I want to transfer my videos from a Digital Camcorder to DVD without using any compression. I have tried all the major Authoring software and they all compress the video by about 50%. I have a 3CCD Camcorder with great resolution and I don't want to lose quality. Has anyone done this before? I can't be the only person that wants this???? Any help? Thanks.
If you want to get your DV onto a DVD then you must do the conversions. Capture theDV .avi and edit, then the DV .avi to Mpeg2 conversion, then author this to make it DVD-Video compliant. You cannot load your DV onto a DVD and expect it to play in a stand alone DVD player. If you put the uncompressed .avi onto a DVD then you would only have a few minutes of footage as uncompressed .avi is very large to say the least. My DV .avi footage is about 3.6301 MB/sec. If my math is right then you could get 20 minutes onto a DVD. Try a good .avi to mpeg coverter and I think you will be happy with the quality. This is how it is done by everyone else.
I actually wouldn't mind if I only got 20 minutes per DVD. One more question: How do the movie studios put such high quality video on a DVD? The video out of my camera looks like commercial DVD quality in till I convert it to MPEG1 or 2 then all the quality and color is degraded. It's not horrible but it is not as sharp as original .avi stream from the camera. Any thoughts?
The studos use very good encoders to do the conversion with. The encoding process is what makes the difference. There are some good ones out there, My editing program is Premiere Pro and I use the Main Concept plug in which works OK. I'll try and find some links so you can look at some stuff. http://www.mainconcept.com/products.shtml http://www.canopus.us/us/products/procoder2/pm_procoder2.asp http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/archive/index.php/t-104371.html
Thanks Frank for all the good info!After check your links I can't believe that you have to spend $500 for a good .avi to MPG converter. If the conversion software would just alow me to set the bit rate higher then 8000 I would be able to get ultra sharp video on DVD. Seems like a simple thing to do but none do it! Thanks again. I will keep looking.
You don't have to spend $500. I use CCE Basic, which is the little brother to CCE SP (the industry standard in software encoding). It uses the same encoding engine as SP and will give you comparable quality in most cases, particularly if you start out with a high quality source. The best part is that it only costs $58, compared to $1950 for CCE SP. I believe MainConcept costs $150, and should give you quality that's at least close to CCE. Some people consider ProCoder to be superior to CCE for interlaced video or low bitrates (others say it's better for everything), but it is, as you say, $500. As far as bitrates go, you shouldn't need too much more than 8000kbps, although depending on the bitrate of your audio you should be able to go as high as 9800kbps. The thing is, unless you have a lot of motion or scene changes, that shouldn't be an issue since only 1 in 12 pictures (or less) in a DVD MPEG-2 stream will be full pictures. The rest only reflect changes from the last full picture, and 1/3 of them should be B frames, which are incredibly small. Unfortunately, figuring out the settings for a high quality MPEG file can be somewhat complicated the first time or 2, so if you have any questions about the settings, don't hesitate to ask. I'm personally only familiar with CCE, but there are others here who have quite a bit of experience with MainConcept.
vurbal your expertise in this matter is much appreciated! Thanks, Frank _X_X_X_X_X_[small]motorcycle racer computer newbie dual Xeon 3.06, 2 WD 76Gb Raptors, raid 0, Maxtor 250, 2Gb RAM, 2 monitors, GSXR1000, 88 Mazda truck [/small]
Vurbal! I have not given up. I am trying your recommendation and I am using CCE Basic. The encoding is the best I have seen the only problem is when I convert the MPG to a VOB file using NEROVision or WinDVD creator I loose more resolution. Everyone tries to make my great video smaller and smaller. I wish I could just keep the same resolution as the original. What DVD creator program is the best? Thanks again for the CCE Basic tip I am going to test it some more and buy a copy of it.
I personally prefer DVD-Lab, but TMPGEnc DVD Author should also do fine. Neither of them will re-encode because they don't even have encoders. DVD Author is less expensive, and doesn't have as many features, but it's fine for simple DVDs (ie simple menus). DVD-Lab is a little more expensive, but has features to match. Both have free trials available, which you should be able to find in Afterdawn's software section.
Thanks vurbal! That software you recommended is much better then the commercial junk I have been using. I will try out both and post my findings. Thanks.
Great! I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes. Once you have the basic process down you also might want to look at CCE's setting to make sure you're getting the best possible quality from it. Then you could make a template with your preferred settings so you don't have to remember to make changes very often. If you want, I can probably help you with that as well.
I just wanted to finish this thread so if anyone else would like to make a high quality DVD with very little compression they will know what to do. First off I would like to thank vurbal and Fastfrank for all their help. This is what I did to achieve the highest possible quality from a 3CCD camcorder: 1. Transfer the full .avi from the camcorder to the computer using WinDVD Creator or Microsoft Movie Maker 2. 2. Made my edits then saved it to my computer (without compression). 3. I then used CINEMA CRAFT ENCODER Basic to encode the movie. 4. I used the highest quality setting of 15,000 KBps, 2 Pass VBR and Natural Picture quality settings. 5. I then used TMPGEnc DVD Author to make my DVD. 6. I burned the DVD using the built-in burn utility in TMPGEnc. 7. I ignored the warnings that the 15,000 KBps does not conform to the DVD standard of 9,800 KBps. 8. I have not had any problems using the DVDs in any players. 9. One more bit of info on playback quality I use a S-Video cable from my DVD player to a tube TV instead of using my projection TV or computer LCD monitor. I found the quality of a tube TV is far superior to a projection TV or a LCD Monitor. I hope this helps anyone that might want high quality video on DVD. Thanks.
