slacy:

Your DVD should look pretty much identical to the source material, assuming you encoded at a fairly high bitrate (8Mb/sec).

Also you can't really compare what you see on a Computer monitor to what you see on a TV monitor, they are 2 completely diffrent things.

Did you view the footage on a TV monitor first?
Get your original tape and view on the same monitor
using the same connection - i.e. - S-video if you can.
The DVD should look about the same as the tape if
you did everything right. And as the other posters
said - You cannot compare what is preview on the computer
monitor to a TV output.

Hi Scott

As others have written: The mpg2 files should normally reflect the source video depending on what filters, fx and so on are added - if all you do is compress an avi, should look fairly identical comparring them.

However, when you're viewing a DVD on your PC, you have to have DVD player software installed. This software may have color settings etc, and/or otherwise effect the display. Ideally you should be able to import one of your created vob files onto the timeline of a new Vegas proj, and play it back using the mainconcept mpg2 software that created it. May not play back great, but you should be able to tell enough to compare it to the original. If they look the same, something in your PC playback is off. If the problem is evident, the vob files are off, then something's happening before or during encoding and that has to be looked at.

luck

Thanks for all the replies. I should clarify a few points:

1. My primary comparison is between a DV tape and a DVD, both played on a TV monitor.

2. The source was identical for both the DV tape and the DVD. For the DV tape, I simply printed to tape from the timeline. For the DVD, I encoded a DV AVI, then pulled that file into DVD Architect for encoding/burning. In DVD Architect, I overrode the default settings and chose 9,800,000 bps.

Again, I'm perplexed as to why the DVD looks so "flat." By flat I mean, it lacks the vivid lifelike colors of the DV tape.

I'm also curious as to the proper way to encode a Vegas project to DVD. Should you render out a DV AVI, then pull that AVI into DVD Architect for encoding? Or should you render to MPG2 within Vegas, then simply burn that file to DVD with DVD Architect?

Thanks for all the help....

Scott

Though it may be counterintuitive, higher bit rate is not necessarily better. Many DVD players will not read DVD+/-R media at all above 8500 kbps or so. Although the DVD spec does permit 9800 kbps, that is for pressed, "replicated" media, not recordable media.

Is this affecting your player? Maybe not, since the DVD apparently plays at least. But you may be seeing high bit-error rates which are masked by the player, meaning you loose high-frequency detail, possibly giving you a "flat" appearance. My Pioneer DV-343 gave me inferior video quality at 9000 kbps but it also had skips and freezes when playing a DVD-R encoded at that rate. I may be way off the mark here but you could confirm it by burning at, for example 8000 kbps and comparing the image quality.

As I suspected, you "tried" to improve things by playing with the bitrate. Why?

Try again using the DEFAULT bitrate. It is what it is for a reason. Unless you understand when you should change it you shouldn't. I swear, if there was such a thing as 50,000,000 bitrate some people would just have to try it wrongly thinking somehow more is better. The higher the bitrate the harder your player has to work to try to keep up with the data stream. Beyond a certain point you really are just getting into diminishing returns and really, all you're doing is wasted effort.

Regardless if you use a AVI or MPEG as the source.... (doesn't matter) LEAVE THE BITRATE ALONE!

Why? Because I'm an ignoramus. :)

I'll try the default settings and check back with you fellas.

Don't feel bad, we have all tried every combination known to man and then
end up with the default or less in CBR.

JJK

Well, I tried using the default settings, but same result: flat, colorless video.

I'm stumped.

It sounds like your video is being recompressed.

Set up your timeline for your final video and Render As Main Concept Mpeg-2. Choose the DVDA video stream only template to save as. If you named Markers on the timeline as future chapter points for your DVD leave the box checked "Save Project Markers in Media File". Pick a convenient folder to save it in.

Render the audio next. Choose Sonic Foundry AC3. That will give you AC3 Stereo which will render relatively fast. Save it in the same folder as the Mpeg-2 video.

When you open DVDA find the folder and it will associate the audio and video files together. Follow through on default settings and DVDA won't recompress the video.
Burn the DVD using DVDA (not another program). Test it on a DVD-RW so you don't end up with a coaster if something goes wrong.

John

Craftech,
I think everyones missing your point here. Your talking about the color rendition. I doubt thats being affected by bit rate or recompression!

I'm only guessing at an explanation and I could be off the beam here also but I recently had a similar experience. We went from watching analogue TV broadcasts to SD digital. My initial reaction was how flat the picture looks but when you get over that you realise its far more natural. I've noticed the same thing looking at footage from the GR-HD1, it doesn't have that DV edge, it looks almost boring because its that much more natural.

I must admit I even prefer the look of Betacam SP over Digi Beta. This maybe what your noticing, try looking at your DVD in that light, is it just lacking the edge of DV because its more natural or is it really washed out. If thats not what it is then I'll have to defer to the experts. I've made a couple of vids and DVDs from the same material and felt that it looked better on DVD than DV but thats very subjective.

I assume the signal is getting into your monitor by the same path from the DVD player and the DV deck, if not thats going to explain a lot.

By the way I've just bought an obscure but truly brilliant DVD player, it'll play a DVD of only raw MPEG1/2 files, no need for authoring and will accept bit rates upto 12 MBits.

Very handy for testing your encoding before authoring or if you want to create a DVD for your own pleasure at higher than standard quality.

"I assume the signal is getting into your monitor by the same path from the DVD player and the DV deck, if not thats going to explain a lot."

2nd that FWIW farss...

"By the way I've just bought an obscure but truly brilliant DVD player, it'll play a DVD of only raw MPEG1/2 files, no need for authoring and will accept bit rates upto 12 MBits."

Check dvdrhelp.com for a user contributed list of players that can do this.

"Very handy for testing your encoding before authoring or if you want to create a DVD for your own pleasure at higher than standard quality. "

FWIW... Seems some folks do quite a bit of playing around with ifoedit and such to both stretch the spec and compensate for stuff whichever authoring software won't allow. A personal example, wanted a way to do 480 x 480 dvd to repurpose SVCD mpg2, though I must confess that even then I had to modify ifo edit to allow the legal but very uncommon spec. Anyway, thought it might interest, though getting into that end of things can seem like swimming in pasta.

Craftech: I tried your suggestion, but same result.

Farss: In theory, I agree with you. DV colors and edges can by hyper-real. Sometimes the color seems TOO saturated. I can imagine a different color curve that would be more real and more pleasing than the default DV stream. That said, my DVDs are not more pleasing, and while this is definitely a subjective issue, I'd be willing to bet no one else would find it more appealing either. The DVD just seems washed out, lacking in vibrance.

As for the signal chain, both signals are going out via RCA plugs. So there shouldn't be any difference there.

Man, you guys won't believe this (or maybe you will):

I swapped the inputs on the back of my TV, with my VX2000 going into Video 2 and the DVD player into Video 1. Now the pictures are roughly identical! The only visible difference in those video inputs is that Video 1 has an S-Video connection (in addition to red-yellow-white RCA connectors), but I wasn't using an S-Video cable in either case. Can someone explain that?

Anyway, the DVD now has roughly the same color curve, and doesn't look flat. The only issue I have now is that my slow motion shots look like they're "strobing," which is a little confusing to me. It appears that only the clips that are slow motion AND progressive are afflicted with the strobing problem--which seems counterintutive to me. In Premiere, slow motion was deinterlaced by default. In Vegas, however, it seems like that isn't the best setting.

Or perhaps I'm mistaken in believing that "deinterlaced" and "progressive" are interchangeable terms?