Hi My greeting to you all. Thank you for taking time and reading my post. It is full of questions and i would realy appreciate if you can help me out. I think I realy need advise from people who know "what's up" and know quite abit in this area, so please, dont get me wrong, but if you are not sure that your suggestion is the best way to go do not write to me, as this might bring me into deeper confusion. Thanks a gain for your time and willingness to help. I have a canon z3 miniDV camcorder. I need some of your advise please. 1. what softwre is the best to use? is winDV ok? or should I use something else? I am worried about the Frame loss here, but am not sure if I should be worried. 2. After I capture the video from the miniDV camcorder, I get an uncompressed raw AVI file (720x480 if I remember right) which is about 13GBs. From here on I have 2 goals: First, I want to create a DVD from that AVI file. What software should I use? (I have Nero 6, TMPGEnc DVD source creator, TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6) or maybe you could recommend something else? My goal is to fit that 1 hour miniDV movie on a single 4.7GB DVD media. I am just looking for the best way to do it, quality is important. The other thing I want to do is encode that raw AVI file and fit it on a single CD also. should I encode it as mpeg1 or Divx? I could not notice much difference between mpeg1(created by tmpgenc) and divx6 with VirtualDub. I also got Divx Converter, but this software changed the size pof the file (720 became 640, or something like this) so, again what do I do here? mpeg1 or divx? how do i fit it on 1 CD? Some additional questions that arise are: 1. Dos it matter if DVD media is -R or +R for standalone players? 2. If I encode the file should I use NTSC or PAL? (I might send the dvd over to Europe, but want to play it here too.. does that mean It wount work in one of the places? 3. In TMPGEnc DVD source creator (I believe this is the first step before I use DVD Author1.6, if u recomend it of courc, am I right?) under DVD there are 4 choices NTSC NTSC16:9 PAL PAL 16:9 which do i choose? then for every one of them there is a choiseon the right VBR or CBR what a hack is tis? whih do I choose? also do I choose MPEG1 layer2 Audio (MP2) or linear PCM? As you can see I have asked a lot of questions. There are no words enough for me to thank you if youc an pull me out of this messy fog where I am lost.
1. For a digital transfer, it does not matter which program you use as long as your system has sufficient resources. 2. It is not "uncompressed raw" video. Video on minDV is compressed using a DV codec and it will end up on your hard drive as a DV compressed video stream in an AVI file. It does take around 13GB/hour.If you want one hour of video on one DVD, you can use tha maximum bitrate of around 9500kb/s (inluding sound). TMPGEnc DVD source creator is OK for MPEG encoding. Divx versus MPEG-1: MPEG-1 can be played on every PC, for Divx the special codec must be installed. With similar bitrates, quality between divX and MPEG-1 is similar (althugh many rate divX higher). Both codecs can be used at user determined compression (bitrate), so the quality will also depend much on that. The choice is yours. 1. -R vs. +R: probably does not make much of a difference in compatibility these days 2. NTSC vs. PAL: use the system for the country where you want it to be shown. On PC's both types will play, on DVD players this will depend if the player can accept both types. 3. Only use 16:9 (widescreen) if your source material is 16:9 as well. VBR is Variable Bitrate, CBR is Constant Bitrate. With VBR you can get higher quality in less space. If you want 1 hour on one DVD, you don't need it. Just go for CBR 1t 9500kb/s. Linear PCM is better sound, but takes more capacity.
Thank you very much TPFKAS! I just have couple more questions left if you dont mind. 1. Out of all the software out there, keepng in mind that quality matters most, which one would you choose for encoding for DVD and then burning it? ( DVDSANTA, NERO, TMPGENC ?) If anything else is better than those can you recommend it to me? 2. After I encode DV avi to Mpeg2 I notice small lines arround some objects. I am not sure if this is what they call the combing effect? those small lines occur arround human head or a lamp while camera has been moved. lines dont take the whole page.. just small ones arround some figures. I tried reversing that "top first" does not seem to be helping. any advise? if this happening because of the camcorder? 3. should I keep the file interlaced? will it matter the compatibility if I make it noninterlaced? Thanks a lot again, you are the best!
1. TMPGEnc is IMHO the best of the three. No need to look for another one. 2. Not sure what it is, but in order to realy analyze, burn to DVD and watch on TV. 3. You will not run into incompatibility. Interlaced is preferred for watching on TV, progressive for PC monitors.
