i use the same exact camera and my dvd's come out really clean
i render to avi. BEST quality
however, you can convert to mpeg2 right form the timeline without rendering to avi.
sonicDENNIS told me that on one of his previous posts
ALSO< maybe the DVD's you are using are generic?
i have a pioneerdv-104...and i use pioneer dvd's
mine come out crystal clear
as far as converting to mpeg2 from vv3--i use the default template---mpeg2 dvd ntsc

>>>try adjusting the setting to BEST and use better DVD's
good luck
sb

"select 10bit for the DC coefficient"

Do you know if this setting causes any negative side affects? Mainly, would some DVD players have trouble playing the MPEG-2 file if I used this setting? I'm certainly in favor of making the MPEG-2 file as great as possible, so anything helps. I'm currently rendering using the default 9bit.

Thanks,
Ron

Ok...
Maybe I should mention that the video looks great, I just feel it could
look better before turning it into mpeg-2.

Also, I do a lot of my testing using a Pioneer DVD-RW DVD media.
Has anyone seen a difference in visual quality (using the same brand)between DVD-RW and DVD-R?

I hate to burn off a DVD-R just to find out it looks the same as the DVD-RW.
I'm also using the Pioneer A04 (104).

The problem with DVD-RW is that it is less compatible with existing DVD players then the -R format. If you have a DVD player that works with the -RW format that is great, but if you take it somewhere else or make a copy of a home video for your family it may not work on their players. I personally like to use the RW just for backing up my data and the +R format for my home movies that I am going to achieve.

Sorry,

That should read "archive" in the last sentence :)

It's DIGITAL! As long as the DVD media error rate is within the error correction capabilities of the DVD player, the video should look absolutely identical regardless of the type of media on which the video gets burned.

John

yeah, the media doesn't make a hill of beans. what you see on dvd-rw is what you see on dvd-r. same with digital8 versus minidv. it's the same zeros and ones no matter what media- therefore the same quality.

i always use the dvd-rw discs to test my projects before i burn the final on dvd-r.
i couldn't live without 'em.

-c

Thanks Craig...
That makes sense..
The reason I asked was due to the feedback I am reading about different media.
Some have reported visual quality differences.

The people reporting visual differences are probably the same folks that think they can hear an improvement on their audio CDs by using green ink from a magic-marker on the edge of the disc to "absorb the stray laser energy." Of course, this is utter nonsense. :)

There are essentially three "levels" of error correction for digital media; First, the error is relatively insignificant and the error correction algorithm completely corrects the error. All digital media has flaws in the recording surface, whether it is disc or tape. However, the digital data is always written with a bunch of redundant data in the form of checksums and it is also written interleaved and out of sequence so that bad data blocks are usually surrounded by good data blocks. This way, when an error occurs, it can use the checksum to reconstruct the data perfectly.

Second, error correction only works up to a point, if the error on the disk or tape is pretty severe the error correction algorithm makes an educated guess as to what the data should be. It looks at the data before the error and after the error and sees what was happening at that moment and tries to fill in the missing data. This is called error concealment (as opposed to error correction.) Depending on how well the algorithm guesses about what the data was supposed to be, it may become visible and this is where there could be a difference in visual quailty. Like I said, there are flaws in even the best digital media, but as long as the flaws are small enough and the error rate stays within the error correction capabilities of the format, the data will be perfect. In the case of cheap media, on playback it may spend a lot of time in the "error concealment" mode and this will _definitely_ affect the aural or visual quality.

Third, some errors are so severe that error correction algorithm not only can't reconstruct the data, but it can't even guess what the data was supposed to be and it just gives up and the video or audio will glitch or drop out completely.

Digital recording, whether it is on a hard drive, an optical disc, or magnetic tape, simply would not be possible without error correction algorithms. Using cheap media is never a good idea because it may spend more time in the error concealment mode than the error correction mode.

John

Yes, media makes a difference, but that's not a visual issue. It's whether the media you buy is 2X rated for DVD-R. What you get is stuttering, and freeze-ups unless you're using the right brands. Pioneer Sony Maxell, Verbatim, TDK, Apple and a few others will give you no problems, and from that point it IS just a matter of 0s and 1s, but the cheaper media, and the media not rated 2X (like Memorex), are worthless for reliable DVD movie burning. Go to pioneerelectronics.com and check out the DVR-A04 and their page explaining 2X rated media. PS. I tried burning on non-2X media at 1X and still got the same crap.

I have had good luck with generic media from Meritline.com. It even played in My brother in laws 3 year old cheapy RCA which really surprised me. I use the DVD Pro disk with Silver top and with White top(a little more) and they both work great. It's the ones with the darker purple surface. Both are under $1.00 depending on the qty.


Good Luck & Have a good day!!!

Hey steve, for what it's worth and all that...

Reading through the thread here, lot of good stuff to try.

The DV compression format itself is not lossless, and certain types of scenes and lighting will work better then others. That's one other area to perhaps look into.

If you wanted to try and filter the DV footage on your hard drive, I'd recomend virtual dub, since there are several excellent filters available -- besides, won't spend a dime trying it. Whether it'd be worth the hit having to recompress everything to avi before rendering to mpeg2 is something you'll have to run a few test runs and see.

If you're comfortable with this sort of thing, you might want to look at avisyth as a go between that would interpret your footage direct within v/dub skipping the rendering to avi step -- it basically ties the DV decoding software to the avi rendering stuff so a program can understand a format it doesn't normally.

VV3 has it's own noise removal fx, and might work as well. It's just that a lot of the folks working with v/dub deal with captured VHS and broadcast, so noise removal is one of their prime concerns.

Thanks for the reply Mike.
I know the Sony VX2000 is a decent camera with low noise, but
it's there in fair to low light levels.
I was surprised with the amount of noise I got the other day.
The camera was set for manual exposure and manual focus.
Shutter speed fixed at 60. Fairly lit room, but the camera was aimed
somewhat at the window. So, in order for the window not to oversaturate, I used an ND filter.
I still left the window peaking with "zebras" showing at 100 IRE, but the rest of the room was very dim and showed a lot of video noise (grain). Unfortunately, the CCDs do not have the dynamic range to capture this correctly.

I have tried virtual dub in the past. I might try it again. I have not tried any noise removal in VV3. I'll have to check that out. Virtual dub (smart filter) has helped somewhat, but robs some of the fine picture detail.

I've done a lot of reading on the video to mpeg-2. All high end production movies process the video though filters before the final mpeg-2. Unfortunately, this equipment is in the 6 figures and out of my reach.
Steve