DVD Workflow

[bigrick]

I have about 8 hours of family video to put on DVD for the family. I have started eding and I find it so enjoyable with Edius 5.12 with my new rig (i7 at 3.5GHz, 12 Gb RAM, 1gb video card, 2 x 24'' monitors, OCZ 128Mb SSD system drive running Windows 7 and applications, 1 Tb video data drive in Raid0 and 1 Tb for other data, etc.). The system is fast and I can concentrate on editing instead of other stuff.

All my input files are AVI (Canopus DV) and they are 720X480i lower field first (29.97) with audio at 32kHz stereo 2 channel.

My project setting is exactly the same as my input files, except I am using Canopus HQ Standard.

First question: are my project settings OK?

I plan to output all my video to DVD and I want to have the MAXIMUM QUALITY available. i realy don't care about encoding time or cost, I just want QUALITY.

I intend to use NERO Vision (I already have it) for the final output to DVD because they have a lot of fun templates and very nice intros. Is NERO OK in terms of quality or could I have better quality with something else?

Now for the output from Edius, what format should I use? DV NTSC presets (720X480 59.94i lower field first) or I am better off with something else?

Remember, all I want is Quality.

Thanks a lot for all your precious help.

Rick

[antonsvideo]

change your project setting to 720x480i DVD (which uses upper field first, I deal for export to DVD)

now export to Canopus HQ fine and the use your Nero, I am not sure how good the encoding quality of Nero is?

[bigrick]

Anton,

First, thanks for answering so quickly.

Now, I know you are a long time expert in this forum and I have been enjoying your answers to other posts in this fine forum for a long time and I have also used your very good tutorials, so I know that I can trust your judgement, but that wasn't the answer I was expecting.

You are telling me to use 720x480i DVD (which uses upper field first) as the project setting while my files are 720X480i lower field first. I have always read in this forum to use the same field order in the project as the field order of the input files.

This is new to me. What is the reasoning behind this? or if there isn't any, have you experimented with both?

Thanks again for your answer.

Rick

[antonsvideo]

when you use an upper field project setting, you can add lower field files and they will be automatically changed to upper field when you export and there won't be any side effects whatsoever

then the exported HQ file will have upper field, then when converting to DVD, upper field will be remained which is DVD spec

[bigrick]

OK Anton,

I accept your explanation. Thanks again.

Now what about the final encoding, anybody out there with experience with NERO Vison? Will the Quality be good? Can I get better quality with something else?

Thanks


Rick

[pjsssss]

There is nothing wrong with using 720x480 DVD but, unless you are using some strange kind of files, using the regular 720x480 (which does have lower field first) works fine also. It will be switched the correct way during a normal timeline to DVD workflow.

I often use Nero Express to BURN and it is fine. The built in Edius exporter or Procoder gives good encoding quality. I have not tried Nero for any encoding.

[antonsvideo]

There is nothing wrong with using 720x480 DVD but, unless you are using some strange kind of files, using the regular 720x480 (which does have lower field first) works fine also. It will be switched the correct way during a normal timeline to DVD workflow.

I often use Nero Express to BURN and it is fine. The built in Edius exporter or Procoder gives good encoding quality. I have not tried Nero for any encoding.

that is correct normally, however in his case, he is exporting to a HQ file to use in Nero for encoding

if using Edius to output to DVD with built in DVD Creator, then either one is fine

[pjsssss]

It should still work. Again I can't say for Nero specifically as I have not used it.

[Jerry]

It should still work. Again I can't say for Nero specifically as I have not used it.

Whats wrong with encoding from the timeline using the exporter and then burning through NERO? Why use nero to encode? That way you skip a generation and go straight to the file needed for a DVD.

[SoundFreak]

audio at 32kHz stereo 2 channel.

I want to have the MAXIMUM QUALITY available.

So far the whole Maximum Quality thread is only about video quality, I did however notice something in the audio department.
Not sure if your original recording is 32Khz (many camera's are out of the box set on 32Khz by default, not sure why?) but it would be a good idea to use a 48Khz project in Edius, this way at least all the music and additional audio you import and edit will maintain their quality, as the DVD spec is also higher than the started 32Khz project :)

If the original recording was indeed 32Khz, then change the in-camera settings to 48Khz for future recordings, but, this won't solve the problem now!

If the camera settings where indeed 48Khz than the original footage has been downgraded on capture and is not recoverable by just changing the project settings to 48Khz, if audio quality is also important to you, you'll need to re-capture all 8 hours .......

p.s. if indeed quality is what you are after, don't use Nero to convert. Nero is a beautiful app to burn almost any disc that is round and it stops there, use Edius with SuperFine settings in the Mpeg export and keep the bit rate high ! if end result is too long in duration use either DVD9 disc's or multiple DVD5 disc's, never compress too much :)

[bigrick]

Thank you all for your comments.

I took them all into consideration so before outputting all my 8 hours of video, I made some tests, with your suggestions in mind.

First, I put my project settings like so:

• Video: 720X480 at 29.97 with upper field first (Canopus HQ standard)
• Audio: 48kHz, 16 bit 2 channel (by the way, my originals are at 32kHz).

I made a first DVD (DVD#1), this one direct from the timeline on a DVD+R disc.
I looked at the result on my HD Panasonic plasma TV using a PS3.

The result for DVD#1: very good quality, specially the blacks in indoor scenes, but I also noticed some washed out colors, indicating overexposure on outdoor shots. I couldn't see this overexposure on my editing monitors.

With this information in mind, I made a series of other tests with the outdoor scenes. I used the Color Balance filter to reduce Luminosity and Contrast for these outdoor scenes, using the same scenes at different luminosity and contrast settings so I can compare these settings on the plasma HD TV. I then outputted 2 DVDs on DVD+R discs. Here is how I outputted them:

• DVD#2: direct from the Timeline
• DVD#3:
  • print to file (Canopus HQ Fine)
  • Nero Vision

I then looked at the output from these 2 DVDs on my HD Panasonic plasma TV set. Here are my observations:

• The quality of DVD#2 is quite superior to DVD#3, in all the scenes indors or out.
• the reduced luminosity and contrast settings made a noticeable difference from the original settings.

Last nite, I had dinner at my daughter's home, so I took DVD#2 and DVD#3 with me so that I could check the output on a regular CRT 4-3 old style TV screen. Here are my observations on this type of screen with an APEX DVD player.

• First, I could never get DVD#2 to play at all. The player (an older type APEX) would not recognize this DVD, but would play fine DVD#3 (the one encoded with NERO). How can this happen? I was really surprised about this, so I went over to my second daughter's place and tested both DVDs on her DVD player. Same result, DVD#2 would not play and DVD#3 would play fine. This is realy dissappointing to me because, considering the higher quality of burning directly from the timeline, I was going to do that, but now I can't because the family can't read these discs.
• Second observation: the overexposure I had noticed on my Plasma TV was almost non-existant on the regular CRT TV screens but still, the scenes where I had reduced luminosity and contrast came out better still.
  (Is this normal that the output from a DVD look better on a regular RCT 4-3 TV than an HD Panasonic plasma TV?)

So now, considering my family cannot read DVDs burned directly from an Edius timeline, I will have to use NERO, even with the reduced quality. This is what I intend to do, but before I start burning, anybody else have better ideas?


Rick

[SoundFreak]

What was the bitrate used for the DVD's ?
What was the audio bitrate ? Ac3 ? Wav ?

Did you burn the actual encoded file from the Edius timeline using edius to burn ?

If so, would it be possible to make an iso file from the Edius timeline and use Nero to burn ?

I always use Nero 7.x to burn my DVD's at 8x or even at 4x burn speed, no issues on older players so far, I did make a couple of thousand projecs so far.

My video data rate is maximum 8 Mb for mpeg2 sd with maximum 384 Kbps AC3 audio, many here on the forum even stick to a maximum combined bit rate of 8 Mb !

Low burn speed is vital for older DVD players !

[SoundFreak]

Most CRT TV's will display SD DVD's better than full HD LCD or plasma tv's simply because they upscale to HD resolution.

Some tv set do this extremely wel, but others don't ......

[Spready]

DVD-R

Have you tried a DVD-R disk in the DVD players?

[NakedEye]

Hi bigrick

It could just be a bitrate problem.......on the first page in the Burn to Disc plug-in under your sequence you will see a settings button....click that button and remove the check mark from auto at the top then from video and audio and then use the drop down's to select a bitrate not higher than 7700 for video.......then choose AC3 for the audio with a bitrate of 256.

I would also burn at the lowest rate possible with your burner/disc type.

Nero will use low bitrates and that is partly why the nero disc looks not so good......so you may want to experiment with the video bitrate in the Edius plug-in by dropping it if you still have problems.....the blue bar in the plug-in will give you a good idea on how much data is on the disc.....I like to keep this no greater than 90% but that is personal preference.

Dave.