Newbie Questions related to MPEG2 Encoding and DVD Burning

[johneed]

Hello! I was perusing the advanced forum and got somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of information there, and was unable to find a concise answer to my specific question(s).

I have a Sony Digital-8 camcorder and want to transfer movies I shot to DVD. I think I have gleaned that 2-pass VBR is a good approach to use, and I think I have a handle on the min, max, avg values to use. I use an ADS Pyro firewire card to capture into Ulead Video Studio 6.0. I can capture to AVI or MPEG-2. I don't know the details (and there aren't a lot of options I can manipulate) with the direct MPEG-2 capture. Hard drive space isn't a concern, so I'm OK with capturing to AVI if needed. I've downloaded the TMPGEnc software and given it the once over. I am impressed with the flexibility, and think I would like to use it to create my MPEG2 files using double-pass VBR. I have not used it yet though.

My goal is to preserve quality, not to save on DVD space. I'm perfectly fine with getting only 60 minutes on a DVD, and it doesn't sound like that will be an issue.

QUESTION #1: I don't get the the A/B Field Order. I don't understand how it's related to capture and/or render. What is a Sony Camcorder? What setting should I use and when?

QUESTION #2: Something I read said the TMPGEnc wasn't very good with sound, and I should encode the sound file separately from the video, and then somehow merge it back. I am lost on this aspect too.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm confident I can learn this, but I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. I'd really hate though to spend hours and hours transferring my video tapes to DVD, then learn I did something wrong and butchered the quality unecessarily.

John

[Tommyknocker]

If you wish to use TMPGEnc to encode your file to DVD format (MPEG-2), that option will expire soon. You have to have the registered version (TMPGEnc Plus) to use whenever you want.

Capturing in AVI: Not a bad option, but you may want to break out the ol' check book here as well. The codec most AVI users swear by is the Pic Video compressors, but they have to be registered to remove their company logo from your compressed video.

Video Studio: This is the one I use the most. I like those transitions, smart rendering, subtitles in MPEG, etc.

That was me editorializing. Now to your questions.

1. The field order only comes into play should you have problems with jumpy video in your finished product. If it is jumpy, select the other field.

2. Yes, the TMPGEnc sound encoder is suspect. You can remove the audio with a sound program like Gold Wave or Sound Forge, save it to a wave file, then use the multiplex option to join them again in TMPGEnc. This is only if you captured in AVI and want to use TMPGEnc to encode into MPEG.

You can also load external audio encoders into TMPGEnc. Just PM me if you want the details.

Finally, and this is important as well. Do not encode the entire video "right out of the blocks". Select your settings, have TMPGEnc encode a minute or two of the video and then abort the procedure. Check the results, change the settings you need to. Repeat. Do this until you have results you are satisfied with, then encode the entire video.

[bugster]

johneed, video from a digital camcorder is, AFAIK, bottom field firts so that is the setting you should use in Tmpgenc under field order on the advanced tab.

with respect to Q2, TmpGenc's audio encoder is so-so, acceptable to many people but not the best. It does have a real problem with sample rate conversion though. If your camera does not capture audio at 48khz sample rate you will get poor results from TmpGenc audio. The simplest solution is to get toolame for audio encoding and ssrc for sample rate conversion (both can be found in the tools section). These can the be incorporated into Tmpgenc from options->external tools. From there on their use becomes automatic.

Hope this helps