Several questions regarding Hi8 to DVDR

[bbeiler]

I have been toying around with this for quite some time, and I have not been very happy with the results. I was hoping someone could shed a little light.

This is what I have been doing.

1. Capture: Virtual Dub (Huffy) 704X480 through S-Video cable via ATI all-in-wonder Radeon. Approximately 8-10 frames dropped/hour.
Filter: Temperal Smoother(2)

Note: I am no expert with using filters. I'm not exactly sure if it is even activated. In capture mode I click video/filters/add/temperalsmoother/"slide the bar to two tick marks"/then 320x240 temperal smoother(2) is displayed/ok. All of this is done BEFORE the capturing.


2. AVIsynth: I was told this is a better way to go. Here is my script.

AVISource("F:\My Documents\My Videos\Nc2000.avi")
newwidth=352
newheight=480
ConvertToYUY2()
BicubicResize(newwidth,newheight)

Note: As you can see I am going to CVD, however, I tried 704x480 and have seen no benefits with the bitrates I am using. I am no expert using AVIsynth either, but from here I drag it into CCE 2.5.


3. Encoder: CCE 2.5
Video: CBR 6850
Audio: 192 stereo
Quality settings: Video (40) and audio "unchecked" (checked at 6 gave me a shrill sound that was unbearable.)


4. Author and Burn: Ulead DVD Moviefactory 1.0


Personal notes.

I have seen very little success using VBR. I have compared AVG bitrate=4200 (min=2000; max=8000) to CBR at 4200, and I swear the CBR looks better (not by much). I have also compared lower CBR bitrates with it's VBR average counterpart. (again min=2000; max=8000). All have resulted in the CBR being the same quality or better. I can not explain this, and I was hoping someone could enlighten me. I am almost at the point of going with CBR=8000 and be done with it. However, I would like to get 2 hours of footage on one DVDR. That would be an average of around 4800. Give or take a few.

I am very picky with video quality. And I really want the quality of the DVDR to be the same as the original tape (at least to point where it is not visually noticeable), and so far it has always been visually noticable. That's why my latest compilation has been CBR=6850. I chose this because it will allow two of my family vacations to fit on one DVDR. I have not tried VBR average=6850. The CBR=6850 has been the best to date, but I can still see flaws that are not present on the tape. Any input would be great.

Additional questions:

1. My CCE speed is around .509x for the above situation. However, when I use DVD2SVCD to backup DVD's I get 1.5x for 352x480; 1.22x for 480x480; and .995 for 720x480. Why is it so slow for home videos? CBR and VBR are the same.

2. In CCE VBR mode, sometimes I do not get an audio file. It is just not there. I am aware that PS cannot be selected in VBR mode, and the audio is DEFINATELY checked. Most of the time I do not get the audio file, hower I have on certain occassions. Do the audio and video files need to be named the same thing?

3. I have been using DVD moviefactory for over a year to convert Hi8 to SVCD and I have had no problems. However, now that I am putting my material on DVDR I have no sound from my optical link to my receiver. If I swith digital input off on my receiver (sound now comes through the analog l/r) I get sound. Can anybody expain this? I always got sound through the optical link before.


Thanks for any help. It seems I will never have this figured out.

[bbeiler]

I was really hoping someone could help me out with this (the 3 questions). Since I first post this thread, I have figured out "question #3". I have to set my DVD player's audio output to "Dolby Digital/PCM". Where before, I had the setting at "Stream/PCM"

I would appreciate any input. At least, maybe, am I applying the filter correctly in Virtual Dub? And has anybody else experienced a drop in speed (CCE) when doing home videos VS. DVD Reencoding?


Thanks