Converting Videos to NTSC MPEG-2 (using TMPGEnc Xpress)

[Quamatek]

I've been searching this site and the net learning how to convert videos to NTSC MPEG-2 properly. I have several applications and currently using for my projects:

TMPGEnc Xpress 4.7.3.292 (to encode using Nvidia CUDA)
Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5 (to author)

1) I noticed that the default output settings are determined by the souce file. Sometimes the output is Interlaced and in other times 3:2 pulldown. The outcome always show 59.94fps (which I believe is the right output).

Question: Does it matter whether I set the video output to Progressive, Interlaced or 3:2 pulldown? What is the better setting for a NTSC DVD?

2) For the audio I have the choice of Linear PCM, Dolby Digital and MPEG-1 Audio Layer II. If I do a non-standard setting MPEG-1 Audio Layer III is available. Sony DVD Architect only recognizes the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II. If I choose to encode the audio to Linear PCM or Dolby Digital the video loads but not the audio.

Question: Is the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II good or can you recommend a better option?

Question: When I load audio CDs or DVD videos with 2.0 audio they play correctly. Why is it when I encode the audio for 2.0 playback my DVD player still uses the center channel? Is there a way to tell the DVD player to play it as 2.0? (by method of encoding)


My questions are a bit long-winded. Suggestions are appreciated.

[manono]

The outcome always show 59.94fps (which I believe is the right output).

It probably is, but 'fps' is usually used to mean 'frames per second' where here it's 59.94 fields per second. All NTSC DVDs have to output 29.97 frames per second. I don't use any TMPG products and am not quite sure if that's some TMPG term, or if you got it from GSpot or somewhere else.

Question: Does it matter whether I set the video output to Progressive, Interlaced or 3:2 pulldown? What is the better setting for a NTSC DVD?

You bet it matters, and how you set it up is determined by the source. If you have a progressive 23.976fps source, you want to encode it as progressive 23.976fps with 3:2 pulldown applied. If you have an interlaced 29.97fps source, you encode it as interlaced with no pulldown. There is no 'better' setting. There's a right setting and there are wrong settings.

Question: Is the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II good or can you recommend a better option?

You're making NTSC DVDs, so MP2 audio isn't officially supported, although most players will play it OK. Me, I make DVDs only with AC3 audio. For NTSC there are only 2 real choices (not counting DTS audio), PCM WAV audio (too big), and AC3 audio of some sort.

When I load audio CDs or DVD videos with 2.0 audio they play correctly. Why is it when I encode the audio for 2.0 playback my DVD player still uses the center channel? Is there a way to tell the DVD player to play it as 2.0? (by method of encoding)

It plays only through the center channel? Or maybe it only sounds like it's coming from the center channel (dual mono)? Because if it only comes from the center channel, it's not 2 channel (not DD 2.0). Either that or your player or receiver isn't handling it correctly. Open a VOB from one of these that play only through the center channel in GSpot and take note of the number of channels.

[Quamatek]

Thank you manono for the reply.

Sorry I did not specify the FPS. I did mean Fields per second.

TMPGEnc Xpress is so far setting the outputs correctly by default I believe. If the source is Progressive 29.97fps do I set the output as Interlaced?

Sony DVD Architect Studio supports AC3 format. I'd like to go with that format. In TMPGEnc Xpress, one of the audio output options is Dolby Digital. Would that be considered AC3? I'm asking because Sony DVD Architect Studio supports the AC3 extension but it doesn't recognize the audio encoded in Dolby Digital. It looks as if I need to load the video and audio separately. For instance, encode the video using TMPGEnc Xpress and extract the audio to AC3.

When I play the DVDs the left and right speakers are playing along with the center channel. However, the center channel seems to be the dominant speaker, as if the audio was encoded to 5.1. The thing is when I encode it says Stereo 2.0. I can always set the receiver to Stereo mode but that's a hassle. I'd like the DVD player to automatically recognize the DVD as 2.0. Is that possible?

Thank you again for the help.

[Quamatek]

Update:

DVD Architect Studio Supported Formats
Video: .avi,** .mov,* .mp4,** .mpeg,** .mpg,** .qt,* .wmv**
Audio: .aa3, .ac3, .aif, .ogg, .oma, .sfa, .vox, .w64, .wma

I didn't know TMPGEnc Xpress could output separate files (m2v + ac3). It's part of the ES mode. The upside is now I can use AC3 audio. The downside is that Sony DVD Architect Studio doesn't support m2v format. So for now I'll load the AC3 file and the MPEG-2 video format into Sony DVD Architect. It looks like I'll have to encode twice now (one for video and one for audio).

:P

[manono]

If the source is Progressive 29.97fps do I set the output as Interlaced?

Hehe, I purposely ignored that one in my first reply. I've made them both ways, but most of the progressive 29.97fps content I've seen on retail DVDs has been encoded as interlaced. It may even be in the DVD specs that it's supposed to be encoded as interlaced, but I don't think it's any big deal one way or the other.

In TMPGEnc Xpress, one of the audio output options is Dolby Digital. Would that be considered AC3?

Yes, DD audio has the .ac3 extension.

When I play the DVDs the left and right speakers are playing along with the center channel.

Oh, sorry, I slightly misunderstood the question when giving my first reply. I just went to listen to some DD 2.0 audio and it comes only from the left and right speakers, with nothing from the center. Since there's such a thing as DD 2.0 surround, maybe it's outputting something similar - where audio is supposed to come from speakers (in this case, the center speaker) other than just the left and right front speakers. But as I don't use TMPG, I'll let someone that actually knows something about what it produces respond.

If DVD Architect doesn't accept M2V as a source for authoring, make darned sure that it doesn't go ahead and reencode DVD compliant video. That sounds very strange to me, an authoring app not accepting an elementary video stream.

[last_registered_user]

Hello,

If the source is Progressive 29.97fps do I set the output as Interlaced?

Interlaced video is made out of a set of 2 sets of horizontal lines
The first set is the odd number of lines and the second one is the even number of lines.
Imagine a picture and you slice it horizontally with a knife.
Lets say that you end up with 10 pieces of the picture.
Now if you take the pieces 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. That would be the first group.
Pieces 2, 4, 6 ,8 10 would be the second group.

When a normal TV (not HD) just regular TV is showing you the videos,
The internal tube shows you for every frame, first the first group of slices and then the second.
But it's so fast the we can't notice.
But if you are playing from a VCR and you press pause,
you wil notice and you will see the jagged edges of the slices.

That's interlaced video.

Progressive is like still pictures, there's no slices, no flickering.
If you pause a progressive video playing on a Progressive capable TV, it will look as just one frame.
Progressive means no interlace, it means each frame is not made up of two sets of slices,
also known as fields.

So if you convert an interlaced video to a Progressive one, it will grab the two slices (or fields) and make
one frame out of it.
It will look more smooth, especially if you play it in a computer.


In TMPGEnc Xpress, one of the audio output options is Dolby Digital. Would that be considered AC3?
The main advantage with AC3 is that it uses a whole lot "less" space than WAV.
MPG audio also doesn't take as much space as WAV.

So, let's imagine that you have a 2 hour video that you want to convert to DVD format.
if you use WAV audio, your maximum bitrate left for the video would probably be les than
4MB/s, so it would look like crap.
So normally I never use WAV.

AC3 can be played even with super old DVD players,
MPG audio can be played with any player this days.


I hope this helps you.

Regards

[Quamatek]

Latest update: :P *Posted before I saw last_registered_user post. Will reply...

1) I'll address the audio first. I did a bit of experimenting and it turns out the DVD Player (A/V receiver) was playing Dolby Digital 2.0 as 5.1 due to two things: The way I was encoding the audio and my A/V receiver settings. It turns out that I had set Analog/PCM and Dolby Digital (2.0) to play as Pro Logic II. By doing so it turns my 2.0 audio tracks to surround sound.

I have commercial DVDs that are coded in Dolby Digital 2.0 and play in Pro Logic II. I didn't want to change that setting. I noticed that most of my commercial music video DVDs were encoded in PCM full stereo. So I changed the A/V receiver setting to play Analog/PCM audio as stereo. With TMPGEnc Xpress I encoded an audio track to PCM stereo and it worked! The DVD player read it as PCM full stereo!

2) Video encoding still baffles me. I have a few source videos that are Progressive 23.976fps. When I encoded them to 3:2 pulldown Sony DVD Architect Studio read as a non-compliant DVD video in 24fps. I decided to encode these videos in Interlaced and not only did the videos played smoothly, Sony DVD Architect Studio read them as compliant DVD videos and didn't need recompressing. I'll provide some screenshots to show the settings and results:



Source file shown (Progressive 23.976fps):



Video settings #1 in TMPGEnc Xpress:



Results for #1 in Sony DVD Architect Studio:



---------------------------

Video settings #2 in TMPGEnc Xpress:



Results for #2 in Sony DVD Architect Studio:



---------------------------

Results: Settings #1 non-compliant and Settings #2 compliant.

I'm wondering why Sony DVD Architect Studio showed the encoded Interlaced videos as compliant (without the need for recompression) while encoded videos in 3:2 pulldown showed as non-compliant 24fps? Should I stick with the Interlaced settings?

*Source files of Progressive 23.976, Progressive 29.97 and Progressive 59.94 are responding to Interlaced encoding.

Video editing is fun and confusing at the same time.

[Quamatek]

Oops! I didn't see your post, last_registered_user. Please allow me to read it and I'll address it. Sorry about that.


A few minutes later...



Thank you for the explanation between Progressive and Interlaced. That made sense.

I'll need to experiment more between Progressive and Interlaced. I'm trying to figure out why the Interlaced encoded videos were compliant while the 3:2 pulldown weren't. I'll try to encode them in Progressive and see if it makes a difference.

As for the audio I'm able to encode in either Dolby Digital AC3 or PCM and they have been compliant in the latest tests without the need for recompression when I author the videos to DVD. I'm quite relieved!


-------------------------


I saw this thread: Best way to get 29.97fps progressive video onto NTSC DVD. Posting it here for reference.


--------------------------

Update again!

I encoded the source above (Progressive 23.976 fps) to Progressive 29.97 fps and the video is DVD compliant. Looks good too. I'm trying to compare between the Interlaced and Progressive videos. Both look good.

I understand there is a right way and a wrong way to encode the files. I'm trying to make sense of it all.

[manono]

Progressive means no interlace, it means each frame is not made up of two sets of slices,
also known as fields.

Not true. A progressive frame is still made up of 2 fields, but they both happen to be the same - from the same point in time. DVD players output fields, whether the source is interlaced or progressive, whether it's encoded as progressive or as interlaced. There's a difference you're not acknowledging between what the source is like and how it's encoded. For example, almost all PAL movies on DVD use progressive sources but are encoded as interlaced. 29.97fps progressive sources can be and usually are encoded as interlaced.

So if you convert an interlaced video to a Progressive one, it will grab the two slices (or fields) and make
one frame out of it.
It will look more smooth, especially if you play it in a computer.

Also not true. When making DVDs, true interlaced video should be kept that way because it plays more smoothly. If you deinterlace 59.94 fields per second to 29.97 progressive frames per second, you lose half the motion, half the fluidity. Maybe a case can be made that it'll play better on a computer, but I think we're talking about making DVDs for viewing on televisions.

Quamatek, you want the settings from that 23.976 fps (internally 29.97) picture, but I have no idea why your authoring app doesn't like it. Like I said, I don't use either one. You might open the resulting M2V in Muxman and see if it's rejected or not. It will accept only DVD compliant video. Unless you need menus, you might let it author the entire thing. You don't want to encode it at 29.97fps, either as interlaced or as progressive.

As for your progressive 23.976fps source encoded as progressive 29.97fps, just open it in a player that can pause and advance a frame at a time. You'll notice duplicate frames every 5th frame, which will make for choppy playback, especially during certain kinds of movement.

[Quamatek]

As for your progressive 23.976fps source encoded as progressive 29.97fps, just open it in a player that can pause and advance a frame at a time. You'll notice duplicate frames every 5th frame, which will make for choppy playback, especially during certain kinds of movement.

Whoa. That's exactly what happened. To verify I forced the encode to Progressive 29.97 several times and there was a duplicate on every 5th frame.

Quamatek, you want the settings from that 23.976 fps (internally 29.97) picture, but I have no idea why your authoring app doesn't like it. Like I said, I don't use either one. You might open the resulting M2V in Muxman and see if it's rejected or not. It will accept only DVD compliant video. Unless you need menus, you might let it author the entire thing. You don't want to encode it at 29.97fps, either as interlaced or as progressive.

I haven't a clue either. I successfully loaded the m2v files into Muxman and even GSpot showed the video as a compliant DVD format. What's even more strange is that in the Explorer window for Sony DVD Architect Studio, the video file that was encoded in 3:2 pulldown showed correctly:



However, when I clicked to optimize the project it showed as non-compliant:




Even with the error I went ahead and authored the video. I loaded it into PowerDVD and it played quite well. There were no duplicated frames.


----------------------------

My settings for one of the projects using a bitrate calculator:








---------------------------

Questions (What do I encode these videos as?):

1. Progressive 23.976 fps --> 3:2 pulldown 23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)
2. Progressive 59.94 -->
3. Progressive 29.97 --> Progressive or Interlaced

Do I have #1 and #3 correct? What about #2?

4. Is my understanding correct that the maximum bitrate of a compliant DVD is 9800? Is that why when I encode PCM audio 1536 kb/s that the max video bitrate must be set at 8000?

[Quamatek]

In addition to the questions in my last post :P ...

5. In my last post for the #2 question (source Progressive 59.94), TMPGEnc Xpress default encode setting is Interlaced 29.97. Is that correct?

6. If I'm able to encode using the bitrate of 8000 should I use CBR? Or should I go ahead and use VBR average bitrate and set the maximum to 8000 with a low and average bitrates? I read somewhere that macroblocking can occur using CBR.



I found these links below and they were helpful:

Bitrate Calculator #1 --- Bitrate & GOP calculator #2
How to calculate bitrates for DVD production
High-quality MPEG-2 Conversion
About Deinterlacing
AVI 2 DVD
CBR vs VBR

[manono]

Even with the error I went ahead and authored the video. I loaded it into PowerDVD and it played quite well. There were no duplicated frames.

But it was reencoded, yet again. Right? And it was made interlaced, I assume, with 2 of every 5 frames being interlaced. Right? That's bad for encoding efficiency. The upshot is that by allowing this crippled authoring program to reencode your already compliant video, you've seriously degraded its quality. And that's not necessary at all. Why the necessity to use it? There are plenty of authoring programs out there - free ones even - that leave already DVD compliant video alone and do just what they're supposed to do - author it for DVD.

I'm wondering why Sony DVD Architect Studio showed the encoded Interlaced videos as compliant (without the need for recompression) while encoded videos in 3:2 pulldown showed as non-compliant 24fps?

Because it's a worthless toy? If I'm interpreting the picture correctly, it's not claiming the video is non-compliant (the fact that Muxman accepted it already disproved that), but only that the program doesn't support progressive 23.976fps videos with pulldown, even though they're perfectly compliant.

Do I have #1 and #3 correct? What about #2?

Yes, one and three are correct, although purists will want to encode progressive 29.97fps sources as interlaced. As for 2, it depends on what you have. If every frame is different then you can either reinterlace it and encode as interlaced 29.97fps (preferred), or drop every other frame and reencode it as 29.97fps, either interlaced or progressive. If every other frame is a duplicate, drop every other frame and encode as 29.97fps, either progressive or interlaced. If, in every 5 frame sequence only 2 are unique, then drop the other 3 and encode as 23.976fps with pulldown.

These things are done using AviSynth scripts. Since that hasn't come up so far, I'll assume you know nothing about it yet. I have no idea whether or not TMPGEnc can do what has to be done. I feed AviSynth scripts into CCE. There are probably some all-in-one programs out there that can do these things (XviD4PSP or AviDemux?), but I don't use any of them. If you're going to become a serious video encoding enthusiast, it's in your best interests to learn AviSynth.

4. Is my understanding correct that the maximum bitrate of a compliant DVD is 9800? Is that why when I encode PCM audio 1536 kb/s that the max video bitrate must be set at 8000?

The max bitrate for video alone is 9800 and for the total bitrate (audio, video, subs, muxing overhead) is 10080. If the audio is PCM WAV, the max video bitrate doesn't have to be 8000, but many would use that.

5. In my last post for the #2 question (source Progressive 59.94), TMPGEnc Xpress default encode setting is Interlaced 29.97. Is that correct?

My guess is that TMPGEnc will drop every other frame. That's one way, I suppose, but as I said earlier, if every frame is different I'd reinterlace it. Before sending it to the encoder.

6. If I'm able to encode using the bitrate of 8000 should I use CBR? Or should I go ahead and use VBR average bitrate and set the maximum to 8000 with a low and average bitrates? I read somewhere that macroblocking can occur using CBR.

Meaning if the video is short enough (an hour or so max?), should 8000 CBR be used? Up to you. I suppose many that encode short videos to fill a DVDR would agree that CBR is the way to go. As for macroblocking, it can occur with any kind of encoding. It depends on the complexity of the source and the max bitrate you set in the encoder. That's another reason to use AC3 audio because then you can boost the max bitrate to 9500 or even to the max 9800. This means that scenes can be more complex before macroblocking will occur. Macroblocking can occur whether using CBR or VBR encoding.

[Quamatek]

Thank you again for helping me.

I'm wondering why Sony DVD Architect Studio showed the encoded Interlaced videos as compliant (without the need for recompression) while encoded videos in 3:2 pulldown showed as non-compliant 24fps?

Because it's a worthless toy? If I'm interpreting the picture correctly, it's not claiming the video is non-compliant (the fact that Muxman accepted it already disproved that), but only that the program doesn't support progressive 23.976fps videos with pulldown, even though they're perfectly compliant.

Up until I ran into this issue I thought DVD Arhitect Studio was the authoring solution. It has a good selection of menu editing options and an user-friendly interface. I am disappointed that DVD Architect Studio doesn't support 3:2 pulldown.

I'm looking into TMPGEnc Authoring Works. From what I've read it has a smart engine that'll disable re-encode if the video/audio are DVD compliant (Click here to see demo). Since I use TMPGEnc Xpress anyway, the two programs should compliment each other.

Is there an authoring program with a good set of menu options, pay or freeware, that you can recommend? One that can accept video elementary streams too.

Yes, one and three are correct, although purists will want to encode progressive 29.97fps sources as interlaced. As for 2, it depends on what you have. If every frame is different then you can either reinterlace it and encode as interlaced 29.97fps (preferred), or drop every other frame and reencode it as 29.97fps, either interlaced or progressive. If every other frame is a duplicate, drop every other frame and encode as 29.97fps, either progressive or interlaced. If, in every 5 frame sequence only 2 are unique, then drop the other 3 and encode as 23.976fps with pulldown.

Ok, great. I'm starting (but slowly) understanding when to use pulldown. I'll also encode Progressive 29.97 fps as Interlaced.

If you're going to become a serious video encoding enthusiast, it's in your best interests to learn AviSynth.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll take a look at AviSynth.

The max bitrate for video alone is 9800 and for the total bitrate (audio, video, subs, muxing overhead) is 10080. If the audio is PCM WAV, the max video bitrate doesn't have to be 8000, but many would use that.

I have headroom but if the quality is not effected by 8000 I'll go with that.

6. If I'm able to encode using the bitrate of 8000 should I use CBR? Or should I go ahead and use VBR average bitrate and set the maximum to 8000 with a low and average bitrates? I read somewhere that macroblocking can occur using CBR.

Meaning if the video is short enough (an hour or so max?), should 8000 CBR be used? Up to you. I suppose many that encode short videos to fill a DVDR would agree that CBR is the way to go. As for macroblocking, it can occur with any kind of encoding. It depends on the complexity of the source and the max bitrate you set in the encoder. That's another reason to use AC3 audio because then you can boost the max bitrate to 9500 or even to the max 9800. This means that scenes can be more complex before macroblocking will occur. Macroblocking can occur whether using CBR or VBR encoding.

As of now one of the projects have over 1 gb of headroom so I do have the option of setting the bitrate at the highest quallity at 9800. I haven't tested it against a bitrate of 8000 max.

[manono]

Is there an authoring program with a good set of menu options, pay or freeware, that you can recommend? One that can accept video elementary streams too.

One with templates and already made menus for you to use? I make my own, and use the freeware authoring programs, so I'm no expert regarding the ones with templates. However, the TMPGEnc one you mentioned should fit the bill. The other one you might look into is DVDLab (Pro).

As of now one of the projects have over 1 gb of headroom so I do have the option of setting the bitrate at the highest quallity at 9800. I haven't tested it against a bitrate of 8000 max.

Be careful there. Your encoder has to honor the max bitrate set (and while I'm not positive, TMPGEnc might not), and then your player has to be able to play a DVD with a sustained bitrate of 9800. They're all supposed to be able to do that, but I understand not all will without stuttering and/or short freezes. If using CBR encoding and 192 AC3 audio, you might want to throttle back to 9500 video bitrate, or so. Or test a small video encoded at 9800 to see if it authors and then plays smoothly in your DVD player. I don't make CBR encodes, and while I usually have a high max bitrate, it's not sustained at the max, but just reaches that high for short periods. I do know that many (most?) people around here will warn against going close to the max allowable bitrate. Some recommend going no higher than 6-7000, CBR or VBR, but that's bad advice in my opinion and I ignore them.

[Quamatek]

TMPGEnc Xpress has a setting where it'll max the bitrate to 8000 when PCM audio is used to meet DVD compliance. The setting can be unlocked if need to be. It also has padding for the minimum and maximum settings in case of peaks.

One with templates and already made menus for you to use? I make my own, and use the freeware authoring programs, so I'm no expert regarding the ones with templates. However, the TMPGEnc one you mentioned should fit the bill. The other one you might look into is DVDLab (Pro).

Presets I don't care for. I like to customize my menu too from text to pictures to how everything is positioned. I have to say that I like TMPGEnc Authoring Works so far...With the exception of one thing (there's always one thing :P ). Buttons are based on template maps so while I can customize and position them I cannot add buttons to a project whereas in DVD Architect Studio I can. So now I have DVD Architect Studio that doesn't honor 3:2 pulldown and TMPGEnc Authoring Works that doesn't permit additional buttons.

As for DVDlab Pro and even the ES edition, that is one of the better authoring programs I've seen. The capabilities seem endless. DVDlab Pro2 ES has video encoders I don't need so DVDlab Pro2 and DVDlab Studio may be what I'm looking for too.

I'm looking in the DVD Authoring forum to see what's the buzz if any.