Questions regarding formats

[thedge]

I am recording home movies on a Sony MiniDV camera. I want to convert them in the same exact quality (or better) to DVD.

I don't have a DVD burner yet but would like to start capturing/converting the movies to my hard drive. I have Video Explosion Deluxe software and it seems to work great so far.

What format should I be capturing the video as? AVI seems great so far but don't want to shoot myself in the foot and do it again later.

What format should I convert the video to? MPEG2? If so, what quality setting is best for writing to DVD and/or compatible?

Lastly, if the authoring software that I have with this software isn't up to par, what should I use? AND, the big question these days, which DVD writer should I get? (my current DVD player does play +R and +RW media)

Thank you for any help you can provide.

[citizenMC]

Have you downloaded TMPGenc yet? TMPGenc It has a wizard for most formats you will need. I think you really want to know what codec you should use. I dont know what Video Explosion Deluxe software uses, but i know that Huffyuv is a good one.
Just find one that can store easy, because the better ones take up massive amounts of hard drive space. Most any format can be converted to anything you need.

[thedge]

I am pretty sure that my Video Explosion Deluxe software is doing all the coverting for me just fine, unless I am misunderstinding you.

I can convert to MPEG, MPEG2, Windows Media, Quicktime, and a few others with no problems. The quality seems to be very good on my computer screen.

My main question in this regard is am I capturing to the right format (AVI) to ensure that my output to MPEG2 and then to DVD eventually will be of the highest quality (at least equal to the original DV recording)? I don't want to go through capturing all the videos in the wrong format and find out I have to capture them all again in a different format.

Thanks for the response.

[citizenMC]

Heres the deal, 352x480 is standard size for DVD. Well if your like me and capture at a high rez say 740x480 you can convert them to work with a DVD using TMPGenc (as formentioned). If you have a good looking capture that you are happy with and it doesnt take up most of your hard drive keep it. I have only ran in to a couple video files that i haven't been able to convert to dvd using TMPGenc.
So if you are caps are higher than 352x480 when you convert them you will not be able to tell the differance.
Rule of thumb if it looks ok on your computer it will look great on the tv.
Most TV's are very forgiving because of the low rez.
I use Divx, its AVI. I can use it in priemere, convert it to mpeg 2 so i can burn to DVD, and I can fit 2 hours of high quality video under 1 gig.
uncompressed AVI is fine i just hope you have a lot of hard drive space to keep it all.
Just dont use .rm or .asf
Hope i helped.

[citizenMC]

Oh ya, TMPGenc has a nice wizard. So you can pick DVD, SVCD, or VCD and it will make it so.

[thxkid]

2 hours of MPEG2 under 1 gig is not DVD quality, not if you are using the standard 5000 bitrate, try about 4.7 gigs for perfect DVD quality, specially if you are gonna use a screen larger than 27in. I have seen great looking Divx AVI on a 17 in. monitor and then have alot of pixels and blockness on a 36in. I suggest if you are less than 27in. use 2500 to 3000 bitrate for MPEG2 if 32in or larger for playback use 5000 or higher for great results down to 4000 is livable, but if you want to keep it near as the original I found out 8000 works great. Even a good SVCD at 2500 bitrate at 480 x 480 will take up 2.1 gigs for 2 hours like the DVD rip of Lord of the Rings.

[citizenMC]

I agree, it just works for my usage. Divx is just an example of what i use.

[thedge]

Obviously, I am still learning so thanks for all the feedback so far.

I am capturing as AVI at 720x480x24, 29.970 fps

I can save/encode them as:
Audio: 384 Kbps, 48,000 Hz
Video: 29.97 fps, 720x480, 8300 Kbps, MPEG-2

I do have a 32" TV, but again my main goal is to eventually get the videos to DVD at the DV quality. I am hoping to get at least an hours worth of video based on the above settings.

My big scare is that I am doing all of this for nothing before getting a burner, but it sounds like I am heading down the right path. I am sort of doing it blind because I can't see what my final results will look like on a DVD to a TV.

citizenMC, I will give TMPGenc a shot sometime and see how how it compares. This just encodes to MPEG but not MPEG2? So far the software I have seems to be good but I definitely don't mind checking out other solutions.

Anyone have some suggestions for authoring software (menus and title selection)? Is definitely needed?
And what are your thoughts on DVD writers?

[thedge]

I tried TMPGenc last night, it is very nice. I couldn't really tell the difference between the two on my computer after encoding to MPEG2. I guess I will have to compare them on a TV when I can to really see if there is much of a difference.

I did like the software though and it was very easy to use.

Thanks again for the help/feedback.

[xed]

AVI format is probably the best format to use to convert to another format (such as MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 or DIVX) since AVI is the least
compressed consumer digital video format available.
However, various folks have mentioned in their replies that the AVI format is uncompressed. Not true. AVI is a compressed format which uses a discrete conside transform to throw away 80% of the information in the raw digital video stream going from the CCDs in your video camera to the MiniDV tape. Consequently AVI is a highly compressed format. In fact it compresses at 5:1. That means 80% of the original information is lost when you record to DV.
Uncompressed digital video formats do exist, but normal humans cannot afford them. For instance, D1 format uses 10 bits eahc for Y, U and V, and no compressed. This results in about 8 times the amount of data per second you get in AVI DV format, roughly 250 megs per second.
All AVI files created by consumer devices (viz., video capture cards, digital cameras using either Digital 8 or MiniDV or DV) employ the 5:1 compression of the DV format.
Throwing away 80% of the video data may sound bad, but for reference, you cannot tell any significant difference twixt a playback from your digital camcorder or a digital VCR and the original broadcast video using MiniDV or Digital 8 tape. (MiniDV and Digital 8 both store the DV video using exactly the same basic DV format, but store it on tape in different ways.) On your computer screen you can see the artifacts introduced by the discrete conside transform (essentially half an FFT -- sicrete cosine throws away the imaginary part of the FFT and keeps only the real coefficients) -- but on a commercial TV set you cannot see 'em.
By comparison, MPEG-2 even at high quality tosses out 80% of the information from the DV AVI file. So that's 80% dumped on top of 80%, meaning MPEG-2 keeps only about 4% of the original digital information that came out of your camera's CCDs. And MPEG-2 still looks pretty darn good.
Other good news: experts who deal with zillion-dollar video eqpt. routinely rate consumer DV format as 90% as good as the uncompressed formats like D1.
AVI files need not use uncompressed video, but whenever you capture from your camcorder the AVI file will typically use the DV 5:1 compression.
So working from the AVI files you campture from your camcorder should give you maximum quality. Rule of thumb: the better the quality of hte source you start with, the better the quality of the end result.
--xed

[thedge]

Thanks for the info xed, that was definitely new to me since I was also told in another forum that AVI was not compressed.

As I said above it seems as though I am doing most of the right things in preparing my videos for DVD. I think what you are saying confirms this.

Have you had any experience with consumer authoring software or DVD writers? Any suggestions?

[PDBR]

Well Im fairly new to this but hope I can contribute a wee bit...from my (limited) experience I recommend you capture in AVI, edit, encode with TMPGENC, and finally author (with an authoring programe which DOESNT re-encode the files...)- I am at present trying Ulead Video Factory and it seems to work ok. Beware that most bundled programmes do re-encode at authoring stage (at least mine do!!)

As for DVD burners, there is a very hot debate as to the format which will predominate in the future (-R/RW or +R/RW) -R media is cheaper at the moment but who knows where the furture will lead...I personally bought the HP 200i (+R/RW burner) and Im very happy with it so far...But read around because there are different views on the topic..

Hope this has been of some help..