Quality of DVD encoding !? (Premiere/encore)

[Mat Thompson]

Hi guys
Just wondering something. I'm writing a 13 minute DVD from premiere pro4.

What settings will achieve the best quality possible !?

Cheers
Mat

[Noa Put]

There is none according to my experience, premiere does a crappy job transcoding to dvd specs, I always export a 1080p out with as less compression as possible (which by the way has a good image quality) and then use Tmpgenc to transcode that file to dvd. Have been doing frame by frame comparisons of both tmpgenc and premiere transcodes to dvd and you clearly see the difference.

[Mat Thompson]

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm just wondering why an expensive piece of software like PPro/Encore shouldn't make a good job of this?

What uncompressed format do you usually output to intially !?

Mat

[Noa Put]

Encore does a little better then premiere but still not up to the same level as tmpgenc. Why they can't do better is a very good question, eventhough most their other output formats are very good, transcoding down to dvd isn't on of them.
I usually film in Canon's 25f format and then I output to a 1440x1080 progressive file with a constant bitrate of 25mbs.

[John Stakes]

I thought DVDs tapped out around 10Mbps? Or do you change it when outputting from tmpgenc?

[Mat Thompson]

Ok then. I'm giving your process a go.

Max bitrate in TMPGEnc seems to be set at 8000. kbit/s

If I click on expert I can pick various options. What is the best choice - A constant bitrate or theres a setting that says constant quality !?

Mat

[Ann Bens]

You might want to have a look at this.
Bellune Digital Video Services - Tutorials - Adobe Premiere Pro - HD to SD Using Premiere Pro CS4

[David Chilson]

Very good tutorial!

[Mat Thompson]

Great I will take a look at that.

I'm a little confused with the 'wide mode settings' !

Letterbox
Pan/Scan
Letterbox - Pan/Scan

I read up on what they are but can anyone shed some basic light on the application of these settings !?

[Alan Craven]

The method offered on Anton's Video web site using VirtualDub gives very good results. His tutorial is for use with Edius, but I have written a modified tutorial for use with Premiere CS4, and using Procoder to get the higher quality DVD file.

[Ann Bens]

I used to use Dan Isaacs' method. But changed Avisynth and the HCE encoder to TMPGenc (just out of lazyness). They gave exactly the same results. For the avi file i use Neoscene.
There is not difference in encoding quality between Premiere and Encore. The both use the same Mainconcept codec.
And leave it interlaced, you do not want to throw away half your vertical resolution.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Originally Posted by Mat Thompson

I'm writing a 13 minute DVD from premiere pro4.

What settings will achieve the best quality possible !?

use the best settings if you want to playback only on computers. If you want it to play back on older DVD players, then I recommend keep it around 6500kbps. Also, don't use VBR. Use CBR in your case since you have a lot of space to play with. It should be fine.

If you're making a data disc you can export full 1080 but DVD players won't read it. DVD is Standard definition.

[Ann Bens]

When comparing CBR and VBR files of the same content and file size, you can make the following generalizations: A CBR file may play back more reliably over a wider range of systems, because a fixed data rate is less demanding on a media player and computer processor. However, a VBR file tends to have a higher image quality, because VBR tailors the amount of compression to the image content.

[Rob Lagerstrom]

Originally Posted by Ann Bens

You might want to have a look at this.
Bellune Digital Video Services - Tutorials - Adobe Premiere Pro - HD to SD Using Premiere Pro CS4

After months of frustration, ignorance and confusin, finally somone comes out with an esy to understand and comprehenive tutorial to obtain the best DVD from 1080i60, 1080p30 and 720p60. He also gives good exlanations of when to shot eachof the formats.

I am a little concerned about his recommendation to use VBR @ 8mbs. I have read that to be most compatible with most DVD players the settings should be CBR@ <8mbs.

[Ann Bens]

For compatibility sake you could lower the burn speed.