HD to DVD does this make sense?

[durwoodghib]

Here is my thought process…does this makes sense?

I am looking to record in HD but would like to output to a Widescreen DVD. Total footage time would be approx 1.25 Hours. With my camera I can shoot 1920×1080 at 24Mbps, 17Mbps, 12Mbps, 7Mbps or 5Mbps. with a frame rate of 60i, PF30, PF24, or 24.

So I have been playing around with different settings to try and achieve the best possible quality in Encore. My source video in its original state looks outstanding. Have been recording at 24Mbps and PF30. Bring it into PP CS5 with the matching settings and use dynamic link to Encore. When burned to DVD no matter what settings with the encoder I try the footage loosed much of it definition and looks very blurred.

So I was thinking last night while laying in bed. Max safe output for DVD is around 9Mbps while a more realistic setting would be 7Mbps. If I was to record my source video at 12Mbps or even 7Mbps and 30 frames a second, would this squish the footage less when putting it to DVD? In return making the quality a little better?

In short less squish = better quality.

If you stuck it out reading all of this I appreciate it. Let me know your thoughts….as for me I have some test footage to record 🙂

[Charles]

I know it will be a pain, but try to export the footage in PP into a MPEG-2 DVD format and see what that does. It is an extra step but may provide better results. When you import it into Encore you will have to bring in the video and audio as they will be two different files.

[Charles]

What Codec does you video camera record on? Better yet, what type of camera are you using? Another option that may yield better results is to import your footage with the same PF30 but use it in 720 format and rescale the footage to the 720 size which is 66%.

[durwoodghib]

I am using a Cannon Vixia HF S21. I did some test footage today using a 12Mbps at 30frames and 7Mbps at 30 frames. The end result was better using the 7Mbps over the 12Mbps, which was far better than then 24Mbps I had been using. I will try the exporting option from PP. Also the camera has a HD to SD converter built in that I might try. New to HD….New to the Camera….I am still figuring things out.

[durwoodghib]

I took some time yesterday and today recording myself at different Mbps and frame rates. After which I loaded them into PP under their appropriate settings, and finally exported them Encore via the following; Dynamic link to encore, Export to mpeg-DVD, Dynamic link to AE then render to mpeg-DVD. After all of this I am getting the best results with my source footage at 24Mbps 60i, and exporting from PP as mpeg-DVD. I have one more test I am going to do which is compare my current best results to the camera converting to SD.

[durwoodghib]

My final test revealed that my best quality while maintaining as much of the original picture was bringing the 1080i footage from the camera to Premiere Pro then exporting from there as mpeg-DVD. I also noticed when recording at 1080i, 24Mbps and 60i frame rate that if I set the shutter speed on the camera to1/100 it improved it a little as well.

[artsmith]

Access to something along the lines of a Panasonic ‘Viera’ video recorder might make life easier if you can manage it. Transfer your HD footage directly from your camcorder onto the recorder’s hard-drive, and find a setting that gives you the best quality DVD-compatible mpg2 that you can manage for the download phase. Since your footage totals 1.25 hours, that will likely be very good indeed.

I am currently working to transfer close to 10,000 files to AVC, to simplify inter-cutting with incoming High-Definitionfootage, which means upscaling 720 x 576px footage in 16:9 aspect-ratio, to 1280 x 720px. If the wheels come off that scheme, or I descend into madness due to the tedious and repetitive nature of the work, (some might say I’m nuts already), tocopy the stuff to mpg2 in good quality, has always been my fall-back position, as I have a duplicate SD archive of ‘everything’ in High Quality mpg2 as well.

You might do best with mpg2 by setting the top scan-rate to 9200 or thereabouts on VBR and allowing the lower limit to ‘float’. The seems for me, to yield an ‘average’ of about 8000, which is compatible with the DVD-standard. However, I always screw the ‘quality’ setting well-up as well. I always use ‘double-pass’ with its analysisstage. Hope some of that helps.

Ian Smith

Dunedin, New Zealand

[David Forrester]

If you want high quality HD recordings, you must record at 24 Mbps. There is no option. The moment you reduce the rate, you reduce the quality and end up with Standard Definition or a derivative and poor quality of that

To get the HD quality on a DVD, it ain’t gonna happen. DVD’s only record and play in SD at 480 lines. No DVD does HD. HD records and plays in 1080 lines. You need Blu-Ray to get that quality. So no matter what you do, you will not get what your camera shot at 24 Mbps on a DVD.

The best work around is to record that in a file such as Windows Media (.wmv) or Quick Time and play it back on a computer hooked to the HD TV screen. Then you will see the results you want. I’ve done lots of .wmv shots and they are stunning, sharp, clean, beautiful. I’ve not had good luck with Quick Time – maybe because I use Vegas Pro 10 and not a Mac – don’t know. But the world lives in pc’s and that is where the audience is.

Or of course you can record it in a Blu-Ray disc. Now you know

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