DV to DVD Breakthrough Techniques

[vasudev71]

PreRequisites: 1. Adobe Premiere 6.0 Trial or Licensed Version.
2. Etymonix MPEG-2 codec 1.10 (Trial or Licenced version).
3. Scenalyzer
4. CatDV 2.5.6 (Working Trial version). CatDV requires Java JDK 1.3.1 and also QuickTime for Java.
5. Lot of disk space (separate EIDE hard drive is recommended).
6. Windows 2000 (no Service Packs installed)
7. setSFC (disabling the SFC on Windows 2000). (Get it from www.yahoo.com Search)

Step 1: Run setSFC first to disable SFC in Windows 2000 and restart your machine.

Step 2: After installing and executing Adobe Premiere, go to your System32 directory, and rename qcap.dll to qcap.dll.bak.

Step 3: Run Premiere and select Etymonix MPEG-2 codec (with YUV 4:4:4 Broadcast quality (selected as default))

Step 4: Rename qcap.dll.bak back to qcap.dll

Step 5: Start capturing. (AVI File size may be big).

Step 6: After capturing, run Scenalyzer against the AVI, click on Scan Timestamps and select a single AVI for testing and write to your hard disk.

Step 7: Open the sample AVI from CatDV, ignore any warnings. Export the AVI file as a MOV file with no compression, burn date/time track option and don't forget to select the "Write Self contained file" option and click Save/OK.

Step 8: If you run the MOV file from QuickTime, you should definitely see the date/time on the bottom left of your MOV file. (The Date/Time burn feature is not found on any of the professional NLE software available today. This feature is very important for any events (birthday, baby activities, wedding etc). I have been breaking my head
and also some experts have suggested different solutions (check out Adobe Premiere forums). But this solution seems to be simple and robust.
Note: CatDV trial version doesn't allow you to burn the date/time option. For that, get a trial fully functional Serial Key that runs for a week.

Step 9: Import the MOV file in Premiere and make sure qcap.dll is renamed to qcap.dll.bak. Add transistions, effects etc. and export Timeline as a AVI. (Make sure you are using Etymonix MPEG-2 1.10 Trial codec).

Step 10: If you play the resulting AVI in Windows Media Player, the video/audio may be stuttered. Thats normal.
FYI 1: The Etymonix MPEG-2 codec (with YUV 4:4:4) has the best and better than broadcast quality which I haven't seen with MainConcept codec or others. Go for Etymonix MPEG-2 codec.
FYI 2: I don't work for Etymonix company but I tell after my experience with it.

Step 11: Check out this site for making a DVD compliant MPEG-2 file from the AVI file.
(http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0165394101/TMPGEnc_Template.html).


I can surely say that you guys would surely like the quality of this whole procedure.
Reply with your suggestions, complaints on this forum.


Thanks.

VS
:)

[TRILIGHT]

Sounds like good info! Wish I had a DV camera to test it out with. I'm interested in hearing other's results.

[-y]

Thanks for the info. I am going to try the procedure out tonight on my high motion water DV file captured from my Sony TRV17 MiniDV cam.

I have high hopes to get some great quality.

Thanks

[mb1]

Sounds complicated and needs some installation work.

What do you like on YUV 4:4:4 broadcast quality?

PAL DV is recorded in YUV 4:2:0 and NTSC DV in YUV 4:1:1.
Why should I upsample to 4:4:4?

In the end you encode to dvd with tmpeg which uses again 4:2:0 in the end but before does internally convert to rgb.

So a lot of work, conversions and for what?

You want to have the timecode in your mpeg2. Use MoviePack4, there you have a timestamp function (which you can also manipulate if your cams time was not set correct).

I work with PAL DV (4:2:0), I capture raw DV (4:2:0) and I encode directly to dvd mpeg (4:2:0) or encode with tmpeg.

I see a lot of disadvantages in your 'broadcast' way.

And btw. Etymonix Mpeg2 (with I-Frames only) gives more than 2x bigger files than raw DV. Then converting to .mov ... puuuhhh

[vasudev71]

Question: I heard that Premiere 6.0 is using RGB color format when it renders and when I use Etymonix codec, does it convert the RGB input to YUY2 format? What selection should I make to make it the same as output when the input footage is NTSC DV AVI. Should I go for YUY 4:2:0 or YUY 4:2:2 or YUY 4:4:4?

Etymonix Tech support: You are right. Premiere 6.0 does do the rendering in the RGB format and the Etymonix codec does convert the RGB input to YUV internally (but this is not related to the YUY2 output format). There is no way to avoid this conversion.

The YUV format that you can select from the Etymonix settings controls how much color information should be preserved during compression. YUV 4:4:4 stores all the color information and therefore provides the best quality.

As a rule of thumb, the selection of this setting should be based on the format of the source video as well as the desired quality. If your source video is RGB24, use YUV 4:4:4 for best results. If your source video is YUV 4:2:2 or YUV 4:2:0, use the corresponding setting. Using a higher-quality setting than required will cause pixels to be duplicated without actually improving the quality. However, using a lower-quality setting than required will remove color information (files will be smaller) and possibly introduce
color artifacts.

Your input source, NTSC DV uses the YUV 4:1:1 format. This YUV format
stores as much color information as YUV 4:2:0 but does not store the
information from the same pixels. Converting from one format to the other will lead to degradation of the picture quality. If your storyboard simply consists of cuts, using YUV 4:2:2 will give you excellent results. If you are overlaying graphics or adding effects you may see better results using YUV 4:4:4. You can try encoding a few frames in each format and comparing the results.

My corrections:

This whole procedure gave me fantastic results for me if my input is NTSC DV (YUV 4:1:1).
I have used CatDV just for the timestamp function and for nothing else. If MoviePack does achieve the same functionality without a intermediate MOV file, well and good. You can save some time.

Also, in my original posting I have incorrectly mentioned that you need to save as a AVI from the timeline. This can also be avoided if you frameserve to CCE or to TMPGEnc from Premiere timeline.

Thanks.

VS

[niggenz]

I will have to check this out.