dvd quality

[Dennis Turkmen]

Over the course of working on a short film, I've put it on VCD to show to people. Now that I've completed it, I burned it onto DVD and found that the quality was too good. The picture is way too sharp. The VCD had a warmer, more film look to it. The only problem was that the pixels broke up on certain shots, and the VCD won't work on some players.

I want the final output to be DVD so it will play on more DVD players, but keep the quality of the VCD (or if possible make the quality a little bit better to get rid of the pixel breakup). How could I go about doing this? I edited the movie on Vegas Video and tried adding grain and darkening the image to get rid of the sharpness, but nothing seemed to work. Also the program I used to make the DVD, MyDVD by Sonic, had no way of adjusting how the DVD was created.

Thanks,
DVGuru@aol.com

[Graeme Nattress]

VCD is frame based (MPEG1), DVD is field based (MPEG2), so by making a VCD you've done a rought kind of film look effect. Why not investigate how to de-interlace your video in vegas (which will do a higher quality basic film look that VCD) and burn that to DVD instead?

Graeme

[Dennis Turkmen]

Over the course of editing my short film, I have been burning VCDs. Now that it is finished, I want to put it onto a DVD. I used MyDVD to do this, and found that the quality of the image on DVD is way too sharp. On the VCD, the image had a softer, film look to it. I want DVD so the people I give the movie to wont have a problem watching it on thier players. Is there something I can do in Vegas so that the DVD will have the same quality as the VCD?
I've tried darkening the image and adding grain, but it didn't work.

Thanks

[Edward Troxel]

Do a quick search for "film look". You can also download the film look plugin at http://www.jetdv.com/scripts/RC3_VegasFilmLooks.exe. Also look at the variety of options at http://www.zenote.com

[Gints Klimanis]

It's easier than that to reduce resolution. Render your movies to MPEG1 files using the VCD parameter template. Then, reimport your video files and reencode to MPEG2. However, I bet you'll end up moving to the film look the other fellow recommends.

[Rob Lohman]

How is the footage looking before the encode? Basically (as Graeme
points out as well) you should not rely on your encoding to change
the look of your footage. Most people actually complain if the
encoding is changing how their footage looks. This is the first
time I ever heard somebody say they want the look the
encoding process gives and expect the encoding to give a certain
look. That is basically the other (and wrong) way around.

MPEG2 (especially at higher bitrates) is designed to give the
best representation of your footage possible within the encoding
scheme. So yes, it will try to mimic how your footage looked
before the encoding as closely as possible within the bandwidth
available.

Therefor you should be looking at ways to make the footage
be how you want it to be BEFORE encoding. VCD encoding cuts
lots of corners which ended up in this case as changing the
footage so dramatically that it stopped looking like video. You
might "like" the end-result, but that's a very bad thing for an
encoder to use. Which VCD encoder did yo use?

Anyway. De-interlacing if your footage is interlaced, color correction
and perhaps a small softening might help create the look you
are after.

[Cosmin Rotaru]

If you rendered mpeg1 files (for VCD), just use those files to author the DVD. There's no need to reencode to mpeg2. If you already burned VCD, than copy the .dat files (actualy they are the same mpeg1 files used for authoring the VCD) and use them to author your DVD.

I have a 5hours and 40minutes DVD made this way :)

[Edward Troxel]

Not all DVD authoring programs will accept MPEG1 as a source.

[Rob Lohman]

I've merged the two different threads on the same topic together,
Dennis. No need to start two on the same subject. It's not
related to Vegas as well, so merged both into the DVD forum.

[Dennis Turkmen]

I used Vegas to create the VCD.

[Rob Lohman]

Yes, but basically it is about mpeg encoders in generally. Any
VCD (mpeg1) encoder will result in low resolution and thus
altering the image. You wanted to know how to emulate the
look for your MPEG2. That's basically a general question. If it
all turns towards Vegas we will move the thread to that forum,
for now it's better here.

[Seun Osewa]

You can encode a DVD at VCD resolution, you know. This migh solve your problem. Otherwise, a guassian blur on the original footage might be the in order?

[Rob Lohman]

Seun: thanks for the reply, but this thread is nearly 3 years old. Probably "solved" by now! :)