I'm sick of crappy DVD quality...
 

Sort of a sub-thread to Blu-ray vs. DVD.

I'm shooting in HD, and burning to disk using DVD Architect using the optimum settings, and really am sick of the quality drop-off.

I thought of delivering .avi on USB stick, but with Vista not playing .avi natively, this is not a universal solution. I could render as .wmv, but then have issues with cross platform etc.

Has anyone else come up with any other options?

You might find this helpful Precomposed Blog - HD to SD DVD - Best Methods

I use Premiere and AME MPEG-2 export is just pathethic. I ditched it by exporting to Matrox HD AVI codec (btw, their HD codec is free to download and use), then I use Procoder 3 to downsize to MPEG-2 DVD format. The resulting files looks really good even in low bit rate (e.g. 3mbps). I showed my DVD to clients, they thought they were watching BluRay.

DV AVI's will play natively on any Vista box in Windows Media Player.

If you're using Media CENTER, then you may be correct about AVI requiring a plugin.

my fix
 

Had the same thing happen to us. We export the video with apple codec 422 HQ then burn to DVD with toast for raw footage. For our final copies we export with apple 422 HQ to mov making sure we export exactly how we captured, then use Encore and make the DVD. Footage is extra clean. This works for us takes a little longer but we have no quality loss. We got the apple codes with final cut pro.

You didn't say what type of HD, it makes a big difference, especially 60i footage.

For Sony Vegas Pro rendering 108060i to NTSC 480i DV widescreen:

Check which Mainconcept encoder is on your system, 1.6.1 is the latest.

Set render quality to best

When you are going from HDV 60i to SD 60i, the "select deinterlace method" tab needs to be checked so that Vegas knows to split the video into even and odd frames before resizing. Which method you select doesn't matter in this instance since no actual deinterlace is going to happen. What you want is for Vegas to split the video into even and odd fields, resize these fields separately, then fold the two fields back into the new resized SD 60i image. Vegas uses the "select deinterlace method tab" to determine the resize method. This is the source of the vast majority of resize issues. People who want to downrez interlaced video want the resized video to be interlaced as well, so they just assume that turning off the "select deinterlace method" is a good idea since they don't want to deinterlace. It makes sense but it is incorrect and causes poor quality.

The "select deinterlace method" tab functions as a dual function tab where the second function is "separate fields before resize, then fold fields back into resized interlaced image".

In the render dialog box, press the custom button, on the first tab make sure the quality slider is af far right as possible (31), on the second tab crank up the video bit rate as far as the project length and disc size will allow, 8 to 8.5 Mbps is about as high as you can go and leave bandwidth for AC-3 audio.

DVDA will give a bandwidth warning, but your compatability is still over 95% of players.

That's about all you can do in Vegas currently.

Thanks Jeff,

I'm much happier now. Check out this thread. It a Vegas thread, but the problem is universal. And VirtualDub and TMPGEnc are universal solutions.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/what-happ...d-quality.html

I 2nd the TMPGEnc for MPEG2 transcoding. I love how simple it is yet it seems to know always the best settings - you don't need to dig in Advanced settings.

Ken:

That's a great thread, and the few examples show good results. It's a shame we need to resize 60i using virtual dub, but not that big of a deal. Im already using virtual dub in the deshaker script, so using it in a resize script is not that big of a deal either.

I have not done a test of 1080P30 to confirm that the virtual dub resize quality improves like it does in 60i. What do you think, will it also be a big improvement over relying on the Mainconcept encoder only for the 30P resize?

Jeff

Jeff,

From what I understand, it's the Lanczos resizer that both VirtualDub and TMPGEnc use that creates the quality, so I imagine the results from 1080p would also be superior to Mainconcept.

I'm editing on Vegas and burning in DVD Architect.
I've just started converting my HDV footage via the Virtual Dub method with Lancoz3 and the results are markedly improved.
Even though it requires a significant extra step in my workflow, the results speak for themselves. It guts me to lose quality when downsizing to SD.

Hey Jeff...

This is the inherent problem from people like me, who shoot 1080i, and need a proper downconvert to 480..(the 1080P people not so much).
It's just the way video needs to get processed correctly for resizing..It requires a Bob deinterlace (doubling the framerate), a resize, reselect the proper fields and reweave..
Whether you're using Lanczos, Bicubic, Bilinear or otherwise is of no concern to me, since quality is subjective. The bigger issue is correct processing of fields for resizing.

Only via freeware, or plugin can i see this being properly done.
Unfortunately, this takes an extra step, and lots of horsepower to do it correctly.
And this is why i bring up time and time again, that if you've got good glass, lighting, and are delivering for SD anyways, don't trade in your DVX cameras. An HD camera can sometimes feel like an albatross around your neck during edit and export.


I think it's high time that Premiere or any other NLE's allow for this on export. I'm not a coder, but i'm sure somebody should be able to create a software patch or upgrade..

Dennis:

Are you 100% convinced it's worth the extra step?

The screen grabs I have seen so far almost all look better with the exception of a grid pattern showing only on one example. I was also wondering about essentially rendering twice. Im guessing you are rendering the resize in essentially lossless format to minimize artifacts.

Do you use much sharpening to get the detail back?

Did you check your final results both ways on a large size HDTV when you were experimenting?

Sorry for all the questions, Im just trying to convince myself the result is worth the effort. IMO my Vegas only NTSC DVD widescreen output is pretty good, but nowhere near HD or commercial DVD quality.

To Peter:
I TOTALLY hear you. Field processing is key. I have been learning and fighting with HD material/NLEs since 2003 when I got the first HDV camera out, the GR HD-1. Most things are far better, but the scaling issues still going on are crazy. It has come to a head again now in August 2009, but if you search you will find all the old threads and the virtual dub scaling solution discussed back in 2005. I mostly shoot progressive, and partially because of the way interlacing is handled, I don't think the scaler interpolation method is as critical in the downconvert, but does still matter. It seems it was more of an issue with my old 720P camera actually than my current 1080P camera, but I don't know why.

I am using mostly Premiere and the downconversion was not satisfactory, at least in my eyes, but recently I tried a demo of Mainconcept Reference. The encoding during the downconversion was far superior to that of Adobe's. It's also very fast (in a quad core at least). I think I should give away some hours of my life experimenting with that software.

Jeff, both the Lagarith codec and Virtual Dub are free, so I think ultimately it's best for you to just give it a go and compare the results.