From Moviestudio+ to DVD

[Thomas Kendrick]

I've got a project (actor demo) edited in MovieStudio+ and have burned it to DVD through DVDA that comes with the package.

The resulting DVD was 'acceptable' quality, but I'm hoping to make it better.

Source material was a combination of ripped scenes from commercial DVDs + footage previously burned from BetaSp to a DVD at a pro copy house. Used passthrough my DV852 into PC via MovieStudio Capture.

Is the encoding codec in MovieStudio+ the best I can do for the price or is there another option? Are there 'tweaks' to default settings I should make before hitting "Make Movie"?

I burned to Fuji (Japan) DVD-R at 2x and had no compatibility issues.

Thanks for any assistance.


Tommy

[Edward Troxel]

I don't believe Movie Studio has as many encoding options as Vegas (i.e. 2-pass VBR etc...). If you want "cheap", you might take a look at TMPGenc.

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : I don't believe Movie Studio has as many encoding options as Vegas (i.e. 2-pass VBR etc...). If you want "cheap", you might take a look at TMPGenc. -->>>

Edward,

Thanks for the reply. On further checking into MovieStudio render settings, there do seem to be some settings which can be adjusted.

The first time I did this I rendered with a "NTSC DV" TEMPLATE. Within this template one can set the rendering quality to : draft, preview, good or best". The default render is 'good'. I'll try it again with a 'best' setting to see if there is significant improvement. There are other settings which can be changed: field order, frame rate, etc.

Is there improvement to be had in adjusting some of those settings?

There is also a " Default Template (uncompressed)" setting. Would it be some advantage to use this setting rather than the NTSC DV setting?

If I use TMPGenc should I save the project as an uncompressed .avi to the hard drive or use one of the other .avi templates?

Anyone who wants to chime in on their preferred render settings, please do.

My demo is 4:55;29

[Edward Troxel]

Just save as DV-AVI if you're going to TMPGenc.

As for DV-AVI settings - stick with good unless you're using photos - then go to best.

What settings did you use when going to MPEG2?

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Just save as DV-AVI if you're going to TMPGenc.

As for DV-AVI settings - stick with good unless you're using photos - then go to best.

What settings did you use when going to MPEG2? -->>>

Hummmm...that's a good question. I just used the "make movie" wizard with the 'burn it to DVD' option. I just ran that wizard again, and it doesn't tell what the default settings are for MPEG2.

I'm reading this re: TMPGenc:

http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

This guide says to encode VIDEO ONLY in TMPGenc. Is this your advice as well? If so, and I encode the audio in MovieStudio+, I just specify the audio and video files in DVDA and all should be well?

[Thomas Kendrick]

Well, I got some of this figured out. I encoded through TMPGEnc and burned with TMPG Author. The process was painless, though the results really weren't any better than just using MovieStudio+ and DVDA.

So...I think I'll stick with MovieStudio and see if I can tweak it a bit and get this demo out. The .avi looks great on the PC...if I can squeeze a bit more out of these programs, I'll be satisfied, especially for a $99 package.

Thanks for the help.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

With all due respect, you can't just expect a program to produce
commercial like results at the touch of a button. MPEG2 encoding
is an art and takes time to learn which settings affect what and
what you can do for optimum quality. From the sounds of it you
haven't looked at multi-pass VBR encoding for example (inside
TMPGEnc). TMPGEnc is a superior MPEG2 encoding engine to
the ones in the Vegas line of products.

[Thomas Kendrick]

Rob,

I'm an amatuer at this and understand that I'm not likely to get 'commercial' or pro results, period.

If I expected 'commercial' results from the push of a button I wouldn't have asked about tweaking the settings in my software. Also, I'm not looking to become a pro at this. I'm just looking to maximize the tools I can afford to use and get a 5min demo on DVD. The results I have are acceptable...I'm just trying to see if I can do better.

I've only used TMPGEnc once, and will try it again with some adjustments. I did look at VBR. However, the guide I was using (the url is in a response above )led me to believe that I wouldn't gain significantly from VBR given the type footage I'm working with. I will give it a go with VBR and see if that makes a difference.

I did use the TMPGenc noise reduction filter, as one of my clips is from a VHS dub and I thought that might help. Didn't see much, if any, improvement.

I'm also trying re-capturing the primary footage I'm unhappy with..using passthrough from my DVD player ---->Panny DV852 ---> PC. Footage was shot with in 24p camera, DVD sent to me by the project editor. The footage on the DVD I received from the editor looks GREAT. The AVI looks great on my PC. The rendered footage is much too contrasty.

So...other than trying VBR, do you have some specific settings in TMPGEnc that I should look at adjusting? That may be impossible to answer since you haven't seen the footage I'm working with. But, do you have some personal 'defaults' that might differ from the program defaults?

Thanks for the help.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

So did you use CBR 8000 or some other bitrate? What kind of
footage do you have? Interlaced / progressive? How does it look,
is it dark or bright, much noise? What was "bad" on the resulting
DVD?

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : So did you use CBR 8000 or some other bitrate? What kind of
footage do you have? Interlaced / progressive? How does it look,
is it dark or bright, much noise? What was "bad" on the resulting
DVD? -->>>

Interlaced or Progressive...don't know
several clips are film to video dubs burned to dvd
others are off air video
others are video burned from edited hd video, burned to DVD by the editor

I used the 'interlaced' setting
CBR: 8000

One of the HD vid clips rendered way too bright
Noise is not an issue except in the off air clips...dubbed from SVHS and I don't have expectation of any/much improvement there

I have re-captured the 'offending' clip but haven't been home to edit it into the project and re-render the whole deal again.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

The best comparison is to play back the MPEG2 file on your
computer to see how it looks COMPARED to the original footage
ON YOUR PC (instead of playing the VHS and the DVD on a TV).

MPEG2 encoding will not make your signal better, it should not
make it visibly worse either (some minor changes / defects might
always occur).

You mentioned one of the HD clips render too bright? Too bright
comparing to the original? On what did you watch this original
footage and the rendered footage? What did you use to render
this footage with (ie, was this apperent brightening done due
to the MPEG encoder [which?] or something else)?

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : The best comparison is to play back the MPEG2 file on your
computer to see how it looks COMPARED to the original footage
ON YOUR PC (instead of playing the VHS and the DVD on a TV).

Right. That's what I'm doing. I'm not looking at VHS tapes. The sources of a couple of clips were VHS recordings from TV broadcast. Those clips were previously edited to a BetaSP master along with some commercial DVD footage. I got a DVD burned from that BetaSP master. The VHS footage I referred to was brought into the present project from that DVD.

I am now using some of the footage from that demo DVD and incorporating more recent material. Unfortunately I no longer can find some of the original source material (VHS) so I'm married to the existing demo DVD as my starting point for this new project. I hope that is clear. :)

MPEG2 encoding will not make your signal better, it should not
make it visibly worse either (some minor changes / defects might
always occur).

You mentioned one of the HD clips render too bright? Too bright
comparing to the original? On what did you watch this original
footage and the rendered footage?

Yes. Too bright as compared to the 'original' which was recently provided to me on DVD by the project editor. Too bright as compared to the original on both PC and as played back on TV. The encoding in Vegas and TMPEnc seem to yield very similar results (birightening) on the HD clips. It's not terrible, just a little washed out in the bright areas.

What did you use to render
this footage with (ie, was this apperent brightening done due
to the MPEG encoder [which?] or something else)? -->>>

I'm rendering to MPEG from an .avi I create in MovieStudio+. I don't know how to get the project into TMPGenc otherwise. Am I screwing up there?

Thanks for the ongoing assistance. I purchased Procoder Express this afternoon and will give that a go this evening.


Tommy

[Thomas Kendrick]

Got good results by rendering to uncompressed .avi ---> TMPGEnc

I also tried the Canopus Procoder Express and did not have good luck with it. Operator error, no doubt. Picture was good, but the audio was terrible...stuttering. I just used their wizard to go from .avi to mpg.

I had a memory stick flake out on me and rendered in Canopus with only 256 meg of RAM. Don't know if that was a factor.

I'll try again with new memory and a fresh defrag on the hd.

But...the results with the uncompressed avi into TMPGEnc were good, so I have a solution for this project.

Thanks for the help.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

You should NOT let TMPGEnc or ProCoder do your audio! Either
let Moviestudio+ do that (does it have AC3 encode/export?) or
the authoring application you will be using. For a short movie
just can also put PCM on the DVD (same format as the audio is
in DV, ie uncompressed) or if you may use AC3 Dolby Digital
encoding if a program you have has an encoder for it.

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : You should NOT let TMPGEnc or ProCoder do your audio! Either
let Moviestudio+ do that (does it have AC3 encode/export?) or
the authoring application you will be using. For a short movie
just can also put PCM on the DVD (same format as the audio is
in DV, ie uncompressed) or if you may use AC3 Dolby Digital
encoding if a program you have has an encoder for it. -->>>

Thanks. I saw that TMPG advised against doing audio in the prgm.

I'm not having any trouble with audio in TMPGenc. I'm not totally clear on how to combine the audio and video from two different sources to author but I'll check that out. I'm a slow learner.:)

tommy