DVD quality poor (Does anyone use MediaPipe?)

[woolfpak]

I just installed media pipe and am trying to get the best quality mpeg2 of my uncompressed DV file. I have gotten through the converting to mpeg2 part but am looking for the best quality end result to import into DVDSP. I notice there is some calculations and formulating involved. I'm very fuzzy on the formula and settings to get the best result. Could someone lead me in the right direction (tutorials) to get the best quality out of my mpeg2. I hear talk about QT, Bitvice, Cleaner 6, etc.. How does mediapipe compare to these? What program is gonna get me my best mpeg2 quality to import into DVDSP?? I've burned and burned home videos onto DVD and continue to be unhappy with result. How can I get the same digital quality that comes from my digital camcorder on DVD? If I export back to camera it is perfect. Someone please guide me in the right direction.. THANKS..

[jchansen]

Mediapipe uses the same unix mpeg2 encoder that a number of other apps use, so sometimes the output should be the same between different apps. The Quicktime mpeg encoder is the fastest and gives very good results, although it is only constant bitrate, rather than variable. Mediapipe allows the use of variable bitrate.

For really good quality, keep your bitrate above 5Mbs. In mediapipe, make sure that the configuration of the mpeg2 encoder has something like:
-b 5000
This sets the bitrate; Apple's idvd keeps the bitrate on hour long DVDs to around 9Mbs (9000 Kbps). Obviously there is a tradeoff between length and quality. I put 100 minutes of home video on a dvd, with Ac3 encoded audio, and a video bitrate of around 5200.

Bitvice is variable bitrate, very good-looking, kind of slow, and expensive.

Cleaner is expensive, painfully slow, and crappy. Like a voluntary root canal.

For a while I decided to use Mediapipe because it was free and variable bitrate. I decided that the speed of Apple's encoder was worth the tiny tradeoff in quality. Otherwise, for DVD stuff, mediapipe is the way to go. Just remember that most of the quality depends on bitrate and quality (1-31).

[woolfpak]

jchansen -

Thanks for the info. If you could, could you give me the Mpeg encoder configuration in MediaPipe that you use for your home video. Example:
ppmtoy4m = -v 0 -S 420_mpeg2 -1 p -F 600:24 -A 8:5
mpeg2enc = -v 0 -f 4 -F 3 -n p -a 2 -b 2500 -I 0 -r 16 -q 4

Could anyone explain to me what this stuff means and what the best quality mpeg2 should read as. This is new to me and Im just looking for the right road to be guided down.. Thanks..

[Macnewbie]

For more than you wanted to know about the settings:


http://roguelife.org/%7Efujita/MJPEG/mpeg2enc.html

http://roguelife.org/%7Efujita/MJPEG/ppmtoy4m.html

[jchansen]

The big one is the '-b 2500' on the second line. Change that to '-b 5000' and you will fit about 1.5 hours on a dvd, and the quality will be much, much better. Otherwise, find a good high-motion ten second clip, start changing the variables one at a time (you can even view their definitions from Mediapipe) and compare different settings yourself.

[woolfpak]

(you can even view their definitions from Mediapipe) ?
jchansen -

what do you mean by this and how do I do it?

Thanks...