video quality drops after capture and render

glk7243 wrote on 1/31/2005, 11:38 AM

I have a tape from a guy that has outdoor wildlife footage on it that was shot on a gl. It looks fine when I play it thru a camera on a tv. After I capture it and render and burn to a dvd and playback on a tv the picture is very grainy. I tried rendering on best vs good, no difference. Any ideas?

Comments

rextilleon wrote on 1/31/2005, 12:37 PM

How are you rendering it to MPEG--what are the settings- I assume you are using DVD Architect?

Liam_Vegas wrote on 1/31/2005, 1:12 PM

I bet... you rendered to MPEG2 using the DEFAULT template?

Don't do that. Choose the MPEG2 templates specifically mentioning DVDA (and you will also have to render the audio as a separate step)

Also... you'll need to learn a little about what is going on in MPEG encoding... as otherwise this will always remain a mysetery.

BillyBoy wrote on 1/31/2005, 2:07 PM

Actually, there are several different MPEG-2 templates. Those labeled for DVD works fine. There is no need to render seperate video and audio streams. Its only a matter of choice.

To make a DVD compliant file:

1. select MPEG-2 as file type
2. select either of the following templates:
a. DVD NTSC or DVD PAL
b. any of the DVD Architect templates *

* The confussion that always pops up is IF you use any of the "B" templates that renders VIDEO ONLY and you'll have to render audio seperately. YOUCAN, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO! That's the point.

If you use DVD Architect it will automatically recompress the MPEG-2 audio track part of your project if you selct under A and convert it.

Optionally you can drop on a AVI file and let DVD Architect recompress the video steam as well. Downside is you may not know if or not your project will fit without dropping bitrate until after the fact.

glk7243 wrote on 1/31/2005, 4:12 PM

I was instructed to always rendered as an avi file. Will mpeg2 have better quality when copied to a dvd? I am using dvd complete to burn my discs.
Thanks
Gary

BillyBoy wrote on 1/31/2005, 4:31 PM

AFAIK, (unless I forgot something) at some point DVD Architect or any DVD authoring software will need to convert the source file to MPEG-2.

The quality issue lies in:

a. how well the file gets compressed from whatever form it starts in
b. the relative bitrate you "burn" the DVD at
c. quality of source file.

While higher bitrate is better, a common mistake is to max out at whatever bitrate the authoring software can render at. This can cause some set top DVD players to have trouble playing back the disc.