HD to SD for DVD

[inmysmallcorner]

Hello everyone!

I have done a ton of research, googling, and experimentation regarding the following problem and have not been able to get satisfactory results, so I’m looking forward to hearing your expert advice!

My brother and I shot a how-to video using the HD Canon Vixia HF G10, 1920×1080, 24p. This camera records in AVCHD and has pretty nice footage. The goal is to get the edited video to a DVD to offer for sale.

I own both Corel VideoStudio Pro x9 and Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 13.0, and also DVD Architect Studio 5.0.

I know that for HD video, the only true HD disc option would be to use Blueray, but this is not what we’re going for….DVD is the goal.

I have done multiple tests using both of the above mentioned editing software products to export the video into MPEG-2 with varying degrees of success. Of course, since DVD is in SD, it looks great on our SD TV screen, but degrades considerably when played on 64-bit PCs.

I understand that downscaling from HD to SD will result in a significant loss in quality, but I’m still convinced that there must be a way to get a higher quality encoding than what I’m getting now.

So, here are my questions:

1. Am I correct in assuming that with a higher quality encoding to MPEG-2, the DVD will play [I]better[/I] on the higher resolution screens?

2. If anyone here works with going from HD to SD for DVD, what is your process? What have your results been like?

3. Is anyone here familiar with the “Render to AVI with Lagarith>Use hd2sd plugin for AVISynth>Encode with HCEncoder” method and what did you think of the quality? I have read that HCEncoder is one of the best…not sure if that’s still true. If you like it, would you please consider doing a step-by-step guide for your workflow to get that done?

Thank you so very much in advance for your time and suggestions! I’m thinking there are some great experts here, so I’m sorry for my “learner’s questions.”

[majors20]

In Sony Vegas create NTSC DV widescreen project. Then put your HD file into time line. You will see pop up box, hit No. Render your file as ” Video for Windows(*.avi)” choose NTSC DV Widescreen. In render options: check “Stretch video to fill output frame size”.
You will have AVI file, almost same quality as HD, but 720/480 widescreen resolution which you can record to DVD.

[Kevin Mc]

For an actual DVD (not data disc), the AVI file mentioned above will still be converted to MPG2 for the final DVD disc render. Nothing is gained by rendering to AVI first, and the additional render from the original source footage to AVI to MPG2 will lose quality.

[Kevin Mc]

The best you can do for DVD, is to render to MPG2 at 8 to 9.5 Mbps, directly from the source material. Many DVD players won’t read anything above 9.5Mbps, and many older players won’t read anything above 8Mbps. I’d shoot for 9.5Mbps and see how it goes. I believe Vegas Movie Studio has a render option to render the video stream and audio streams separately, for import into DVD Architect. No matter how it looks on any given machine, that is pretty much the best and cleanest process. Every time something is re-rendered, such as first rendering to AVI, then to MPG2, you lose something. Avoid re-rendering whenever possible.

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