Video quality question.

LongTallTexan wrote on 2/12/2004, 1:38 PM
I am currently working on a Live Concert DVD box set for release in April and was wondering what are the best settings for getting the highest quality video. I renderd a 1:45:00 file in the highest settings of the mpg2 settings and it said that the file was 45% too big to fit on the DVD. Is there a setting or default I could use to get the best quality possible and still get close to 2 hours on a disc. Just for the record I fire wired from a Sony DSR11 DVCAM deck. Any help would be apreciated.


L.T.

Comments

jetdv wrote on 2/12/2004, 1:47 PM
Take a look at issue #7 of my Newsletter for a bitrate chart. You'll need to reduce the bitrate for 1:45:00.
LongTallTexan wrote on 2/12/2004, 1:58 PM
thanks, I am printing it up now. Looks pretty self explanatory. It is looking like I will be going with a suround sound mix as well. Will that effect it as well?





L.T.
jetdv wrote on 2/12/2004, 2:23 PM
The larger the audio file, the lower the video bitrate must be. That chart does not take the extra size of surround sound into consideration.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/13/2004, 12:41 AM
Your original question was: "what are the best settings for getting the highest quality video."

There are lots of opinions on this, and much depends on how much movement, contrast, and other attributes you video exhibits, and also on the quality of your MPEG encoder. If you are encoding in Vegas or DVDA, you have a reasonably good encoder, although not as good as the "pros" have. If you are starting from 30 fps interlaced video, you will not get anywhere near as clean encoding as what can be done from the individual scanned film images at 24 fps that Hollywood uses as the input to their DVDs. Since the source for Hollywood movie DVDs don't have interlacing, and they have only 80% of the frame rate, they can get by with far lower bitrates. (I have seen several people remark that the average bitrate on commercial DVDs is less than 6 Mbs, and look at what a great picture they get, but they ignore the lower framerate, and the nature of encoding individual still images as opposed to interlaced video.)

My limited experience seems to indicate that for any video with fast moving motion, you are not going to get "high quality video" (which is your stated goal) if you let the bitrate go below 6.0 Mbs.

The best way to tell is to encode 1-2 minutes of sample video at several different bitrates, burn a DVD-RW and then play it on a DVD player that can play re-writeable DVDs. Look carefully for pixelization, especially during disolves and fast motion. Disolves, smoke, and flashing lighting are some of the toughest things for MPEG2 to encode properly.
stephano320 wrote on 2/13/2004, 8:17 AM
If you are encoding in AC-3 audio that will save a bit of space for the Video too. I don't know if its possible in the DVD world, in the CD world you are allowed to "overburn a CD. Can this be done on a DVD? Any comments?
frogmugsy wrote on 2/13/2004, 8:24 AM
You'll also maybe would like to take a look at video bitrate calculators at

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/tools