noob - Best Quality from MPEG-2

thatotherguy wrote on 1/8/2006, 7:13 PM
Hey guys,
Im trying to make a DVD slideshow, and it's going to be shown on Plasma screens in the waiting area of our store - so it's gotta be top quality. the original slides are 6.3meg tifs - they're pretty crisp.
After the Render from Vegas (using DivX), the end result looks perfect, but swap over to MPEG-2 encoding, and it all goes downhill (blocky, pixely, etc). Im using one of the DVDA Templates, and have gone into custom, made the render "Best" quality, the slider is all the way across to 31, and Ive made a constant bitrate 8mbps, but it still isn't really good enough - is there anything else I can try?
Cheers,
Jeff

Comments

GaryKleiner wrote on 1/8/2006, 7:19 PM
You are not making the Mpg2 from the DivX, right?

Gary
thatotherguy wrote on 1/8/2006, 7:39 PM
Nope - I was initailly just making up DivX's and trying to burn those to DVD (before I realised they were being re-encoded to MPEG-2). The settings for the DivX was just crank the quantizer (sp?) to 1 - and they all came out crisp as.
These MPEG-2's are coming straight off vegas now....

Jeff
johnmeyer wrote on 1/8/2006, 10:53 PM
Wow, at those settings I would expect that it would be pretty tough to tell the difference between the original and the MPEG-2. I assume that you are starting with the DVD Architect NTSC template (or PAL, if you are in Europe) and are ONLY changing the AVERAGE bitrate. If you start with that template, the quality slider will already be over to the right. Setting Best for the render quality on the first tab of the Custom dialog will help with still, but the difference will be in reduction of artifacts that you didn't report (staircasing on stills, for instance). It will not change the blockiness.

You said that you are not starting with the Divx, but what ARE you starting with?
Wes C. Attle wrote on 1/9/2006, 3:38 AM
Download the mpeg encoding overview white paper from here http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/download/step2.asp?DID=391. I find it useful to optimize the MainConcept Mpeg encoder that comes with Vegas.
thatotherguy wrote on 1/9/2006, 11:22 AM
Yeah I know, I would have thought those settings would be the one - I am using the DVDA PAL Template (coz Im all the way down in New Zealand), making the render quality best, and making the constant bitrate 8mps (as the maximum setting for variable bitrate is set at 8mbps, im guess changing the average to 8mbps aswell would have the same effect - I read on the forums that the max bitrate for DVDs is somthing like 9.8mbps, but we're planning on having music behind the slideshow).

The originals are 6.3Mb tifs that I knocked up in The Gimp (they're at 1440x1152 - I do have the old slides which are at 720x576, but when that render turned out blocky, I thought that the original slides might not have been high enough resolution). The reason I dont just make a picture slideshow in DVDA is the boss wants transition effects on them too....

Cheers for any help you guys can offer.

Ill have a read of that white paper now and see if that is any help - cheers.

Jeff