No Reencoding

[themaster1]

I have a project of about 20 small videos to put on DVD. Problem is some are top/bottom field first and also the bitrates vary from 9000 to 6000, some are cbr some vbr...it's a mess.

So, i was wondering if there was a way somehow to not reencode all these, make a simple menu (with a magic tool maybe). I want a menu so there is interactivity, even minimal but not reencoding these videos.

[DragonQ]

I don't think mixing top/bottom field first, bitrates or cbr/vbr is a problem at all for DVDs. For example, in TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 you can choose which field comes first for an imported interlaced video and you can set it to "smart rendering" so that it won't re-encode unless absolutely necessary (cuts/edits outside of I frames for example).

[V1de0Luvr]

As DragonQ said, it should work, but I would make sure each video is a separate title. The audio will all need to be AC3, or MP2, or whatever you have. Just so the audio is all the same type.

[filmboss80]

Yes, individual TitleSets for each video will work, and you can set jump commands to designate which video starts next when one ends. (Most DVD authoring tools will allow this.)

[themaster1]

Well i used Mpeg Video Wizard DVD, it accept all kinds of mpegs in a project, it worked but a couple of videos have been reencoded and it seems the encoder didn't do a great job with these.

[V1de0Luvr]

One thing other than mismatched audio that would force a re-encode is aspect ratio. If your project is 16x9 but some videos are 4x3, they will have to be encoded as 16x9.

[DragonQ]

Depends what you use. IIRC TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 doesn't have this restriction - you just have to choose PAL or NTSC DVD for the entire project and presumably each title/track can be a different frame rate or resolution since it lets you choose for each of them.