For starters, I am editing a Panasonic 60p file in Edius and exporting to AVCHD (1920 x 1080 H.264/AVC).

Next step, try to get a decent SD DVD made.

I have tried creating a DVD with Edius but the result was very soft.

Tried with TMPGenc but the result was poor (used this link - TmpgEnc 4 Xpress Tutorial for downscaling Edius HD to SD (http://www.videoproductions.com.au/html/t4-hd-sd.html)).

Tried AVStoDVD but could not come up with a setting where the program did not crash.

So, what other options are out there?

I have Vegas 8.0c and tried rendering with that but the result looked horrible (used an AVI filed created with VirtualDub).

Is it even possible to get a somewhat decent quality DVD from an AVCHD file?

Thanks...Alan

Well, I decided to try HD Writer, that came the the TM700, and it produced by far the best results of any program.

Not that many features, but enough to get a quality DVD finished.

I find the best result from Edius is to export to HQ fine and use the TMPGenc defaults. I expect Anton's method works for PAL but I think that there is a difference between how TMPGenc works with NTSC or PAL. For me Anton's method with NTSC doesn't give as good a result as the TMPGenc defaults. I think the SD DVD's that I produce using this method authored with DVDLab played back on my Bluray upscaling player look very good compared to the Bluray versions. I prefer the added sharpness and can accept the small amount of shimmer on fine detail.


Ron Evans

I agree 100% with Ron's advice that I got over on the Edius forum. You can read about it here Fastest and Best way to downscale HD to SD - Grass Valley Desktop Solutions Forums (http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16947)
I got pristine results using T4 to encode an exported Edius HQ 1080i file then brought it into DVDlab Pro to author and burn to a SD DVD master intended for replication. All text and sharpness looked vastly improved. I think I used the default T4 settings with video set to 8100 kb/s CBR, motion seach set to "higest" and audio 384kb/s.

Thanks for your comments.

I'm confused about the part after I transcode with TMPGenc.

The tutorial says you have to change the field order and aspect ratio.

Are you doing that in Edius?

And if yes, do you have to re-transcode then open in DVDLab?

Honestly, it is amazing how many hoops one has to jump through just to do a simple conversion.

Alan

Just use the defaults in T4, select separate audio and video files for the encode and just use these as is in DVDLab.


My process is as follows.

Start new project in T4
Add the HQ file in the source T4 screen
Make sure the aspect ratio is correct as 16x9 in clip properties screen ( the next to come up automatically)
Select DVD standard MPEG file under format. Confirm format is 16x9, VBR, Dolby Digital audio, Prioritize for quality.
on Encode /Bitrate screen I check limit to 8000kb/s and edit average bit rate so that no more than 4000MB is used on the disc for compatibility and disc manufacturing reasons.
on file output screen select ES( Video +audio )
select encode tab
Browse to the folder that you want the files to encode to and click the icon on the bottom left.
When encoding is finished..

Open DVDLab and import these files into the assets and author.

Ron Evans

Thanks Ron.

I am trying it out now.

Alan

TMPGEnc worked great but couldn't get DVD-lab to cooperate with my DVD drives.

I have an external Pioneer drive that would spin non-stop without writing anything.

My other drive is a new HP drive in a new computer and DVD-lab would never initiate the write even though it showed the drive in the window.

So got nothing done there.

Dropped both the video file and the audio file into ImgBurn and ended up with a DVD that looked absolutely great but no audio played.

So, still in the learning phase to get all the various combinations working together so I can end up with a finished product.

Alan

After re-doing all my previous steps, I've got all my various software programs working properly, including DVD-lab.

Glad to hear you have succeeded. For your information I do not let DVDlab burn a disc. Always let it make the audio and video ts folders and then let Nero burn the disc.
Each program does its thing. Edius to edit, Vegas and Sound Forge for audio editing TMPGenc to encode, DVDlab to author SD DVD and DVD Architect for Bluray, Nero to burn. I have had a lot more success with this approach.

Ron Evans

I have not tried Nero for burning.

Are you using it because of quality or convenience?

I do have ImgBurn.

Have you tried it?

DVD-lab definitely is one of those programs that does not seem intuitive at all to me when it comes to authoring.

I guess once you understand the whole linking thing then all is well.

Alan

Output finished vid from nle to an hdv camera
Output from HDV camera's firewire port to something like a stand alone Toshiba DVD recorder

Alan
I find DVDLab logical to use.

Start a new project.
Import m2v and AC3 files into the assets window
Drag these files to video and audio timelines Movie 1
Click at the beginning of the timeline
Use the right arrow key on your keyboard and this will scroll through the timeline.When you get to a point where you need a chapter mark press the spacebar.
When you have got to the end of the video timeline double click on the menu1 button.
This will open the menu 1 window and you can now put any chapter points that you want on this menu in several ways. Use icons, graphics or text. For text click on the Aa to the left of the menu window, then click on the window area, a window will open to type text, type and OK , window will close and text will be on menu.
RIght click on this text and a dropdown menu will appear, link is the top item,click on this and select movie 1, the chapter points set in the video timeline will then appear, you can choose which you want to associate with the text. This can be repeated as many times as you wish and the text can be freely moved around the menu screen.
Icons etc can also be placed on the menu and linked in the same way.

Click on timeline again and move through the movie till you get to a picture you like, hold shift and drag this picture to the menu screen which will then be the background. You may then want to move the text blocks around not to cover peoples faces etc.
Uncheck Auto-Route on the top of the menu window select the up arrow to the right of this box and then you can set the actions of the arrow buttons on the DVD remote will take for up arrow repeat for down , left and right. Do this by clicking on the text box and dragging to the next box you want the action to take. They don't have to be next to each other, you can choose where to action goes.

Under Project select "Compile DVD"
Select output folder and temporary folder locations and "Start":

This is a very simple use of DVDLab. As you can tell by just looking at the dropdown menus etc there are a lot of options!!!! For me its the best SD DVD authoring program.

Ron Evans