Tips for encoding video DVDs

[Clocker]

Hi-

I've pulled a bunch of video off Mini-DV tapes via firewire. About 60GB worth of avi files for about 4 hours (4 miniDV tapes), IIRC. Anyway, I want to make some video DVDs from the data I pulled from the tapes. Right now I'm just using Windows Movie Maker and it will burn a DVD for me. Is there something better I could be doing as far as quality of output is concerned? I'd like to make one video DVD per mini-DV tape.

Also, is there any good reason to save the 60gb of avi files when I'm done or should I encode them to something smaller?

Thanks for any advice/feedback.

Clocker

 

[ddrueding]

I would absolutely encode to something smaller. What is the resolution on your source video 1080P?

Unless you want to do special stuff like menus and bookmarks, the movie maker should do as well as anything else...

 

[Clocker]

It's is just a standard mini-DV tape camcorder. 480P I guess. I'm not sure of the resolution it records at but I'm 100% sure it isn't HD.

 

[ddrueding]

Wow, that is a large file size for standard-def video. I would get the program Auto Gordian Knot (free) to get it into XviD or something else more compact. Even if you wanted virtually no quality loss, you should still be able to get it under 1GB/hour.

 

[Clocker]

I think that's what you get (huge files) with totally uncompressed video even if it is just low res 480P? I will look into other formats. What does Auto Gordian Knot do better than just WMV or some MPG format?

 

[ddrueding]

AutoGK handles a pretty wide range of incoming formats and gives a decent number of output options (final file size, quality, splitting) while keeping it all in a single GUI with a queue feature and logging support. There are other apps that can do it, but this ties all the other apps together in an easy-to-use way.

 

[Stereodude]

Even if you wanted virtually no quality loss, you should still be able to get it under 1GB/hour.

Not if he wants decent quality. He should stick to mpeg-2 since it can handle interlaced video nicely.

I would recommend one of TMPEGenc's MPEG encoders / products. They're a little slow when setup up for maximum quality, but it has very, very, good quality output.

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/index.html

 

[Stereodude]

It's is just a standard mini-DV tape camcorder. 480P I guess. I'm not sure of the resolution it records at but I'm 100% sure it isn't HD.

It is very likely 480i. You should keep it in 480i.

 

[Clocker]

Thanks for your feedback. One question I have is if saving the video as something higher quality than 480i will give me more options in the future if there is some way to enhance the video to some higher quality level (i.e. like how some DVD players upscale to 1080p etc)?

Also, I have a tip I have learned. I imported the uncompressed video via firewire. Then I thought I was supposed to import it into Windows Movie Maker and then export the file to the DVD. This was not necessary since I didn't want to actually edit any video. I was actually able to just write the uncompressed file to DVD directly using Windows DVD Maker. Adding Windows Movie Maker in the mix only created problems with the video output. The video looked 'shaky' when WMM was thrown into the mix. One way to resolve it was to save the 'edited' WMM video as a file in the DV-AVI NTSC (uncompressed) format first and then send that file to Windows DVD maker.

I'm using a C2D and 64-bit Vista Ultimate by the way. The encoder for DVD Maker uses both cores.

 

[Bozo]

Doesn't Nero 7 have file conversion capabilities ?

Bozo :joker:

 

[ddrueding]

Doesn't Nero 7 have file conversion capabilities ?

Bozo :joker:

It does. Nero Recode is pretty good. But it only gives you the option of converting to DVD or "Nero Digital". Not sure what format that is, but it sounds distinctly not open.

 

[Stereodude]

Thanks for your feedback. One question I have is if saving the video as something higher quality than 480i will give me more options in the future if there is some way to enhance the video to some higher quality level (i.e. like how some DVD players upscale to 1080p etc)?

Honestly, I'd just buy more tapes and keep the original tapes someplace cool with low humidity.

I would not alter the video in any way. Keep it in 480i. Let the playback device do the upscaling / enhancing. MPEG-2 (DVD) at a very high bitrate is still the way to go assuming you use the right MPEG encoder.

 

[ddrueding]

Do you have links to comparisons of different encoders? I'm interested in such stuff...

 

[LunarMist]

Definitely you should keep the original in any event.

Nero Digital was an MP4 IIRC.

 

[Stereodude]

Do you have links to comparisons of different encoders? I'm interested in such stuff...

I did a bunch of testing years ago on several of the mpeg-2 encoders / mpeg-2 recoders for shrinking a dual layer DVD to a single layer DVD. I also encoded the occasional DV file to DVD with a few of them.

 

[Mercutio]

It does. Nero Recode is pretty good. But it only gives you the option of converting to DVD or "Nero Digital". Not sure what format that is, but it sounds distinctly not open.

It's an MPEG4 codec. Most anything that can play modern Quicktime files can play Nero Digital, including my Linux machines.

 

[Clocker]

I always planned on keeping the DV tapes. I ended up compressing the uncompressed DV data using TMPGEnc to MPEG-2 at high bit rate for an extra backup burned to DVD as well as kept on the PC. Now that I'm finished doing my friend's videos, I can start on mine.

Thanks for your feedback!