What are the best setting when outputting to dvd?

[g0ldenb0y55]

I would like to know the best setting for a high quality DVD in premier. I am a new user and would like some help from the pro's. Any feed back is appreciated.


Thanks,
g0ledenb0y55

[Collinz340]

I used a preset and had no problems. It was: High quality, VBR, 2 pass, progressive.
However I edited that and changed the bitrate from the Target 4 to 7.000, which looks great on playback.

The full specs are:
Codec: MainConcept MPEG Video
Quality: 5.00 (high quality)
TV Standard: NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps drop frame
Program Sequence: Progressive
Bitrate Encoding: VBR
Encoding Passes: Two
Target Bitrate (Mbps): 7.0000 (high quality)
Maximum Bitrate (Mbps): 7.0469 (high quality)
Minimum Bitrate (Mbps): 1.5000 (low quality)
M Frames: 3
N Frames: 15

[Baluardo]

personally i always encode at constant bitrate (CBR) 6Mbs or 7Mbs when i dont have space issues on the DVD. It's faster and i reckon more reliable since the system doesn't take its own decisions about the bitrate.

Andrea

[kecorcoran]

Constant bitrate is a much quicker encode, so I usually do that when I'm just burning something I'd like to quickly check on my TV. But for final product, I like to use VBR.

From what I'm told VBR will actually give greater PERCEIVED quality at a lower bitrate.

A constant bitrate stream will mean that complicated scenes and simple scenes both receive the same number of bits. Since they have the same bitrate, the simple scene will LOOK better than the complicated scene with lots of motion. As a result, the viewer could notice fluctations in quality when they should be watching your movie.

Collinz' settings look good, but of course, if you are burning a 24p DVD, change Frame Rate to 23.976, and change N frames to 12. (Think of "N Frames" as the answer to the question "how many frames in half a second?" and you'll understand the reason for the numbers 15 and 12.)

[Baluardo]

"From what I'm told VBR will actually give greater PERCEIVED quality at a lower bitrate. "

so you're saying not to 'spoil' the audience with higher quality when you have nearly still footage, so they would be more used to the lower quality when the scenes become messy?
Lowering the quality of the best images you can achieve is not something i like.

I have been working in the mainstream films dvd production for years, and if you encode constant 7Mbs most of the audience would not be able to perceive the compression in any case / scene / light condition.

I still think you should go for high (not too high for compatibility) and constant bitrate if you dont have space issues. Obviously i wouldnt encode 4Mbs CBR. I would use VBR. But if you can afford 7Mbs CBR, i would go for it.

Andrea

[AFMNA10]

what about for ver6.0 users?

[surf]

Mpeg2-DVD
quality 4.8
PAL (EU)
16:9
Lower
VBR 1 pass (if your film is not long 1 pass is enough)
6000Mbps
MAX:7000
MIN:2000
M:3
N:12 (sometimes 15, check which is better)

[AFMNA10]

dose anyone recomend using Divx?
if not why?

and there is something that no one has mentiond in the settings listed above and that is audio settings. (???)

[AFMNA10]

okay... i am using ver 6.0 and i cant find any of these settings. are the settings listed above only in pro?

[surf]

well, I usually Multiplex the sound and I use mpeg sound encoder with 224 bitrate or PCM, but if you have Dolby, just switch everything on, and that is gonna be cool-but I tried it only once.

[Baluardo]

AFMNA10: i'm not familiar with premiere mpeg-2 encoders, but the parameters they talked about (especially bitrate, cbr or vbr, max bitrate) are basic mpeg2 parameters. so they should be somewhere.

Andrea