Best DVD settings for Tmpgenc

[papawolverine]

I have been experimenting with Tmpgenc (version 2.510) for about 2-3 weeks now and having some fun with it but I have noticed that there is no hardcore setting that should used when using this tool for creating mv2 files for DVD’s.

I have taken dozens of family videos and downloaded them from my digital camcorder using my DV500 card onto my hard drive in the AVI format. Then I use Premiere 6.5 to clean up any of the videos where I need to edit out any scenes. Then I use Tmpgenc to create the m2v file that I will use in DVDit SE since the DVDit program does a poor job. When using the Tmpgenc program I have used the following settings;

Rate Control Mode = 2 Pass VBR
Max Bitrate = 8000
Avg Bitrate = 6000
Min Bitrate = 4000
Enabled padding not to be lower than min bitrate = On
DC Component Precision = 10
Motion Search Precision = Highest Quality (Very Slow)

I don’t really have any idea if these are good settings. Also, are there other settings that I should be careful with?

Any info on what the best setting to use for creating DVD’s would be appreciated. I am not concerned with how much video I can fit on a DVD, I am more concerned about

[ihgl]

Maybe this might be of interest:
http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

[vikodin]

http://www.digital-forums.com/dvd2dvdr/part3.htm

I've used these settings described in this guide with good results for 50+ backups. I've tried other more CPU-intensive settings (e.g. the 2-pass) but they've always provided inferior streams. The only variable I adjust nowadays is the Rate Control Mode setting -- usually I set it to about 4000 kbits/sec max bitrate with 0 minimum and no padding. It sounds kind of ghetto but it seems to coax the best performance out of TEMPGEnc. Usually at these settings I can't readily tell the copy from the source: no depixellation, dropped frames, or hangs -- and this when viewed from a 52" TV. Also, I've noticed that the max bitrate can be pushed down to 2750 with acceptable loss in quality.

The only thing to watch out for is that TEMPGEnc's 16:9 settings always revert back to 4:3, so I always have to double-check everything before encoding. This probably isn't a problem for you, since I imagine you want 4:3.

The author of said guide has kindly provided the settings in a saved file which you can load into TEMPGEnc:
http://www.digital-forums.com/dvd2dvdr/files/DVD5to9(NTSC-16_9).zip

Good luck ...