Hello, all. I used WinTV to capture video at 12 Mbps as an MPEG-2 file. I then used Adobe Premier Pro with the appropriate plug-in to edit. I added some effects such as transitions and a short slow motion clip. I rendered the project, then exported as DVD using the plug-in default settings. Next, I used Main Concept edit pro to add menu and burned using the same program. The final product is pretty good as far as transitions and the overall editing. What I am worried about is that the picture, when played on a TV actually lacks the fluid, crisp appearance that I am after. It is almost as if watching too much will make you dizzy, motion somewhat blurry as times...hard to explain the un-natural appearance of the video. Are there any steps along the way (settings) that I can take to increase overall quality. Any help with any setting in any of the above mentioned programs would be much appreciated. I am relatively new to video editing so any input is very useful. Thanks.
Capture at an appropriate bitrate, so it fits on a disk, and don't re-encode it twice in your editing/authoring apps. Use one app to edit it, that doesn't need to re-encode the whole mpg, and then one that authors it without re-encoding yet again.
Thanks for the response. So I have captured at 12 Mbs and as an MPEG-2 format. This, I suppose is what I am unsure of as far as the Adobe Premiere Pro editing (very new to program). I still have to render the edited version, right? This does so by keeping the same bitrate? By exporting, I am not sure if it is re-encoding...how do I know? I thought exporting was just to create a usable file for authoring or does the rendered file contain all that is needed? How do I know if the authoring program is re-encoding? With MainConcept, I have been creating the movie titles and such, and then using "Compile" command which I don't think re-encodes and then burning. If you are familiar with these programs, please let me know if you have any direction so that I know for sure I am going about this the right way.
Sorry, I have mis-spoken, I use Mediachance DVDlab Pro to do the authoring and burning. Sorry for mix-up
Either Adobe or Mainconcept is re-encoding the file, or both. 12mpbs is far too large to fit on a disk, so one or the other or both is re-encoding (rendering) it to shrink it to 4.3gb to fit on one disk (unless you're using DL, then it will shrink it to ~9gb). I suggest you capture at a bitrate so the original mpg will fit on the disk, with room to spare for your edits, then render only the edits, not the whole file. This avoids re-encoding of the original, thus preserving quality. 12mbps is a waste when recording TV anyhow, unless you have a truly digital HD signal, and a truly HD capable capture card (you don't), and you don't mind splitting the recording up for two disks, or using DL (if it will even fit at that bitrate). Try recording at 5000kbps (audio at 224kbps AC3 or MP2). DVDLab won't re-encode, but it will prompt you if the output is larger than can fit on a disk.
I have only captured about 1 hour of footage and then put in some effects and audio files. Can I still get away with getting this to DVD without too much quality loss? It would be a painstaking task to re-capture since the data came from many different sources.
