DVD encoding not as good as professional ones

Guillaume Guite

Guillaume Guite

Member
The DVD I encode on my computer never seem to be as good looking as the I rent at the DVD rentals. What is the problem? Are they using special expensive encoding softwares or am I just doing it wrong? I use Premiere and DVD Encore with MPEG-2 compression.

Thanks everyone!
 
I have always think the same as you. I use Compressor from the Final Cut Studio suite on Mac. With Compressor 1, I say to myself "OK thi is a low-end solution". But With all the compress-like-a-pro-noise about Compressor 2, I didn't understand why the better preset looks so "amateur".

Without be sure at all, i finally guess that comes from the DV format ?

If any can give the magic trick, i'll thank him too !
 
Guillaume Guite said:
Are they using special expensive encoding softwares or am I just doing it wrong?
Click to expand...
I assume that the DVD rentals you are talking about are Hollywood feature rentals. The industry standard for authoring features is Sonic Scenarist, very expensive software. Sometimes the encoding is handled by expensive hardware encoders. With Scenarist if there are too many artifacts in a particular scene the compressionist can re-encode just that scene until it looks right. Working this way the compressionist can do multiple beauty passes until the film meets the high quality standards.

But even with all this expensive hardware and software the media is being encoded to MPEG-2, the same as Encore. Given that most of us can't afford these high end tools the best we can do is to become better compressionists. How high can I push the data rate? Will CBR or 2-pass VBR look better? What the heck is bi-directional prediction? What should the key frame rate be? You can't keep using the presets and expect your videos to look better. Learn the process and do a lot of experimenting and your DVD's will look better. I wish I could give you some magic answer, but I still have a lot to learn myself.
 
Cinema craft encoder or CCE can do multiple passes and can achieve some amazing results, price : $2000
 
Check out TMPGenc which is an affordable multi-processor VBR MPEG-2 encoder. It can handle standard preset operation, but also let you go deep into GOP structure and all sorts of other little settings that can make a difference.

Regardless though, encoding a short scene at 8000kbps and still seeing a "crappy encode" could simply mean you may be comparing apples with oranges in regards to source material. At 8000kbps you should be getting very good quality compression. Sure, you can't fit a 2.5hr feature film on a 4.7Gb DVD using that rate, but for a 15min short even at that rate it should already look quite good.

I mention this because I had a friend who had the same problem and in the end he was comparing his home footage shot on MiniDV with movies shot on 35mm, colour corrected and then burnt to DVD - the result wasn't the different DVD burning software :)
 
The quality of the encoder itself has a lot to do with it... we've noticed that MPEG-2 files encoded with Adobe Encore seem to simply look cleaner and better than MPEG-2 files encoded at an equivalent bitrate with similar settings using Sorenson Squeeze. We haven't delved into it deeply to figure out exactly where the differences are, but it's most likely something with the settings, as both Sorenson and Adobe make good quality encoders.

And, of course, bitrate itself is crucial. If you have to cram 150 minutes onto a DVD-5 (4.7 gig) you're going to have to compress it hard, and the sort of information in the scene will have a dramatic effect on how well it will compress.

But... you should be able to get an excellent quality encoding job if you put the time and attention to detail into tweaking the settings of whatever encoder you're using.
 
I have noticed that some DVD players will really choke with a data rate near 8000. I always use a 2 pass VBR if it is an option, and haven't noticed much difference between say 6000 target rate and 8000, except that the lower datarate plays smoother.
 
Thanks for all the advice...

...but the problem persist! I'm trying to burn a 80 min. video on a 4.7 gig DVD. The content is both animated pictures and still images moving (like a screen saver), made in after effects. Before DVD compression, everything is clean.

I tryed AVI cineform HD, and then MPEG-2 DVD, 2-pass VBR. With Cineform, the file was too big (whatever the lenght of the video, it makes a 4.9 gig file!?!).
The bit rate was target:7, min:6, max:8. I tryed with Inerlacing and de-interlacing.

Am I missing something?
 
I feel the same way guillaume guite.
Maybe someone here can help us by giving us their standard settings from where they start things off.
Now I know there is not setting that will work best for everything. But just like Barry gave us the scene files for the HVX as starting points, maybe someone can help us out with setting for:
Drama High Contrast
Drama Even Contrast
Drama Low Contrast
Action
Computer Stills
etc..
These are just suggestions.
 
I had this problem all the time. Especially with HVX footage it's hard to get a good encode to MPEG2. The 90minute best setting on compressor is the best I've seen.

Also makes a BIG difference if you encode the audio to Dolby2. If you have it as aiff or a wav it eats all the band width and makes the picture look even more poo.
 
"Crappy encode" because of noise in original footage. MPEG2 algorithm tries to encode all this moving noise in DVX-s picture and what is left for "clean and fast moving objects"...not much.
Take for example TMPGEnc, encode fast scene with 8000kb/s CBR and then try the same with Noise Reduction switched on. Big difference.
Original footage from Hollywood is very clean and encoding is clean aswell...more MPEG2 bitrate left for useful elements of picture.
 
The source footage is usually film for these types of movies, whereas if you are compressing a source that is already a highly compressed format(like most video), then it falls apart much faster.
 
Isn't the fact that studio DVDs are also DUAL LAYER DVDs also a big factor? You can get a bigger file (higher resolution) onto dual layer discs. Blu-ray is the way to go...if we can all just hold our breath a little longer until it becomes priced for consumers.
 
I'm running into similar issues and have posted a similar thread for work flow (as in question) on the Final Cut Pro forum, but I think I should have posted it here. (look for HDV to DVD). What I was doing and sort of working, however unwieldy and everyone tells me it's wrong was to...

1. Capture and edit a HDV 720p source.
2. Export out a DVCPRO-50 Anamorphic source
3. Import into a DVD burning program (DVD Studio Pro) and burn.

I had better results than exporting a MPG2 DVD HIGH quality file then importing into DVD studio pro. This second method added more artifacts, flattening of colors, artificially sharpening etc. Everything I learned in school said keep it as big and uncompressed as possible all the way to the end, but everyone is saying to get it to MPG2 DVD as at the time of exporting the timeline.
 
beno said:
I had this problem all the time. Especially with HVX footage it's hard to get a good encode to MPEG2. The 90minute best setting on compressor is the best I've seen.

Also makes a BIG difference if you encode the audio to Dolby2. If you have it as aiff or a wav it eats all the band width and makes the picture look even more poo.
Click to expand...

So pick the 90 minute best instead of the 150 minute best? and not encode the aiff or wave as well? Just make a dolby? I'll try it next.
 
Is there a natress filter or something that works well to reduce noise? My encodes are coming out so crappy relative to the color corrected DV versions.
 
Same problem here. I used the Ulead VideoStudio encoder and now I'll try Adobe Premiere. Downloaded CCE SP and TmpGenc. CCE SP seems to get high marks in reviews. And I've use the Smooth-Deinterlace filter in VirtualDub to convert to Progressive. Now I need a good noise filter and hopefully I am set. Lets discuss encoders a bit as they are really important..
 
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