Disc authoring question...

[sdsumike619]

I have experience authoring standard definition 4:3 DVDs in the past, it's been a while since I've even done that so I'm posting in the newbie forum because I feel like a newbie again! I need to shoot, edit and author a 4 hour disc. I say disc because I'm not sure if it's DVD or blu-ray (which I know nothing about).

My camera shoots AVCHD video. In the past, when I made 4 hour standard def DVDs, they were DVD-9 for replication. If I want to do the same thing (4 hours) with my AVCHD footage, what should I be authoring these days? What's the latest and greatest program? I used to use Adobe Encore CS3 because it was easy. Then I had to manually set the layer break. Once I learned how to do all this it was easy, but now with HD video and things like Blu-ray, I'm not sure what I should be doing so any advice would be appreciated, always learning a lot on this forum!

[aedipuss]

sony vegas pro 12 and architect pro 6 are probably the way to go for blu-ray. the new adobe "subscription" model sucks, you don't own the software, only rent it.

[Cornucopia]

Good to see you back sdsumike619!

AVCHD is the consumer-based "little brother" to Blu-ray (many, but not all, of the specs are totally cross-compatible). You need to decide if you are sending this out to others whether they can accept AVCHD discs or not. BD is more universally supported by BD players, obviously.
There are max bitrates for use on DVD media (<=18Mbps) vs. BD or HDD/USB media (<=24Mbps). Obviously, at 18Mbps, you could only get ~1hour on a DVD-DL disc. And going to 1/4 of that rate to get to 4 hours means dropping the quality by that much as well, so I don't recommend it. You can easily get ~2.37 hours of 24Mbps video on a BD-25, or ~4.5 hours on a BD-50 at the max bitrate. So if you want quality, that's the way to go. Note that BD on DVD media is a kludge, whereas AVCHD on DVD media is built into the spec.

You could upgrade to CS6, which Encore has BD capability (and probably AVCHD, too). It still will be available for a little while, and will supposedly NOT have the subscription model, ever.

Scott

[sdsumike619]

Hi Scott, your replies are always thorough, thank you. If I understand what you've explained, then I cannot use DVD to create a 4 hour HD resolution video and it must be blu-ray. Is that correct? What about DVD-18? Are those even an option?

[Cornucopia]

Unless I'm mistaken, DVD-10/DVD-14/DVD-18 is only an option for Replication, not burned discs (no double-sideds that I know of). That would still require some reduction of the bitrate from the max (with attending quality loss), anyway. You CAN use it and/or the aforementioned DVD-5/DVD-9, but you probably won't like the quality, unless your material happens to be very simple complexity & low motion.

But, IIWY, I'd take a 5-10min. clip and re-encode it to the bitrate calculated for fitting it's full length on a DVD-9, and then author & burn it to DVD-RW SL. If it's good enough for you, do the whole job, if not, all you've lost is that little encode & authoring/burning time, and you can wipe & re-use the RW disc.

Scott

[sdsumike619]

Yes, replication is what I'm after. I wouldn't consider burning anything double layer, or double sided. I've authored several 4 hour standard def DVD-9's that were replicated. Now, I need to author a 4 hour disc with HD resolution filmed by an AVCHD camera. The content is mostly talking head with minimal high speed movement...

[aedipuss]

i think the first question that needs answering is whether or not you want to keep it HD or distribute in SD.

[sdsumike619]

Well, seeing as I have a camera that will shoot in 1920x1080, I'd like to be able to make the disc in that resolution to halfway keep up with the times...

[sdsumike619]

Can HD video be put on a regular DVD?

Also, regarding blu-ray, if my source is AVCHD, and blu-ray uses AVCHD, then after doing the editing in the NLE, am I just encoding to AVCHD, again?

Are blu-ray players available worldwide? Do most people around the world have them now? I'd hate to produce a blu-ray and then find out that customers don't have the player to play it....... From what I'm seeing, blu-ray is big in the USA, but lacking in the rest of the world.

[Cornucopia]

Can it be put on there? Yes. Can it play via a regular DVD player? No. No strictly DVD player that I know of utilizes any kind of HD, even "upconverting" players. They only accept SD sources, regardless of format. To get HD, you need a BD player or generalized media player.

As I said, they (BD & AVCHD) are very, very similar, but not identical. If you are editing in an NLE, and you intend to replicate to BD, you should be outputting to BD, not AVCHD. I would guess the only exception there might be where you want to utilize the 50p/60p capability of AVCHD v2.0 devices.

BD available Worldwide? Yes. Most people have them? Doubt it. You should ALWAYS check with your audience first.

Scott

[jman98]

Unless I'm mistaken, DVD-10/DVD-14/DVD-18 is only an option for Replication, not burned discs (no double-sideds that I know of).

Verbatim did actually make consumer burnable DVD-10 some years ago, but they were insanely expensive and almost impossible to find. The only place that I knew that had any was B&H Photo and you had to buy a large spindle of the things with the cost of the spindle being well over $200 US. I don't know anybody who ever actually used them due to cost. And Verbatim no longer makes them for obvious reasons (the US market pressure for cheap discs is extraordinary). Just FYI.

[aedipuss]

you could include both blu-ray and dvd in the package....

[sdsumike619]

I don't know why I had it in my head that there were DVDs available in HD. They must have been 16:9 but not necessarily HD. I discovered that the layer break is no longer an issue with blu-ray so that's pretty cool

[sdsumike619]

I know NTSC DVD frame size is 720x480 in 4:3. But isn't it also possible to author a regular DVD in 16:9 (without it being HD?) What would be the correct frame size for a widescreen NTSC DVD?

[Cornucopia]

Yes, very possible and common to make 16:9 dvd. Most hollywood titles are done this way. Same 720x480 frame size. It's just anamorphically squeezed.

Scott

[sdsumike619]

Hmm, well I don't want people to look squeezed or out of proportion...

Here's the dilemma:

I need to do a 4 hour video that will be released both on DVD, and in the future, made available for download on the internet.

My cameras shoot AVCHD 1920x1080.

I will probably offer the downloadable video at 720P when the time comes, maybe smaller, not sure.

If I want to also produce the same video shot in AVCHD 1920x1080 onto DVD, what is the correct way to go about this?

I'll import the AVCHD into the NLE, but then it will have to be cropped or resized, etc and I'm not sure how to go about that.

[Cornucopia]

It's squeezed in storage, not in playback. Don't worry about it.

For best quality, I would:
Ingest your AVCHD and edit it. Master Output to some good Intermediate format (Uncompressed, Losslessly-compressed, or High-bitrate Visually-lossless I-frame Lossy codec). NO cropping/resizing at all yet at this point.
Then, using AVISynth/Vdub, do a high quality downconvert to DVD size.
Then, either Frameserve AVISynth/Vdub to HCEnc for DVD-compliant MPEG2 encoding, or create a DVD-sized Intermediate format that you will subsequently MPEG2 encode.

Or
You could try just doing it all within a good NLE, like Vegas Pro, etc.
There resizing & downconverting options are still GOOD, just not GREAT and as PRECISE as what can be done with AVISynth/Vdub. Just remember to MASTER completely at the HD format, saving good Intermediates, then downconverting (and optionally saving SD Intermediates) and finally encoding for distribution.

That's how the pros do it, and that's how I suggest everyone do it unless they are very compromised by time/space/money/knowledge, etc.

Scott

[sdsumike619]

Scott, your replies always terrify me, at first!

I do have Sony Vegas, but I was thinking of possibly abandoning it because of all the problems lately. Seems there are other NLEs which support multi camera editing so I might look into some of those. I learned on the Vegas forum about using Handbrake to encode MP4 because Vegas's resizing method is lousy. Beyond that, I've never used AVISynth, Virtualdub, etc..

So edit the video on the timeline as AVCHD 1920x1080. After all the editing is done, encode it to an intermediate format (DNxHD is the suggestion among the authors of the well known handbrake tutorial, is that a good format for this purpose too? I hate that format because it takes SO long to encode and the files are SO huge) I used to import DV AVI directly into Adobe Encore and let Encore do the MPEG2 encoding at build time. So I would need to create DV AVI from that intermediate format, before I could import into Encore, correct?

[Cornucopia]

If you are wanting primarily an *.AVI, Cineform is probably a better codec. The 2 are close (Cineform slightly better), but unlike Quicktime *.MOV, there is no DNxHD codec for AVI (go figure, it's opensource, so somebody could do it). You can get Cineform Studio for free from GoPro.

The whole point of HUGE intermediate files is that they maintain the quality. No pain, no gain. For Encore, you ought to be able to import a Cineform-ed *.AVI directly into it (unless I'm very mistaken). That would bypass having to go through an extra pass to DV (losing quality and time wasted).

Scott

[sdsumike619]

I'm a little confused on outputting to the intermediate format, and the resultant gigantic file sizes from doing so. In other words, the footage that I put on the timeline from my camera should be the highest quality because it is the original. From that footage, I make my edits, do any color correcting, etc. It would seem that my finished project on the timeline would be the highest quality possible and anything I encode to from that should be a smaller, lesser quality file. Or if I encode to an MP4 file at the same bitrate it came in at, then it should be the same file size. Is that logic not correct? What is added to the DNxHD format that makes the file so huge?

[smrpix]

Let me add to the confusion. You want to create your DNxHD or Cineform intermediates BEFORE editing if you are doing anything more than simple cuts. DNxHD and Cineform are i-frame codecs (like DV) meaning every frame is unique and complete. AVCHD reconstructs information from as much as 10 seconds away from your cut point, for EACH cut, in order to display your video properly. That's why it's so efficient for linear capture and online streaming but terrible for editing. That's why the file sizes are so different.

As Scott said earlier, you can output directly from your timeline without an imtermediate, it's just that the quality will not be quite as good as the Avisynth route is capable of.

[sdsumike619]

Let me add to the confusion.

You've succeeded!

[sanlyn]

smrpix's point is that video encoding is not like lossless compression in WinZIP or RAR. If you think video encoding and ZIP are alike, then you don't realize that edit/cut/join/cut again and encode/recompress/decode/encode again incur a loss with every repetition. Users of something like Photoshop know better than to process and re-process photos in JPG format, which is very lossy compresssion.

[Cornucopia]

Let me give you this example:

Joe Blow has a high-end pro camera. John Doe has a consumer camera. Both are equally good shooters.

Joe’s camera creates 1080p24 files, as does John’s, but Joe’s cam saves the video stream as High-bitrate 12bit Cineform (all I-frame, say 200Mbps), whereas John’s saves it as AVCHD (8bit MedGOP AVC at 24Mbps).

This means that for 1 hour of footage, Joe creates an 87.89GB file, while John creates a 10.54GB file. Almost 1/9th the size of Joe’s.

But the quality can be very different, too. At CASUAL GLANCE, to an UNTRAINED EYE, watching the file play in REALTIME, both files might look similar in their original, unedited and unprocessed state. Of course, if you take the time to look closely, or have already been trained to do so, or if you pause/adjust the motion, most anybody would notice the artifacts present in the latter which don’t visibly exist in the former.

And Editing/compositing/processing is where formats like AVCHD falls down, big time! It wasn’t built to handle change, it was basically built as an end-user distribution/consumption format. So change exaggerates and enhances its weaknesses.

(Assuming no losses due to colorspace conversions, nor avoiding losses due to Smart Rendering…)
Say that Joe’s Cineform file quality is equivalent to 95% of perfect, original image, and John’s AVCHD is equivalent to 65% of the same source image. And uncompressed/losslessly compressed files are of course capable of retaining 100% of what was given them.

Path 1:
A Cineform source -> Lossless Intermediate -> Lossless Master -> Youtube copy (capable of only 40% quality because of low bitrate). That’s: 95% * 100% * 100% * 40% = 38% of the original natural image quality for Youtube copy, 95% for Master.

Path 2:
Cineform source -> Cineform Intermediates (not really normally necessary, but for the sake of argument) -> Lossless Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 95% * 95% * 100% * 40% = 36.1% quality, 90.25% for Master.

Path 3:
Cineform source -> Cineform Intermediates -> Cineform Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 95% * 95% * 95% * 40% = 34.3% quality, 85.7% for Master.

Going to John’s files, we see…

Path 4:
AVCHD source -> Lossless Intermediate -> Lossless Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 65% * 100% * 100% * 40% = 26% quality, 65% for Master.

Path 5:
AVCHD source -> Cineform Intermediate -> Lossless Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 65% * 95% * 100% * 40% = 24.7% quality, 61.7% for Master.

Path 6:
AVCHD source -> Cineform Intermediate -> Cineform Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 65% * 95% * 95% * 40% = 23.4% quality, 58.7% for Master.

Path 7:
AVCHD source -> AVCHD Intermediate -> Cineform Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 65% * 65% * 95% * 40% = 16% quality, 40.1% for Master.

Path 8:
AVCHD source -> AVCHD Intermediate -> AVCHD Master -> Youtube copy. That’s 65% * 65% * 65% * 40% = 10.9% quality, 27.4% for Master.

None of the Youtube files would be that great (what do you expect for youtube!?), but look at the range: With 40% being a best YT conversion of 100% perfect footage, the range (particularly with the higher end cam) is in the high-mid 30%. Not bad.

For the other cam, the range is in the mid 20% down to 10%!.

And Master quality is even more starkly contrasted. Quality in 90's or high 80's for Cam1, in 60's down to high 20s form Cam2. And notice the drop between paths 5 & 6 vs. path 7 vs. path 8!!! That's what sanlyn, smrpix and myself were talking about.

What if the threshold for clear noticeability of quality loss from perfect was ~55%? What if the the threshold of endfile/user's low-end acceptability was ~20%?

Scott
(note that these are just iconic, ballpark hypothetical archtypes, but they illustrate the point)

[sdsumike619]

a point which went about 200 miles over my head.. I haven't a clue what you were talking about in that last post

[sdsumike619]

Ok, I'm raising this thread again because I just re-read it and still need some clarification. I should just simplify what I need to know:

I have a camera, it shoots at 1920x1080. I need to be able to take that HD footage and use it to create an authored DVD. DVD does not support HD, so the question is, how do I take the 1080 footage and use it for DVD?

[manono]

...so the question is, how do I take the 1080 footage and use it for DVD?

First you reencode it to make it DVD compliant. Then you author it. If you don't know how to do those things yourself, just give it to AvsToDVD to do it for you.

[sdsumike619]

I know how to author, I used to use Adobe Encore for that, it worked very well. What I'm having the most trouble understanding is how to make 1920x1080 HD footage into 720x480 SD footage and still have it look correct since those are two different aspect ratios. I know I shouldn't use my Vegas NLE for the resizing because it doesn't do a good job of that. S

[smrpix]

First, what's your NLE? Can it accept and edit AVCHD natively? If Premiere CS3 the answer is no.

Now you have two choices
a) convert your source files to work with your NLE such as Cineform or DNxHD
b) get an updated NLE such as Vegas Movie Studio or Premiere Pro 6+

After You've edited, export to your DVD authoring program. Encore CS3?

Two choices
a) export from NLE as DVD compliant mpeg
b) export from NLE as something else and let Encore convert to DVD compliant mpeg.

edit: okay some cross posting here. Export from Vegas as DNxHD 145 and let Encore do the reencoding.

[sdsumike619]

Yes, my NLE is Vegas Pro. When I used to to make DVDs, I would edit DV AVI captured from the tape, encode to DV AVI, and let Encore encode to MPEG2 using its auto setting. But it was all SD footage from start to end. In this case, I'm starting with 16:9 HD and need to go to 4:3 SD. Won't that create problems with how the picture looks?