[bill456av]

Hello,

New to video editing but just made a DVD using
Adobe Premier to capture (DV and Firewire card)
& produce sound (.MPA) and Video (.M2V) file - (MPEG Encoder Option??)
and DVDit to encode and burn.

The quality of the DVD is nowhere near as good as playing the camcorder straight into the TV.

Is this to be expected ?

Would you get a better quality DVD if you used a DVD recorder ?
I don't want to buy a DVD recorder if the answer is no !

I have a Panasonic NV-DS29B Camcorder.
When capturing, the Adobe info box showed Quality to be 100%.

Any help welcome.

[vonhosen]

Are you viewing the DVD you have made on your computer monitor or TV in making that judgement.

[bill456av]

The picture is similiar on both the computer and the TV via the DVD player.

First of all, try capturing your video Uncompressed. (DV avi, or something like that, might say "uncompressed" This way you will have top quailty video before you compress it to DVD. - you well may be already doing that, just when you said "MPEG 2 etc" i wasn't sure which stage you were at.

Also your using DVDit to burn the dvd, so are you outputing a video file from premire? If so then it may be these setting that are wrong. Again your best trying to output all video files as a avi uncompressed. If you have version 1.5 premire has a built in DVD burner which would be better.

You should in theory be able to get a good copy on DVD from you pc, sound like just a case of setting. If you let me know what settings your using at each step i may be able to help

[vonhosen]

How much video are you trying to get on the DVD ?

[senu]

check this thread
Making DVD's - PC v DVD Recorder

[bill456av]

I am capturing about 20 minutes which equates to about 1.2 GB on a DVD.

I use Adobe 1.6 to capture. While capturing, the message box says:-
Quality 100%

I put the captured video into the timeline and then used (I think) an MPEG encoder option to produce seperate Video and Audio files.

DVDit then converted the 2 video and audio files to a DVD.

All sounds very complicated when all I want is a good quality backup of my holiday videos.

Maybe I need a easier solution.
Any ideas ?

[vonhosen]

The process you are going through is what you have to do.

You should be able to produce DVD quality that is virtually indistinquishable from the DV footage when played back on TV.

Of course the quality will be dependent on the original footage & the quality of the MPEG encoder you are using.

Have you considered trying to encode outside Premiere if you are not finding it to your tatse. It's going to mean another link in your process chain but there are some good inexpensive encoders.

Try TMPGEnc , you can get a free trial here

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/te3xp.html

I'm quite sure its something todo with your output from Premire. The quality can't be set right. If you have a big enough harddisk as i've suggested try avi uncompressed. - should be about right. I might check out premire myself.

Could be a setting in DVDit,- not used this (not even heard of it ) so i don't know what options it gives you.

Second to that, you could try making a DVD using Premire. In 1.5 there was a burner. I think it was under the file menu somewhere. File-Output-DVD or something.

[bill456av]

Below are the properties for the captured file.
Does all look ok?

The captured .AVI file is 4.8 GB
The DVD produced contained 1.16 GB of data.
To 2 MPEG file are .M2V = 854 MB & 46 Mb for audio.

Also I played the captured "take2.avi" file with Media Player & it is better quality than the DVD.

Looks like I have to look at the MPEG Encoder settings.
It is set to MEDIUM Bit Rate at Present
Probably a good starting point. Cheers ALL For your help

File Path: C:\take2.avi
File Size: 4.66GB bytes
Total Duration: 0:22:23:20
Average Data Rate: 3.55MB per second
Image Size: 720 x 576
Pixel Depth: 24 bits
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.067
Frame Rate: 25.00 fps

Audio: 32000 Hz - 16 bit - Stereo

AVI File details:
Contains 1 video track(s) and 1 audio track(s).

Video track 1:
Total duration is 0:22:23:20
Size is 4.50GB bytes (average frame = 145.62KB bytes)
There are 33595 keyframes.
Frame rate is 25.00 fps
Frame size is 720 x 576
Depth is 24 bits.
Compressor: 'dvsd'

Audio track 1:
Size is 164.03MB bytes
Rate is 32000 samples/sec, stereo
Sample size is 16 bits
Interleave: 25 frame(s)

[vonhosen]

If DVDit is re-encoding the MPEG file you created in Premiere then you may get a bit of a quality hit. How long is DVDit taking to author , if it's quite a long time then it may be re-encoding ?

Your file sizes seem about right. (Your audio settings are alittle low, best to use 42000 Hz 16bit, not that this is your main problem at the moment)

Sounds like the problem is on the "export" stage in Premire

If you can when you save your files in premire ready for DVDit use either a very high quailty setting on your compresser, the best would be to output your file as an ".avi" (uncompressed), so that its similar to what you have started with.

I would say try using the DVD burner in premire if it still has it in version 1.6. You can't make menus etc but it will be alittle test to see what it comes out like. Its only the cost of one DVD disc.

[melliott1963]

Having a quick look at this, I'd say that your problem is the compression rate you're using.

I see you've got it set to MEDIUM bit rate which is giving you an average data rate or 3.55Mb per second. This sounds very low to me.

I always encode using an average bit rate of 6Mb per second. At this rate I can get an hour's high quality footage on a DVD which is indistinguishable in quality from the original footage. I actually use a 2 pass variable bit rate compression which does, in fact, allow me to get more onto the DVD without any noticable loss of quality.

When you compare your bit rate to mine, on paper the quality that I'm going to get is going to be almost twice as good as yours.

[yabadaba]

I posted about something similar a few weeks ago and received some very helpful replies. However, despite much experimentation, I have not been able to produce a DVD via my PC that looks the same as (or close to) the picture I get by playing back directly through my TV.

I've since purchased a domestic DVD recorder and am getting the results I want by linking the two via s-video with the recorder set at max quality. This gives a max 1hr record time, but the DVD image quality via my TV (46" RP) is very close to that of direct playback from the camcorder. Haven't tried the recorder's 2hr mode yet (lower bitrate), as I've not needed it. If you want to edit, though, stick with the PC!

[bill456av]

Hello,
By increasing the Video Bit Rate and Encoder Quality setting to maximum(9660- Bit Rate / 50 Video Encoder Quality), I am getting near enough the same quality DVD as the camcorder direct.
Takes a long time to encode though, so I probably need to bring the settings down abit.
Does anyone have a idea what setting I should try reducing them to ?

Cheers

[melliott1963]

Encoding will take a long time. Once I've finished my editing, I usually set the rendering going overnight.

Basically, if you want quality, you're going to have to wait for it!

I think that encoding at the maximum of 9660 might give you some compatibility problems. Whilst this is the maximum for DVD Video, I'm sure I read somewhere that you shouldn't really go abouve 8000 Mb/sec as some DVD players are unable to handle the highest bit rates.

[yabadaba]

Originally Posted by melliott1963

I think that encoding at the maximum of 9660 might give you some compatibility problems. Whilst this is the maximum for DVD Video, I'm sure I read somewhere that you shouldn't really go above 8000 Mb/sec as some DVD players are unable to handle the highest bit rates.

I'd heard this too - I think by reading it somewhere else on this forum. Somehow it doesn't sound quite right, though, since many retail DVD movies I have in my collection have bitrates consistently higher than 8000mb/sec - just look at the 'supabit' titles. Surely they wouldn't go above a certain level if it would cause compatibility issues.

Anyhow, I'll keep an eye on this thread to see how bill456av gets on...then I can jump in and try out his settings!

[vonhosen]

It's true that with commercial software encoders you can sometimes get spikes in the bitrate that will make the stream non DVD compliant if you encode at too aggressive a setting.

When we are encoding, authoring & burning with our domestic paakages there are far more variables that can lead to potential compatability problems than with the sort of time & kit that film studios have access to.

We have to make concessions sometimes in order to make our output more combatible. This at times can mean simple things like a slightly lower bitrate for our MPEG or burning at a slightly slower speed.

[davee b]

Having tried both pc and dvd recorder archiving i have found the dvd recorder route to be far superior. I'm sure it must be possible to get good results on the pc, but i dont have the patience, time or money to experiment. I find the XP (1 hour mode) to be identical to the source footage, in fact often with oldish videotapes the signal is noticeably cleaner. SP gives almost as good quality.

Can someone tell me why a dvd recorder with limited computing power can encode video footage in real time yet a pc with way more processing power cannot seem to get close to this performance.

[vonhosen]

Originally Posted by davee b

Can someone tell me why a dvd recorder with limited computing power can encode video footage in real time yet a pc with way more processing power cannot seem to get close to this performance.

PCs with hardware encoders can do it on the fly.

[senu]

Originally Posted by yabadaba

I'd heard this too - I think by reading it somewhere else on this forum. Somehow it doesn't sound quite right, though, since many retail DVD movies I have in my collection have bitrates consistently higher than 8000mb/sec - just look at the 'supabit' titles. Surely they wouldn't go above a certain level if it would cause compatibility issues.

Anyhow, I'll keep an eye on this thread to see how bill456av gets on...then I can jump in and try out his settings!

This probably applies to some of the very cheap £19.99 dvd players and non brand name first generation players( with less tolerance to encoding errors). I know this for a fact only because one of my friends who videos weddings/social occasions seems to get more consitent results with his settop phillips dvd recorder than pc encoded maximum bitrate dvds as some of his clients machines cannot recognise the discs as legitimate dvds
It may be that the commercially produced "supabit" dvds are made with industrial equipment with capable of much less encodng error than is available to the home/ small business user