Alternatives to DVDA?

VicViper wrote on 3/23/2009, 10:50 AM
After I render my video in Vegas, no matter what I do, DVDA will re-encode my video, unless I use the DVDA specific template in Vegas, correct?

I don't like the lower quality template for DVDA that results in a steep picture loss. I'm frustrated that when I use settings that should be suitable for DVD authoring, DVDA doesn't agree.

So are they any good alternatives? I'd like to render my project at a 8,000,000 CBR, at 24 FPS.

Is TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4, any better?

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 3/23/2009, 12:29 PM
"After I render my video in Vegas, no matter what I do, DVDA will re-encode my video, unless I use the DVDA specific template in Vegas, correct?"

Not necessarily so. If you render video and audio separately, and use settings that DVDA understands, it will not re-render.

I'd like to render my project at a 8,000,000 CBR, at 24 FPS.

Are we talking about the animation video from your previous thread?
If so, it was originally encoded at 5 Mbs I found out.

An 8Mbs encode will fit about 1 hr 15 minutes of material on a standard disc.
If your program is longer than that, it makes no difference what burning program you use, it will need to be at a lower bitrate to fit. It's all math (bitrate X time). Or else use a higher capacity (DL) disc. OTOH, If it's only 20 min., then there is another reason DVDA is re-rendering and that can be figured out if you will post all the render settings you used.

That being said, DVDA is a bit conservative in its initial estimates. So, if you are pretty sure it will all fit, go ahead and Prepare (not burn) the folders, then come back and see what DVDA says the size is. If it fits, go ahead and "burn from previously prepared folder". If it doesn't, render using a slightly lower bitrate.

EDIT: Again, if we're talking about the animation videos from your previous thread and not movies, there is little in the consumer world that I know of that will give much improvement. The least expensive Cinema Craft encoder is about $2,000 I believe, and they go up from there.
VicViper wrote on 3/23/2009, 1:18 PM
Wow you got a good memory.

Yeah, I'm well under an hour in length, so space isn't really a concern.

I am concerned about compatibility. Any idea how likely it is to run into a player that can't handle an 8 mbit/sec CBR? Are we talking like old ones from last decade, more recent, or both?

Considering how everything from pc's, to videogame systems, and probably some toasters come with a DVD player built in, you'd think your consumer would have something that would run it, but obviously you want to maximize compatibility, and ease of use...

BTW, is Cinema Craft encoder something anyone could use, or would I need a PhD in encoding to get the most out of it?
musicvid10 wrote on 3/23/2009, 4:05 PM
"Yeah, I'm well under an hour in length, so space isn't really a concern."
List all your render settings. We'll get it working in DVDA without re-rendering.

Also it would be good for you to upload a 30sec. clip of the original file format somewhere. There are some nifty geeks here who would love to optimize the output for dvd and post their settings. Some have tmpgenc on their systems so a comparison should be possible.

"Any idea how likely it is to run into a player that can't handle an 8 mbit/sec CBR? Are we talking like old ones from last decade, more recent, or both?"

Old, and cheap (aka Chinese knockoffs) in my experience. We had a brand new CM player donated to our organization that couldn't even handle 6Mbs when it got near the edge of the disc. If you can't control what players it will be played on, I would try to keep it at 6Mbs just to be on the safe side, despite what I said in your previous thread.

I sympathize with your situation; i.e. rendering from animation video, I have been there. But there may be a little tweaking that can be done in Vegas and rendering to bump the quality a little, even though consumer codecs are decidedly not optimized for this purpose. Let us see what you are working with.

VicViper wrote on 3/24/2009, 7:10 AM
My render settings are now:

-6 Mbit/sec CBR
-24 FPS, progressive

If there's anything else you want to know, let me know. But I don't really play around with anything else otherwise, except for maybe setting picture quality to 'high'.

After further experimentation, it appears DVDA will not tolerate a project set at 24 FPS, and that seems to be the sole cause of it re-encoding.

When I try to render before DVDA at 23.976 FPS, the image blurs on anything that moves quickly.

What I don't understand is that DVDA's re-encoding of a 24FPS to what I'm assuming is 23.976 FPS (I set it to that, because it's closer than 29.97), doesn't result in motion blurring, but the re-rendering causes picture quality to drop.
musicvid10 wrote on 3/24/2009, 8:41 AM
Are you using Vegas Pro or Vegas Movie Studio?
What template are you starting with?
Your project frame rate is 24fps? Does that setting match your source video?
Is your output for PAL DVD or NTSC DVD?

PAL DVD is 25 fps.
NTSC DVD is either 29.970 or 23.976 fps
That's not a Vegas limitation, its the industry spec.

Again, if you'll upload a 30 sec. clip somewhere, it would be a huge help.
VicViper wrote on 3/24/2009, 9:36 AM
-Vegas Pro 8.0c

-I'm starting with the DVDA widescreen, NTSC DVD template in Vegas, and then just changing it to 24fps and CBR of 6 Mbits.

-Yes, 24fps is the same as my source video.

-Output for an NTSC DVD.

It's nothing personal, but I really don't feel comfortable about uploading a clip of the movie for download at this point. Sorry.
Emulgator wrote on 3/28/2009, 11:33 AM
BTW, DVDLabPro (now in version 2.51) will most probably accept your encodes
and just mux these.
In DLP is no built-in encoder tampering with your encodes
and this is what I use most of the time.

(Only for BD I came to Sony and for now I haven't even managed to get any MPEG-4 encode muxed straight into a BD without reencoding, which is not what I hoped to get from DVD-A. But still I hope...)