MPEG2 Rendering Tips

[Surya]

Hello

I have HD Video Clips that i have edited in Sony Vegas 9. I want to make my Final to a DVD. If I render my Clip to DVD compliant Format MPEG2 the Quality gets very poor, even the source file is in HD Quality. And I have choosen maximum Quality settings. I wonder how hollywood Films are compressed in DVD and still extreme crystal clear quality? Anybody can give me tipps?

Thanks.

[aedipuss]

let's see what your source and rendered video specs are. use the free mediainfo. put it in test mode and copy and paste the results for both videos here.

[Baldrick]

You could try other mpeg2 encoders and see how it looks, like hcenc, tmpgenc, etc.

And maybe post a short mpeg2 dvd sample you have made? You can inlude files when you post.

[redwudz]

HD from a camcorder? AVCHD or .m2ts files? If so, you are likely converting the framesize down from 1920 X 1080 or similar, changing the framerate, encoding and interlacing it. Lots of room for quality loss there. And typical camcorder video is fairly noisy, and that eats up bitrate.

Hollywood starts out with huge, very high definition, very clean files from a HD video camera, and converts that to DVD or BD video. (This is if it's shot directly to video.)

These are the technical specifications of a popular 'Hollywood' video camera: http://www.red.com/cameras/tech_specs/

That's the reasons. I'll let someone else fill in the tips.

And welcome to our forums.

[guns1inger]

Hollywood movies also aren't just thrown into an encoder with a hope for the best. Studio releases are encoded very carefully, with lots of manual tweaking of encoding settings for particular scenes or transitions, to ensure the best quality possible. You can certainly see the difference when you look at budget releases or back catalogue releases that haven't had the same care and time taken.

So you are taking HD footage that is, quality wise, far short of what hollywood studios have to work with, running it through a consumer package (and if you aren't using Vegas Pro, one that has limited settings to tweak), reducing it to less that a quarter of the original resolution and re-encoding it using mpeg-2 compression. If you hen play this back on a HD TV, the image has to be scaled back up to HD resolution, and is at the mercy of the player or TV upscaler.

There is no way you are going to get close to the original quality after all that.

[Surya]

thanks for all your replies

The source files are from the Sony EX3 Camera (MP4) Full HD. I just imported in Sony Vegas timeline and edited and finally wanted to have on a DVD.

Ok i will compare with mediainfo software and will post the results.

thanks again for your help.

[jagabo]

Hollywood quality starts at the source. They shoot with professional equipment and lighting. That means low noise (noise is a killer of compression). They use professional cameramen (jerky handheld video is a killer of compression). Most of what they shoot is progressive (interlaced video is a killer of compression) 24 fps (higher frame rates are a killer of compression). Then they tweak as indicated by guns1inger.

[Surya]

Ok, yes we can't compare hollywood footage with Sony EX3 Footage. My footage quality is very good for a HD Camera and progressiv 25p. Only the problem to get it on DVD with similiar quality.

Has DVD very low definition of standards? I mean maximum bitrate 9,8.

[Surya]

If so, how wedding videographer handle with their HD footage to DVD? Because not all people have BluRay Player at home. Even me not
Then it's worse to buy a HD Camera if our final footage should be a DVD???

[yoda313]

If its to be a true dvd then yes you don't get to keep the hd resolution. It will be sd dvd but it should still be quite good.

What I'm sure they can request is a avchd if they do not have a bluray burner but the producer doesn't have a burner or the customer doesn't have a bluray player. The avchd will retain much but not all of the original hd resolution (depending on what format it was shot in). It will be burnt onto a regular dvdr. It can then be played in a regular dvd rom player on a computer. - of course if they have a ps3 or other bluray player than they can play it on a tv that way.

[Surya]

thanks for your reply.

anybody can send me a link with workflow from hd to dvd rendering settings?

I will make a test what enocoder gives me good result:
I try canopus
Cinema Craft Encoder
Sony Vegas Bulitin Encoder
and others...

[aedipuss]

still waiting for the mediainfo. and what cam exactly are you using? the only sony ex3 i am aware of is this mpeg-2 xdcam.

[Surya]

Sorry i will post mediainfo as soon i'm home

Yes this is the model Sony EX3 and it records to MP4 Format.

[jagabo]

That looks like a good camera. And if your shooting 25p you should be able to get decent results on DVD. Obviously, you'll take a resolution hit 1920x1080 (?) to 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC). But at high bitrates (8000+ kbps) there won't be too much macroblocking.

If you post a short representative sample of your source and your MPEG2 encoding others will be able to tell you if something is drastically wrong.

[yoda313]

several ways to go from hd to sd dvd (standard definition)

multiavchd
avstodvd
format factory might be able to do it - not sure depends on if it handles m2ts/mts etc....

[Surya]

Hello Helpers

Here is the info from mediainfo Software:

Source File:

General
Complete name : F:\Raj\Sony EX3 Recording\Ravinan Communion\CLP_0032_01.MP4
Format : MPEG-4
Format_Commercial_IfAny : XDCAM EX 35
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 188 MiB
Duration : 43s 40ms
Overall bit rate : 36.5 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-04-18 12:56:55
Tagged date : UTC 2010-04-18 12:56:55
Video
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Video
Format_Commercial_IfAny : XDCAM EX 35
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=12
Codec ID : 61
Duration : 400ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 35.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : Component
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.675
Stream size : 180 MiB (96%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-04-18 12:56:55
Tagged date : UTC 2010-04-18 12:56:55
Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : twos
Duration : 43s 40ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 7.88 MiB (4%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-04-18 12:56:55
Tagged date : UTC 2010-04-18 12:56:55

Rendered File in Sony Vegas:

General
Complete name : C:\Users\Raj\Desktop\Rendered.mpg
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 52.4 MiB
Duration : 43s 80ms
Overall bit rate : 10.2 Mbps
Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : High@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=12
Duration : 43s 40ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 9 800 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.945
Stream size : 50.3 MiB (96%)
Audio
ID : 192 (0xC0)
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Duration : 43s 80ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 1 010 KiB (2%)
Menu

After rendering the picture is not sharp and its very noisy.

I will upload both files in rapidshare.com you can download it directly

[aedipuss]

not that it matters much to the problem but the xdcam ex that the cam shoots is long gop mpeg-2 in a mp4 wrapper.

nothing jumps out as wrong with the dvd encode. i might try making it interlaced and dropping the video bitrate to 9000 just in case of stray peaks over the limit when the audio is added in.

without seeing all the settings from the vegas render options it's hard to tell... with the quality that cam shoots at i find it hard to believe the dvd video looks bad.

are you starting with an xdcam ex template for editing? and does vegas recognize the video as progressive?

[Surya]

I have included my vegas render settings and source and rendered file for donload directly with rapidshare.com

Source: http://rapidshare.com/files/421718225/CLP_0032_01.MP4
Rendered: http://rapidshare.com/files/421724654/Rendered.mpg

[jagabo]

I think you are expecting too much from a standard definition DVD MPEG encoding. Remember you are downsizing a 1920x1080 frame to 720x576. Your MPEG video looks about like I would expect. You can get slightly sharper results downsizing with a sharper resizing filter, or by using an explicit sharpening filter. But you will start getting over-sharpening halos if you go much sharper.

[poisondeathray]

I agree with jagabo , you won't be able to improve much on this - the major limitation being standard definition DVD

The other thing you might consider is a mild denoising filter. You have fine mosquito noise in the source (as well as the encode)

[aedipuss]

the mainconcept encoder used by vegas just doesn't do much better than what you have there. a step up would be to use cce sp3, but it costs more than vegas just for the mpeg-2 encoder and you'd have to frameserve it, as sp3 won't take your source video as is.

[Surya]

Thanks for all your replies

Maybe in the past i have only seen HD footage...and now my eyes can't believe thats dvd quality is very poor

Oh yes CCE is very expensive, but i know someone who has this software. I try it out.

[davexnet]

I ran it through AVStoDVD using spline16resize, sharpen 0.2 in the script, and the Quenc 1-pass encoder.
The result is slightly sharper than the sample posted.

[jagabo]

Even a simple Lanczos resize was a little sharper than the OP's MPG file. Bilinear was a little less sharp.

[davexnet]

I had a little trouble picking up the audio. I looked at the graph in Graphstudio and I see file source
Haali splitter with Video only, audio is absent. Seems I've got a dshow configuration problem -
mpeg2/PCM inside mp4 confused it! Even AVStoDVD wouldn't pick up the audio using it's various methods.


I agree with you. The OP's original result was already quite good; not sure what improvement he was hoping for.

[jagabo]

The audio was PCM but big-endian, not the usual little-endian you see in Windows.

[davexnet]

Interesting - thanks for the info.

Forgot to mention - what are the options for accessing the audio in Windows?
I modified the AVStoDVD script to add nicaudio.dll - I though this would work,
but when I play it in MPC I get about 1 second of audio followed by very loud white noise for the rest of the file.

Import("F:\Documents and Settings\Dave Xnet\Desktop\AVStoDVD_232Alpha100910_NoInstall\Lib \A2DSource.avsi")
LoadPlugin("F:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugdlls\nicaudio.dll")
LoadPlugin("F:\Documents and Settings\Dave Xnet\Desktop\AVStoDVD_232Alpha100910_NoInstall\DGI ndex\DGDecode.dll")

Video = MPEG2Source("K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.d2v")

Video = Video.ConvertToYV12
Video = Video.Spline16Resize(720,408)

Audio = NicLPCMSource("K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.MP4", 48000, 16,2)
Audiodub(video,audio)

[poisondeathray]

NicLPCMSource can only be used on elementary audio (not in container).

You can use ffmpegsource2 for both video & audio
http://code.google.com/p/ffmpegsource/

e.g.

ffmpegsource2("video.mp4",atrack=-1)

or
vid=ffvideosource("video.mp4")
aud=ffaudiosource("video.mp4")
audiodub(vid,aud)

vegas uses a bicubic resize, so yes, even lanczos will be sharper (but more ringing)

[davexnet]

Hmmm - one of my favorite programs AVStoDVD has big problems with this file.

It offers to Index it (recognizing the mpeg2), but then produces a project without audio.
Or you can do it the old way (see script below) but that doesn't work either. It sets a bitrate of 0.

Even when you set a hardcoded bitrate in the project, it still aborts.
Here's the the log:
9/30/2010 10:32:32 AM>
START PROCESS
<>

<9/30/2010 10:32:32 AM>
PROJECT SETTINGS

DVD Video Standard: PAL
DVD Titles number: 1
DVD Size: 0/4450 MB (0%)
DVD Output Setup: DVD Folder
DVD Label: DVD
DVD Menu: No Menu
Output Folder: I:\dvd-copy
Delete Temp Process Files: No
Delete Working Files: Yes
Edit Command Parameters: No
Post Process Task: Show Progress Status window

PREFERENCES

MultiThread: 1
AVS Source Filter: A2DSource
AVS UpSize/DownSize Filter: Lanczos4Resize/Spline16Resize
Video Resolution: 0
Video BitRate Min: 2500
Video BitRate Level 1: 6500
Video Profile Level 2: 4500
Video BitRate Max: 8500
Keep DVD Compliant Video: 1
AC3 Audio Encoder: 0
PAL SpeedUp: 0
Force FFmpeg for Long Audio: True
DVD Audio Format: 0
DVD Audio BitRate: 192
Keep DVD Compliant Audio: 1
Normalize Audio: 0
DVD Audio Language: EN - English
DVD Subs Language: EN - English
DVD Subs Font: Tahoma 18pt Bold
Chapters Interval: 5
Use Source Chapters: 1
DVD Burning Drive: H: _NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A 1.04
DVD Burning Speed: 4x
Auto Erase DVD RW: 1
Save Log file: 1
Save General Settings: 0
Unload ActiveMovie library: 0
Adjust ffdshow mixer: 1
<>

<9/30/2010 10:32:32 AM>
TITLE 1 SOURCE FILES
Video: K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.MP4
Info: MPEG-2 Video - 36750 kbps - 1920x1080 - DAR 1.778 - 25 fps (CFR) - Progressive - 0 seconds - 1076 frames
Audio 1: K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.MP4
Info: PCM - 1536 kbps - CBR - 2ch - 48000Hz - 16bit - 43 seconds - Internal
Subs:
[MediaInfoLib - v0.7.35]
<>

<9/30/2010 10:32:32 AM>
AVISYNTH SCRIPT
Import("F:\Documents and Settings\Dave Xnet\Desktop\AVStoDVD_232Alpha100910_NoInstall\Lib \A2DSource.avsi")

Video = A2DVideoSource("K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.MP4", CacheFolder="K:\Temp", VFR=false)
Audio = A2DAudioSource("K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.MP4", CacheFolder="K:\Temp")

Video = Video.ConvertToYV12
Video = Video.Spline16Resize(720,576)

AudioDub(Video, Audio)
<>

<9/30/2010 10:32:32 AM>
START VIDEO ENCODING OPERATIONS
Encoding Profile: QuEnc CBR 1-pass
Target Video FileSize: 0 MB
QuEnc Parameters: -i "K:\Temp\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01_1.avs" -o "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01.m2v" -b 6666 -1 -hq -novbr -scene -trell -aspectratio 16:9 -nointerlaced -mpeg2mux noaudio -dc 10 -priority 5 -auto -close
<>

<9/30/2010 10:34:13 AM>
END VIDEO ENCODING OPERATIONS
Created File: I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01.m2v (34.1 MB)
OUTPUT VIDEO INFO: MPEG-2 Video - 6666 kbps - 720x576 - DAR 1.778 - 25 fps (CFR) - Progressive - 42 seconds - 1074 frames
<>

<9/30/2010 10:34:13 AM>
START TRANSCODING OPERATIONS
ReJig Parameters: -size 0 -o "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01.ReJig.m2v" -i "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01.m2v" -auto -close -quiet
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:16 AM>
END TRANSCODING OPERATIONS
Transcoding executed on File: I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01.m2v (0 MB)
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:16 AM>
START AUDIO ENCODING OPERATIONS (Track 1)
Wavi+Aften Parameters: "K:\Temp\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01_1.avs" - | "F:\Documents and Settings\Dave Xnet\Desktop\AVStoDVD_232Alpha100910_NoInstall\Aft en\aften.exe" -b 192 -pad 0 -dynrng 5 -bwfilter 0 - "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01_1.ac3"
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:29 AM>
START (BACKUP) AUDIO ENCODING OPERATIONS (Track 1)
FFmpeg Parameters: -i "K:\k-temp\#misc\CLP_0032_01.MP4" -map 0:1 -y -vn -acodec ac3 -ac 2 -ar 48000 -ab 192k "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01_1.ac3"
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:34 AM>
END AUDIO ENCODING OPERATIONS (Track 1)
Created File: I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01_1.ac3 (0.9 MB)
OUTPUT AUDIO INFO: AC3 - 192 kbps - CBR - 2ch - 48000Hz - 16bit - 41 seconds
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:34 AM>
START DVD AUTHORING OPERATIONS
BatchMux Parameters: -arglist "K:\Temp\DVD_3_BatchMux.ini"
BatchMux ini file:
-d "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3\VIDEO_TS"
-mxp "K:\Temp\DVD_3_MuxMan.mxp"
-l "K:\Temp\DVD_3_MuxMan.log"
-muxman "F:\Documents and Settings\Dave Xnet\Desktop\AVStoDVD_232Alpha100910_NoInstall\MuxMan"
-prio LOW
-v "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01.m2v"
-vidmode LB
-a1 "I:\dvd-copy\DVD_3_CLP_0032_01_1.ac3"
-a1lang en

<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:34 AM>
ERROR DURING OPERATIONS ('DVD Authoring operations' Section): 0 -
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:34 AM>
PROCESS ABORTED.
<>

<9/30/2010 10:35:34 AM>
Log file created by AVStoDVD Release 2.3.2 Alpha build 100910
<>

[_MrC_]

Hi Dave,

there's something weird in your input title: see the video info

MPEG-2 Video - 36750 kbps - 1920x1080 - DAR 1.778 - 25 fps (CFR) - Progressive - 0 seconds - 1076 frames

do you have the possibility to fix it before feeding it to AVStoDVD?



Bye