PDX10 video burned to DVD not clear

[Dave Livingston]

I recently shot my first video with my new PDX10. The picture looks great on the camera when I play it back; I did download the video on my computer to Windows Movie Maker and burned the finished video with Sonic MyDVD. On my wide screen TV the video was not nearly as crisp. Color was OK. Is this problem more with the computer/DVD burner or is there something I need to change on the PDX10 settings?

[Boyd Ostroff]

It's really impossible to say from a distance...

All I can offer is that DVD's made from my PDX-10 material look surprisingly good when viewed on both my 22" Samsung HD LCD screen and 37" Panasonic ED screen.

When you say "looks gread on the camera" do you mean the camera's LCD screen? That has such low resolution that it won't really tell you anything. Try hooking up the camera directly to a good screen via s-video - but it will look a little dark since it won't have the needed "setup." It should give you an idea of whether the picture itself is out of focus though.

Assuming that it's OK, then I'd suspect a software problem...

[John C. Chu]

More than likely– it is just the limitations of consumer grade MPEG compressors.

It always disappoints me to see what a significant difference there is between a DVD I create in iDVD, compared to that same footage that comes straight off the camera.

Hollywood, from what I understand, has very powerful and expensive MPEG encoders that can analyze each scene and tweak it for maximum quality.

Regular consumer grade software compressors, don't do as well, unfortunately. You should look into a better MPEG compressor/DVD authoring program perhaps if you want maximum quality.

I wonder with the advent of HD-DVD/Blu-Ray....if one could theoretically run full quality standard DV and be able to fit it in one of these massive storage discs... and play it on the future HD-DVD players...without ANY compression.

[Dave Livingston]

I picked up Sony Vegas Movie Studio plus DVD today and I'll see how that package works. Thanks for the info.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Could be... thus far I've been using a standalone DVD recorder with firewire input and have always used the HQ setting (1 hour per disk). From what I understand, these recorders do a better job than most software encoders.

[Jim J. Donaldson]

Mr. Chu has hit on the proper point here. The video being played back from the camera is at a 25Meg video data rate. The maximum combined data rate for DVD is around 9Meg. So even at best a DVD is less than half the information that was recorded to tape, and there is the loss of fine detail in the image. If you have the option, make sure you use a higher data rate for your video encoding, I use 8.5 Meg for everything I do. Some of the encoders will want to encode at 4 to 6Meg to get more time on disc. There are some very good resources at www.videohelp.com that may help you in getting the best quality out of your software as possible.

[Samuel Birkan]

I,ll ask the obvious question! You are using firewire for transfer are'nt you ? BY the way the Sony products include th "Main Concept" MPEG encoder which is considered a very good consumer level encoder. If you have a lot of movement though dont drop the bit rate below 8. If you can get more than an hour on your DVD you're loosing resolution.
Here is a link to the Movie Studio Forum - some very good help there - http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowTopics.asp?ForumID=12

[Sean McHenry]

My DVD workflow:

Shoot 16:9 on the PDX10

Bring into Avid Xpress Pro - edit

Export Quick Time Ref files (settings - I do not use the Avid Codec, QT REf, digital mastering, 16:9 square, 48KHz, 16 bit (important), 601 colors)

Import QT Ref files into Canopus Procoder 2- (settings - DVD MASTERING (important), change to 16x9 in settings) - go get lunch, then go get dinner cause this takes FOREVER! My 37 minute footage took about 8 hours to render last night. This is the 2 pass variable bit rate setting and it works very very well but takes a long long time on my Athalon XP 2500+ machine.

Import resulting <U>elementry</U> stream into Adobe Encore DVD 1.5.1

Tell it not to re encode the video but let it encode audio. Build menus, make, burn.

Enjoy

[Kyffin Lewis]

Hi all.....this is my first post . Ive had a PDX10 for 9 months now and bought it basically because my old 1 cc sony videocam was no good for showing 16:9 DVD Mpeg2 encoded Home movies on my 42" panasonic plasma. The quality of the 16:9 home movies looked abysmal when blown up on the plasma. Since getting the pdx10 all this has changed as the 16:9 is true 16:9 using all pixels. This makes heaps of difference on the plasma. Not only this but I have also change encoders. I have been experimenting with MPEG2 encoders for nearly 3 years and let me tell you...there are encoders and there are encoders. Basically when I was PC based the only decent encoder software around was procoder. I couldnt find anything that matched it and all others were noticably inferior. So...if you have a PC you cant go past Canopus ProCoder. Having said that, sometime late last year after my 5 millionth crash with Windows XP I bit the bullet and bought myself an IMAC G5. Now mpeg2 encoding is even easier and faster than before. Even Imovie's (free mac bundled software) mpeg 2 encoding on the IMAC G5 is better than everything that is PC based except for maybe procoder. I cant believe that free bundled software can be so good. Then it gets even better when you move up to Final Cut Pro and use either QT Pro encoders or Cleaner.

So....if the original dv looks fine in its native state( .avi, .dv etc) then you can bet London to a brick that its in the quality of the encoding.

Regards

[Boyd Ostroff]

Hi Kyffin, and welcome to DVinfo! Thanks for your thoughts, and I'll look forward to hearing more from you in the future.