a Q6600 however it looks decent.

I'm not suggesting you buy new software, all I'm saying is it can be done. It could be you are not doing two pass encoding, or it could be your filtering? Or there is a codec problem.

What happens to the quality if you set the bitrate to max and ingnore size warnings? How does the quality look then? If it still looks bad then you need to look deeper.
Just as a test.

According to your computer specs a trial encode should go fairly fast.

Good Luck

[TBoneit]

BTW skip motion menus and such features that leave less disk space for the video.

[minidv2dvd]

you really shouldn't be having that much trouble with hdv. unless you shot it with a canon hv30 in 24p that is. HDV is a great source for dvd material. i video high school and middle school concerts for the locals here all the time. since there is very little movement almost any bitrate over 3000kbps for the mpeg should look fine.

here's my workflow.
capture hdv from cam to harddrive with hdvsplit. open vegas pro, start a new project with HDV settings(file properties), make sure to choose 1440x1080 60i if you shot it interlaced, and make sure de-interlace method is marked "none". make sure to look at the audio tab to make sure it's set the way you want. click apply/ok. import all the clips. edit away. when it comes time to render do it as separate streams, video render as m.c. mpeg2 - settings - "stretch video to fill output frame - do not letterbox", select a dvd template, click custom, select "best" , in the video tab, aspect ratio 16/9, video quality slider to 31, check insert sequence header before every gop, variable bitrate & 2pass, and now the hardest part. selecting the proper bitrate to almost fill a sl dvd. use a bitrate calculator like the one here - http://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php#Calculator
set ntsc, the actual number of minutes and the bitrate of your audio. it will give you max ave min settings for the encoder. round down a little just to make sure it fits the first time. if the ave. is under 3000 then use 2 dvds and a constant bitrate of 8000 for each of the 2 parts after you split it. in the advanced tab check use closed gops. in the audio tab uncheck include audio. in the system tab check save as separate streams. click ok. give it a name and place to save it and render away. do the same for the audio. render it to ac3 2ch or 5.1.

use the mpv and ac3 in your authoring program.

[McBNQ]

THanks for your replies minidv and tboneit.
It was shot using a Cannon xha1. The students are singing and dancing so there is actually quite a bit of movement, perhaps that is the probelm? I feel like im missing a crucial step. This is exactly what im doing. Right now im not even trying to edit it, im just trying to get this one file to dvd. Using Vegas pro 8. I import the file ( file specs show as, MPEG-2, 2 Streams, 1440x1080x32, 29.970fps 58:30;07). Render as. Select MPEG-2. Select DVD arch. NTSC video stream. check stretch video to fill output. video rendering quality - BEST. Constant bitrate of 8,000,000. Video quality 31. Check use closed GOPs. Legnth of GOPs - none/short. save as seperate streams.
Is premiere elements 7 ok for authoring? or should i buy something else?
I have magix movie edit pro 15 plus also.
I also just got a copy of premiere pro that i havent installed yet.
10 years ago this wasnt so difficult. lol.
THanks again..

[guns1inger]

I would be outputting your video and audio as DVD compliant streams from Vegas Pro, where you will get a fair amount of control over the settings. I would be doing a 2 pass variable bitrate encode with a maximum bitrate of around 9,200,000 (9200 kbps) and an average of of around 8000 kbps.

At that running time you could even go for a constant bitrate of around 8900 kbps if you wanted to, but I would give a 2 pass variable encode a go a first.

I would not use elements for authoring. If you don't have DVD Architect, perhaps look at DVD Styler or GUIForDVDAuthor. These will author your disc without re-encoding. I am not convinced that Elements will do that for you - not impressed with anything Adobe has done in the authoring area.

[McBNQ]

the quality was decent with that render but the size is a bit squashed.

[minidv2dvd]

i'd say try a different authoring tool also. at 8000kbps your mpv should be excellent even with movement. does it play ok on the computer?

just for a test try the free DVD Flick and see if the results are better than elements. my choice is dvd-lab pro but flick may do what you need.

[McBNQ]

Hello again,
I used Sony DVD architect to burn the dvd. It looks great on the old 36in 4:3. But on the widescreen lcd's it looks not so great. And it doesnt fill up the whole widescreen, it leaves black bars on top and bottom. I was expecting the bars on the 4:3 tv but it filled it up pretty well.

[guns1inger]

Is your Vegas project set to 16:9 ? Was your output set to 16:9 ?

Be aware that the quality of SD material on your TV comes down to how good the upscaler on your TV or player is, and how good the filters are in the TV circuitry. Not all are created equally.

[Alex_ander]

Resizing interlaced material is a weak side of conventional video editing software, the results can be fair but never perfect. This operation is much better done in Avisynth where you have full control over the process. In case of Premiere you can e.g. output in (smartly rendered) original format, then use DGIndex+AviSynth. Here's a practical example of HD->SD script for interlaced HDV source (video part imported via DGIndex, audio can be added into script or used separately for authoring):

LoadPlugin("path\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("path\ColorMatrix.dll")
LoadPlugin("path\LeakKernelDeint.dll")
MPEG2Source("path\video.d2v")
Spline36Resize(720,Last.Height)
LeakKernelBob(order=1)
LanczosResize(Last.Width,480)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601")
ConvertToYUY2()# for CCE or Canopus
DoubleWeave().SelectEvery(4,1)#TFF