Low-Quality MPEG2 is Good...
 

Well, I always tested my DVD on set-top boxes, have not watch an entire DVD on my PC, least not the ones I created.

However recently I did, and boy, there were many "skippings". It seems, even my not-so-old-and-not-so-small P4-2GH 1GB is too slow to run WinDVD smoothly. So I burned another one using 3000bps MPEG2 instead of 8000bps, and it no longer skip.

Which leads to the question, do some of you burn it at 3000bps or at least less than 8000bps not because it was necessary due to size? But instead for the reason above?

Of course, the quality loss is obvious when the scene pan too fast, but else seems to be OK otherwise.

Really got me thinking...

If you use 2-pass VBR, you should be able to encode at low bit-rates and still play on the computer.

I haven't found a commercial DVD that skips when played on my computers and I'm pretty certain they use 2 pass VBR plus, probably, hand-tweaking of the bit-rate.

Mike, not sure what 2-pass VBR is (please explain), but I would guess that commercial DVD uses low MPEG qty setting (3000bps or something) and 24-frame to achieve 2-hour play. This of course will minimize skipping.

My quandary is that we all want the best quality DVD for our clients, so we run them at 8000bps if the video does not exceed one hour, however since this occured I realized they may encounter "skipping" playing on some computers, thereby damaging our reputation (for quality).

Do we risk skipping, or do we burn them at lower quality MPEG2? Which poison to live with?

What do you people do, those burning custom videos for clients?

2-Pass VBR is where the computer makes 2 passes over the material.

Ignorant (me) answer:

The first pass is to determine the video content and the amount of action contained in each frame. The second pass then encodes the material at a bit rate suitable for the action in the frame.

Quality is sort of an elusive item in DVD. I ask people to tell me what low-quality brings on in terms of artifacts in the video. I don't get many answers. None, in fact.

For most video I produce, where I have little violent action - car crashes, etc., - I see little quality difference between 1 hour and 2+ hour DVDs when I make them.

2-Pass VBR certainly makes good DVD quality, it just takes twice as long (almost)