GH4 4K GH4 Footage Looks Hidious when burned to a DVD

S

ScrewLoose

Member
Hey guys.

I have tried everything and for the life of me can not figure this one out. I bought a Black Magic Production Camera Kit and a GH4. I've done various tests with both and the final results are STUNNING. However, whenever i try to burn the file to a DVD, it looks TERRIBLE. Fuzzy, artifacts. The best way to describe the way it looks is if I shot on an old DV camera with the focus a bit off. I shot a feature a few years ago in 1080p and it looks ten times better than this 4K footage looks on DVD.

The way I burned it first was through Final Cut X. After getting the results I got, I figured it was Final Cut X, so I burned it in Compressor. same result. I've tried various setting. Even tried converting to 1080p first, still garbage. Does anyone have any experience in burning this 4K footage to a DVD that might be able to give me some in sight? I shoot a feature this September and would really like to kill this beast now. Also after I've sorted this out, even though I am going to Standard Def on a DVD, because I shot 4k, there should be more information in the image yes? Or will it just look the same as if I shot 1080p. I assume that it would like significantly better considering that when you buy a DVD of a movie that was shot in 4K at the store, it looks phenomenal.

Thanks for your time! When it comes to this technical burning stuff, I lack much needed knowledge.
 
@screwloose, for best quality in dvd, you would want a bitrate over 6000, however, if your project is longer than 45mins, it may not fit into a dvd, so if you have a feature film project that you want to fit into a dvd, the software normally would automaticaly adjust the compression bitrate and to fit it all in, sonce sometimes it gives you a 2500 bitrate which is the quality of vhs.

As for dvd sales, althought blurays sales has increased, the majority of homeowners are still buying DVD, but both blurays and DVDs sales are down right now and digital download is kicking up it's momentum...
 
Well you do not give your location, so we do not know if you are in NTSC or PAL land.

But it might be helpful to start with the basics, like what frame rate and aspect ratio your original footage is, and if you have tried to do a proper pull-down and field conversion before importing your footage to DVD with the frame size of 720x480 Lower Field First?


For what it's worth, I haven't purchased a DVD in a Very long time.
 
This is still a big part of what I do for a living.
Yes, DVD is only 720x480 in NTSC land but it can still look good on a HD tv set when it's played back through a decent setup, like a BluRay player connected via HDMI. I've done DVDs that fooled the director and producer into thinking it was a BluRay so getting good results is possible. Will it be identical to an uncompressed 4k when viewed on a 4k screen? No, but it will hold its own on a HD set. For even better results, go with a BluRay.
Just like any of the post tools, compression and authoring takes some knowledge to get right. You need to figure out the optimum bit rate and make sure you're not messing up any of the settings. I'm not a fan of the MPEG2 implementation by Apple, but you can get ok results with Compressor if you're not pushing it too far. If you're under 90 minutes you can run a target bit rate of 6500. Under an hour and you can go 8000. I wouldn't go any higher than that since you'll run the risk of choking some of the players on playback. Enable multi pass encoding. Set your frame controls to best for the scaling or scale it in After Effects before encoding.
Or, for best results especially if this is going to be manufactured and sold, consult a professional DVD/BD author.
 
David W. Jones said:
Curious how much of your feature sales are still DVD based?
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They ain't what they used to be, but for most producers it's still a viable revenue stream. Not everyone wants, or can, stream movies everywhere and a lot of people still want the full HD of BluRay and the bonus features.
BluRay/DVD combo packs have been doing well enough for a lot of my clients to easily justify the costs of having them produced.
 
ScrewLoose said:
...I assume that it would like significantly better considering that when you buy a DVD of a movie that was shot in 4K at the store, it looks phenomenal.

Thanks for your time! When it comes to this technical burning stuff, I lack much needed knowledge.
Click to expand...

There are also people with specialized software who make their living burning feature films to DVD. When you buy a DVD in the store, it wasn't converted using FCPX. I haven't tried 4k yet, but I went and bought TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works for conversion from HD to DVD. I still use Adobe Encore for the actual DVD creation (I'm PC based, so I use Adobe Creative Cloud), but I won't use it for file conversion because I found it doesn't do that great a job. I have no experience making DVDs with FCPX, but my previous limited experience with it doing file conversion wasn't that great (which I'll happily chalk up to lack of experiance with it). Some programs simply do a better job than others. If you're planning on shooting a feature and distributing it via DVD, you might consider investing in a dedicated program for it.

Just remember, this is my opinion only, and it's worth what you paid for it :)
 
Tell us your process, programs and framerates used and we can be of more assistance. A lot of DVD issues are related to software or settings rather than source footage.
 
If you're going to use DVDs I highly recommend at the very least using dual layered dvd-r discs. This doubles your space, which means you can use a higher bitrate, thus higher quality. However, with Blu-Ray burners so cheap nowadays I would recommend to get one asap. I got on for $69 a few years back and it's amazing. It's very nice to be able to burn 25GB+ at once I must say. :D

If you're going to burn HD quality onto a DVD burn in H.264 and it should be playable on a PS3/PS4. It's far more efficient than Mpeg 2 & can look quite awesome.
 
Mike Harvey said:
There are also people with specialized software who make their living burning feature films to DVD. When you buy a DVD in the store, it wasn't converted using FCPX.
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Very true, and not only do we professional DVD authors use specialized encoders that don't come bundled with consumer gear, we also have the experience to get the most out of them for each project. I don't use TMPGENC, so I can't comment on it's quality, but there are some really nice encoders out there if you're willing to spend a few thousand bucks and some time to learn them. Cinemacraft comes to mind.

StarCoreFilms said:
If you're going to use DVDs I highly recommend at the very least using dual layered dvd-r discs. This doubles your space, which means you can use a higher bitrate, thus higher quality.
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Bad advice. A dual layer disc is going to have a tougher time on playback in a lot of players. They're finicky little things because of the parallel tracks and the inconsistency of authoring and burning software to make that layer transition properly. The other problem is that if you jack up the bit rate as high as it can go with a consumer level encoder, you're likely to get spikes that go over what's legal and wind up choking playback and causing skips and stutters.

StarCoreFilms said:
However, with Blu-Ray burners so cheap nowadays I would recommend to get one asap. I got on for $69 a few years back and it's amazing. It's very nice to be able to burn 25GB+ at once I must say.
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Yep. Go BluRay if you can. Keep in mind though that if you want to release BluRays commercially that they need to be mastered a little differently than what you get when you burn a disc for yourself. There's special BDCMF mastering software for this too. Not sure if too many programs can make a legal BDCMF out of the box, and if you send one that gets rejected after mastering it's going to get expensive quickly just for the AACS license fees on each master attempt.

StarCoreFilms said:
If you're going to burn HD quality onto a DVD burn in H.264 and it should be playable on a PS3/PS4. It's far more efficient than Mpeg 2 & can look quite awesome.
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This is marginal at best, and only acceptable if you control the recording and playback setup. You're not going to be able to make a H264 DVD for sale, or even expect anyone else to be able to play it, but if it's just burning a copy for your own viewing and you don't mind experimenting then go for it. But then you might as well just make a streaming version or put it on YouTube.

Worzel Gummidge said:
90% of people still use DVD players as opposed to Blue-ray David or is that news to you?
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Very much depends on where you are in the world. For example US adoption of BluRay is pretty decent in any income level above the lowest. Everyone I know has a BluRay player. This also translates into BluRay sales as well. The US sales on BluRay are better than a lot of the rest of the world despite the popularity of streaming services here. Combo packs of DVD & BD sell to people who own BluRay players as well as people who don't own BD players yet since they see the value in future proofing, while the BD player owners see the value in having a copy for travel or use somewhere else.
 
Thank you all so much, lots of great information here! I do have a blu ray burner but as most of you say, many people don't have access to blu-ray yet. Whether we like it or not, DVD's are still a more popular format. I do find that it looks MUCH better on my HDTV played from a blu-ray player. However playing from my Mac computer monitor, it looks terrible. Trial and Error I suppose. My first feature is being released on DVD by a distributor on November 18th. Maybe I'll see if I can pick their brain and ask them what their process is as well. Thanks bunch fellas! Especially Andrius Simutis for his clear expertise on this particular subject.
 
Bitrate has nothing to do with the problems here. It could introduce more noise and macro blocking but has absolutely nothing to do with fuzzy video.

First of all asking us why a DVD looks like garbage without being able to see it is like calling a mechanic and asking them what is wrong with your car by saying to them it makes a noise. There are so many things that can factor into this that many here will either just throw out random guesses or respond with a "DVD sucks" post. Sure DVD is not as good but it isn't horrible either. How many of you still have a decent DVD collection and can enjoy watching them? There is nothing wrong with the DVD format itself and is fully capable of creating a rich viewing experience for a user that is dumb simple for them to use. Even the most brain deficient human on the planet can play a DVD.

1. What framrate did you shoot?
2. What framerate is your timeline/sequence?
3. What framerate are you encoding as?
4. What quality level is the encoder using to down scale? No they are not all the same. Companies don't just throw in the best or high quality settings as a sick joke. They help the video scale better and process each pixel as they are altered in a more accurate way.
5. Where are you watching the DVD? Have you tried another DVD as comparison? Maybe your player isn't as good and all DVD's don't look the best.

Keep in mind down converting to DVD has a psychological effect on us. We see it as 4k and marvel at how detailed it is. We then burn a DVD and it no longer looks that way. Our minds know it can be higher and it freaks us out. If you buy a DVD at a store chances are you don't get to compare it to a higher resolution version so your mind doesn't freak out. Try this, down convert from FCPX to a quicktime prores or uncompressed file at 720x480. Don't factor in the DVD stuff for now and just create a 720x480 master first. Play that and see how it looks. If it looks like garbage then FCPX sucks at scaling and you need to find a better tool at down converting. If the SD master looks great well then you can use that to now encode a mpeg2 for a DVD. If you shot 4k at 30p you have to be very careful how you encode your 60i DVD. if you encode it as interlaced then yes it probably looks horrendous when played on a computer. If you shot 24p then make sure you have a proper 24p mpeg2 for DVD.

A well produced 24p DVD would fool many of you when played in a normal viewing environment with a good up scaling DVD players.
 
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