51 minutes of video in DVDARCH, best setting 4 the best quality

[Marcus Martell]

Hola guys,

wondering your help on the transcode settings to have the best quality of a video of 51 minutes in DVDARCH.
Could you help me please?
There shouldn't be any menu, just the video, thank you

[Mike Kujbida]

I'd use a CBR of 8,000,000 and the best blank media I could buy.
Taiyo-Yuden is my first choice followed by Verbatim.

[Marcus Martell]

Hi Mike, so u suggest me to put just that value on the VBR or should i mod other settings?
Thx Mike and have a good weekend

MM

[Don Bloom]

for 51 minutes the top number should be as Mike suggested; 8,000,000---the middle should be; 6,000,000 and the bottom; 2,000,000. Remember this is with AC3 audio since it is a smaller file than PCM or WAV.
Simply render to MPG using the above settings, then render the audio to AC3 and in DVDA set to NEW>Single Play and you should be fine.
I also use TY discs and have had zero failures since I started using them plus when printed they look great.
HTHs

[Edward Troxel]

For anything less than 70 minutes, a CBR of 8,000,000 would be fine - really no need for VBR for under 70 minutes.

[Marcus Martell]

Guys thanks a lot,
an off topic question about DVD aRCH,
once i have the file in the timeline and i would like to add the markers for the chapters so i could decide with the ffwd botton of the remote to skip to the next chapter, what should i do?

[Mike Kujbida]

Ideally you do this in Vegas with the 'm' key before rendering and make sure the option to save markers is enabled in the render tab.
If you've already rendered the file and are in DVDA, make sure the file is on the timeline at the bottom of the DVDA window and do the same thing (press 'm' to add a marker).

[Phil Lee]

Hi

There is a handy bit-rate calculator here Bitrate Calculator

Having a maximum 8,000 bit rate is a bit old school, it is less than the maximum DVD allows just to allow some leeway with old DVD players made before DVD recordables existed and to cope with poor media or bad burns, it doesn't need to apply in the 21st century.

I've always gone for the maximum possible for less than an hour burns and never had a problem.

CBR is fine for less than hour although conservative VBR settings can make use of the buffer to allow slightly bigger spikes on complicated scenes, but this only applies where you have control over the maximum/target and minimum bit-rates, and as DVD has such a small buffer it is probably negligible in terms of picture improvement.

Regards

Phil

[Leslie Wand]

sorry to disagree with phil, but if you're doing something for general release then you're best to max or cbr at 800k - you never know what equipment your dvd may be shown on and nothing leaves a worse impression on a potential client as a bad, glitchy dvd.

i also doubt that you'd even see the difference in quality between 8 and 9k, but at least you can sleep at night knowing it can be played.....

[Phil Lee]

Hi

The DVD specification allows higher than 8,000 and modern DVD burners and media are up to much more these days.

I can certainly see the difference between 8 and 9, I've heard some argue they can't see the difference between 7 and 8, or 6 and 7, so that argument can run and run. If you go from 8 to the maximum of around 9.5 than that represents a 19% increase in bit-rate, that makes a nice difference. Also lets not forget that home created DVDs have no encryption, so the DVD player has a much easier task reading higher data-rates as it doesn't need decrypting. Commercial DVDs might be more conservative knowing the decryption is pushing some DVD players to the maximum and their error correction may not keep up at high data-rates for major flaws. Commercial DVDs have the added advantage of usually being progressive and better encoders, so can get away with lower data-rates, with much lower averages, and often need to so they can pack in those "extras".

No one has ever had a problem with my discs, and they shouldn't do if they comply to the DVD specification, that is why we have a specification isn't it?

Limiting data-rates to 8,000 dates back to the year of the first DVD writers and has just become an urban myth.

Regards

Phil

[Mike Kujbida]

As long as you're using good name brand media such as Taiyo-Yuden (my preferred brand), I'm sure you can get away with a higher CBR than 8,000,000
I do a lot of DVDs for students though and they usually bring in whatever happened to be on sale at the local Walmart (i.e. junk).
Cheap brands are known to periodically choke on higher bitrates which is why I stick to 8,000,000

[Edward Troxel]

I stick with 8,000,000 (even though the theoretical limit is slightly over 9,000,000) because I've seen players that could not handle above 8,000,000. This may no longer be true today but I've seen players that would not properly play the higher bitrates.

[Phil Lee]

Hi

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

Often it's a good case for VBR rather than CBR even though you don't need it to save disc space by having a high average of 8,000 and maximum right up to the top, you get the best of both worlds then, as for the most part bit-rates will be 8,000 or less (even better for bad players) giving those troublesome players a bit more time to handle errors but still getting the benefit of the full DVD spec for bit-rate to encode complex scenes, not to mention higher peaks from the buffer.

It isn't a theoretical limit, it is the specification, a specification put into practice by tests for any DVD Player that has the DVD logo.

Besides regardless of the playback video bit-rate the DVD player is reading at the same speed all the time, this is double speed so greater than 20Mbits/sec, so all the slower video bit-rate is doing is giving the player chance to re-read bad sectors on the disc, it's not solving the problem, just hiding it.

From memory my first DVD recorder (one of the first you could buy) recorded in its highest quality mode at 9,000 or more, and our old DVD player made before DVD Recordable was ever heard off, had no issues playing those or any DVD I've produced.

I suppose do you sacrifice maximum quality for the lowest denominator? Depends on individual circumstances and the target market for the discs I suppose. Still if a player has a problem playing discs within spec just because they are over 8,000 in bit rate will probably end up not playing the disc sooner or later as the dye starts to degrade or bad handling causes damage over time, as it is an indication that either the burner is creating too many errors, or the player can't read without errors, so error correction is all used up from the start.

Regards

Phil

[Mike Kujbida]

Phil, when you can buy a DVD player for $20, you have to wonder just how good the build quality is.
Like Edward, I stick to a max of 8,000,000 and, of the thousands of discs I've made and had professionally duplicated over the years, have never had anyone return one to me because it wouldn't play in their player.

[Phil Lee]

Hi

The real reason behind the mythical 8000 compatibility figure is simply because 8000 is the maximum bit-rate where you don't have to worry about what audio format you use. You can use any audio format supported by DVD at any bit-rate (up to 448 for Dolby, 1536 for PCM) without breaking the DVD specification and so avoiding playback issues. You can imagine in the early days of making your own DVDs the lack of information and good tools available for ensuring the result complied to the spec would be lacking, so to be safe the mantra was "don't go above 8000 on video" and everything will be in spec and it will play without problems without having to worry about the audio potentially breaking something.

This gets us to where we are today, with the real reason why 8000 was often quoted as the safe maximum lost in the depths of time.

If you aren't using PCM the 8000 maximum can be increased, and who uses PCM these days? The whole point of DD is it allows more bit-rate to be allocated to the video, certainly where space isn't an issue, but each to their own.

Regards

Phil