This and similar forums often see questions asking how to maximize the playback quality of home brew DVD's. Most answers revolve around tweaking the bitrate and/or applying some smoothing and/or sharpening methods. That can work, but do you want more?
If you have three things; a true HD TV/monitor, a upconverting DVD player and are willing to invest some trial and error time and also invest in a Canopus 300 or a similar hardware based noise removing A/D converter you can take it to the next step.
I must say up front results are all over the map and depend qreatly on source file. So remember, a sow in a silk dress is still a pig. Meaning if you start with crappy quality source files you may end up only enhancing the crap resulting in a worse, not better looking video. So this is really intended to improve mediocre quality files the most with minimal improvement, if any, to source files already at high quality.
Required:
1. true HD TV/monitor capable of inputing 720p or 1080i signal
2. DVD player capable of upconverting like the Zenith DVB 338
3. Canopus ADVC 300 or similar noise removing A/D converter
4. component or DVI cable*
* both the DVD player and your TV/monitor must have a DVI connector or in the case of the Zenith model mentioned or component input for the TV and output for the DVD player.
Assumption: You want higher resolution than normal DVD 720x480
a. begin with, or convert source file to analog format if it isn't already.
b. connect analog device to Canopus 300 via COMPOSITE cable and firewire to your PC. Important, must be composite connection or you won't receive any seperation of the lumance and chromance signal that's necessary to remove noise with the A/D converter.
c. Settings depends on condition of source file. You may benefit from altering some of the default settings in Picture Controller 300 (comes with Canopus) and by turning on Black Expansion and White Peak filters IF source could benefit from it.
REMEMBER: some settings (2D noise) actually blurs slightly
d. Capture file via component in, and once finished edit and apply additional filters as necessary in Vegas as you normally would to set levels and color correct, etc..
e. Render to a MPEG-2 file using any of the default templates. Burn to a DVD using your favorite DVD Authoring package with normal settings.
f. Connect HD TV/monitor to upconvering DVD player. Select upconverting setting, such as 720p or 1080i. Begin to play DVD.
** because you are likely going to get a purer more clean signal some DVD's may appear to be overly saturated. This is actually a good thing and simply shows you're headed in the right direction. If you don't want to under estimate proper settings prior to rendering you probably can set aside a input on your digital TV where you can compensate. That's short cut I took. <wink>
Results very widely depending on source. I've only tired a few DVD's so far with results varying from barely noticeable to major improvement approaching HD quality playback.
Things to consider that can impact results:
The upscaling chip in the DVD player you buy will greatly influence the degree of improvement you get when playing back your home brew DVD's. Because of copy protection embedded in many commerical DVD's, you can't likely upconvert these.
Most of the better DVD players that upconvert use the Faroudja FLI2300 chip. Trouble is most are in expensive $800 and over DVD players and they only upconvert via a DVI connecter... that is except for the Zenith DVB 338 which also upconverts via component out. A rare dog for sure and its only a $115 or so street.
Either noise removal using the DVDA 300 or just purchasing a upconverting capable DVD player should get you "better looking" DVD's when they play back, however doing both seems to give the best results. Not for everyone, and you MUST have a HD capable TV/monitor to accept the 720p or 1080i signal... if you do, and you want to see if you can squeeze out better quality this is one approach.
Also be aware that upconverting has a major downside in that the process IF THE INTERNAL CHIP USED IN THE DVD PLAYER is not properly configured the "enhancement" may actually incrase macro blocking, so you will end up with WORSE LOOKING results since the end result will be moderate to severe artifacts.
So far in my testing and what I've seen in reviews the Zenith model has the Faroudja FLI2300 chip set to minimze macro blocking. And one of the reasons I'm happy to share this is one tested DVD had some noticeable marco blocking in the dark background and the Faroudja chip removed it! Cool!
If you have three things; a true HD TV/monitor, a upconverting DVD player and are willing to invest some trial and error time and also invest in a Canopus 300 or a similar hardware based noise removing A/D converter you can take it to the next step.
I must say up front results are all over the map and depend qreatly on source file. So remember, a sow in a silk dress is still a pig. Meaning if you start with crappy quality source files you may end up only enhancing the crap resulting in a worse, not better looking video. So this is really intended to improve mediocre quality files the most with minimal improvement, if any, to source files already at high quality.
Required:
1. true HD TV/monitor capable of inputing 720p or 1080i signal
2. DVD player capable of upconverting like the Zenith DVB 338
3. Canopus ADVC 300 or similar noise removing A/D converter
4. component or DVI cable*
* both the DVD player and your TV/monitor must have a DVI connector or in the case of the Zenith model mentioned or component input for the TV and output for the DVD player.
Assumption: You want higher resolution than normal DVD 720x480
a. begin with, or convert source file to analog format if it isn't already.
b. connect analog device to Canopus 300 via COMPOSITE cable and firewire to your PC. Important, must be composite connection or you won't receive any seperation of the lumance and chromance signal that's necessary to remove noise with the A/D converter.
c. Settings depends on condition of source file. You may benefit from altering some of the default settings in Picture Controller 300 (comes with Canopus) and by turning on Black Expansion and White Peak filters IF source could benefit from it.
REMEMBER: some settings (2D noise) actually blurs slightly
d. Capture file via component in, and once finished edit and apply additional filters as necessary in Vegas as you normally would to set levels and color correct, etc..
e. Render to a MPEG-2 file using any of the default templates. Burn to a DVD using your favorite DVD Authoring package with normal settings.
f. Connect HD TV/monitor to upconvering DVD player. Select upconverting setting, such as 720p or 1080i. Begin to play DVD.
** because you are likely going to get a purer more clean signal some DVD's may appear to be overly saturated. This is actually a good thing and simply shows you're headed in the right direction. If you don't want to under estimate proper settings prior to rendering you probably can set aside a input on your digital TV where you can compensate. That's short cut I took. <wink>
Results very widely depending on source. I've only tired a few DVD's so far with results varying from barely noticeable to major improvement approaching HD quality playback.
Things to consider that can impact results:
The upscaling chip in the DVD player you buy will greatly influence the degree of improvement you get when playing back your home brew DVD's. Because of copy protection embedded in many commerical DVD's, you can't likely upconvert these.
Most of the better DVD players that upconvert use the Faroudja FLI2300 chip. Trouble is most are in expensive $800 and over DVD players and they only upconvert via a DVI connecter... that is except for the Zenith DVB 338 which also upconverts via component out. A rare dog for sure and its only a $115 or so street.
Either noise removal using the DVDA 300 or just purchasing a upconverting capable DVD player should get you "better looking" DVD's when they play back, however doing both seems to give the best results. Not for everyone, and you MUST have a HD capable TV/monitor to accept the 720p or 1080i signal... if you do, and you want to see if you can squeeze out better quality this is one approach.
Also be aware that upconverting has a major downside in that the process IF THE INTERNAL CHIP USED IN THE DVD PLAYER is not properly configured the "enhancement" may actually incrase macro blocking, so you will end up with WORSE LOOKING results since the end result will be moderate to severe artifacts.
So far in my testing and what I've seen in reviews the Zenith model has the Faroudja FLI2300 chip set to minimze macro blocking. And one of the reasons I'm happy to share this is one tested DVD had some noticeable marco blocking in the dark background and the Faroudja chip removed it! Cool!