DV to DVD guide

bb · 29th August 2003, 16:41

The guide is available with pictures here:
http://www.doom9.org/dv/guide.html

The following guide is a basic document with the goal of providing assistance for the first steps in DVD creation using DV sources.

Software needed to follow this guide:
- DV editing program
- AviSynth
- BeSweet
- CinemaCraft Encoder (CCE), TMPGEnc, or MainConcept MPEG Encoder
- DVD authoring program

1. Cutting, Editing, Transitions, etc.

The first step in DVD creation is the most creative part of editing the video. This can be done by using a variety of basic DV editing programs like Ulead VideoStudio, MGI VideoWave, Pinnacle Studio, or with one of the professional programs, e.g. Adobe Premiere, Ulead MediaStudio Pro, or SonicFoundry Vegas Video. The large variety of editing programs and the different editing options they offer would easily exceed the target of this guide. So capture your DV file from your camcorder, and edit it as you like according to your creativeness.

Save the DV file, either as a type-1 or as a type-2 AVI. Save the audio separately to a WAV file (your DV editing program should support this somewhere).

2. Encoding the audio

You have the choice to use either AC3 (Dolby Digital 2.0) or MP2 as sound format. Check out if your DVD authoring software supports AC3; if not, you have to use MP2. My preferred authoring program is DVDlab, which supports AC3. Use BeSweet to convert your WAV file. There is a BeSweet GUI available, which you can use for MP2 encoding; for AC3 I prefer AC3Machine, which is a BeSweet GUI, too, but focussed on AC3 encoding.

2.1 MP2 encoding

Start the BeSweet GUI, and click on the "2Lame" button on the right. Select the WAV file you extracted in step 1 above, and select path and filename for the resulting MP2 file. If your source is not 48 kHz, then check "Sample Rate" in the "Input Options" box, and set the value to 48. In the "Output options" box set "Encoding Mode" to stereo, and set the "Total Bitrate" to your likings, 224 kbps is recommended. Then click the "WAV to MP2" button, and your MP2 file will be created.

2.2 AC3 encoding

Start AC3Machine, select the extracted WAV file as "Input (AC3)", and select a path / filename for "Output (AC3)". Set "LFE ToLR Channels" to -3db, set the "Channels Mode" to stereo, uncheck "Dynamic Compression", and check "Auto Find Maximum Gain". Set the delay to 0 msecs. If your source WAV is not sampled at 48kHz, then check "Set Sampling Rate to 48000 Hz" in the SSRC Options box. Choose your bitrate: 224 kbps is recommended. Then click on "Give me AC3!" and wait until the process is finished.

3. Encoding the video

DVDs use MPEG-2 as the video format. There are several good encoders available, e.g. the Cinemacraft Encoder (CCE), TMPGEnc, Canopus Procoder, MainConcept MPEG Encoder, and a few more. In this guide I'll focus on CCE 2.66, TMPGEnc 2.5, Canopus Procoder 1.5, and on MainConcept MPEG Encoder 1.4.2.

If you aim for a specific size, you need to calculate the video bitrate first. I suggest to convert all file sizes to Megabytes, so that you don't get confused. We start with the size available. Let's say you want to fill a whole DVD-R, so the size available is 4.38 GB or 4485 MB. Subtract the size of your audio file (in MB), e.g. 167 MB; so the space available for the video is 4485 MB - 167 MB = 4319 MB. Calculate the duration of the video in seconds, e.g. if the video is 1h 44min 10sec, the total in secs is 6250. So the video bitrate should not exceed 4319 * 1024 * 8 / 6250 kbps = 5660 kbps. Because there's some muxing overhead, and you probably want to add menues and chapters, you should get lower than that, so in the example above I'd use an average bitrate of 5500 kbps.

3.1 CCE

3.1.1 Create an AviSynth script

The way you write your AviSynth script depends on the source and on your personal taste. Here are examples to start with; of course you may change filter settings, use different filters, etc.:

Progressive DV

Code:

AviSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type2_file.avi")
Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)

or

Code:

DirectShowSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type1_file.avi", 25)
Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)

(the 25 above is the frame rate for PAL; for NTSC you'd use 30.)

Interlaced DV

Code:

AviSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type2_file.avi")
SeparateFields()
odd=SelectOdd.Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
evn=SelectEven.Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
Interleave(evn,odd)
Weave()
DoubleWeave.SelectOdd()

This way each field will be filtered separately, thus the interlaced structure will be preserved. Replace AviSource with DirectShowSource like above if your DV AVI is type-1.

NTSC issues

As NTSC DV uses 4:1:1 colorspace there's an issue with the conversion to the 4:2:0 colorspace used in DVD MPEG-2. To address this issue use trbarry's filter ReInterpolate411().

To get improved color conversion, simply add a
ReInterpolate411()
command below the AviSource or DirectShowSource command, respectively.

3.1.2 EclCCE

EclCCE is a nice tool provided by RB, which extends CCE's capabilities, e.g. it enables the CCE trial version of saving ECL (project settings) files. But the addition I like best is the integration of a shutdown checkbox, so that you can shutdown your computer after the encoding finishes.

3.1.3 CCE settings

Start EclCCE (or CCE directly). Open the AVS file you created in 3.1.1 by right-clicking the CCE window and selecting "Add". The AVS appears in the CCE window. Double-click the new entry to change the encoding settings.

You can use "MPEG-2 (ES, One-pass VBR)" if the video you want to encode is not very long, you don't neet to meet a given size exactly, and you want to save time during encoding. In this case select a Q factor of 60 or less - I often use 40.

Usually you'll want to have a predictable size with the best quality possible. You'll choose "MPEG-2 (ES, Multipass VBR)", set the calculated bitrate as average, and set minimum and maximum bitrate to 2000 and 8500 respectively. Use at least 2 passes; 3 passes is even better, but more is useless.

Set the correct aspect ratio, 4:3 for most DV sources, 16:9 if you recorded in 16:9 mode. Don't process the audio in CCE (we will use BeSweet for better quality).

In the Video settings select "DVD video compliant", and uncheck the "Upper field first" box (field order correction done in AviSynth script).

In the menu you get when clicking the "Quality" button, unselect "Low pass filter", "Effect restricted vertical filter", and "Dithered quantization". I leave the flat part priority at the default of 16. Set "Intra block DC precision" to 9 or 10 Bits. For interlaced sources select "Block scanning order" = "Alternate". For progressive sources select "Zigzag" and check "Progressive frame flag".

3.2 TMPGEnc

It is really easy to use TMPGEnc for DV to DVD conversions. Start the encoder, cancel the wizard (if applicable), and open your DV type-1 or type-2 file via the "Browse" button next to the "Video source" field. Your AVI file will automatically be entered in the "Audio source" field, too, and an "Output file name" will be suggested.

We are going to create elementary streams as input for a DVD authoring program. In the "Stream type" box select "ES Video+Audio", if you want to create an MP2 file in TMPGEnc (skipping the BeSweet step above). Else select "ES Video only" (MP2 or AC3 created by BeSweet). Click the "Load" button, and open a template, either "DVD (PAL).mcf" or "DVD (NTSC).mcf".

Click on the "Setting" button to make further adjustments. Because you loaded a template, many options are greyed out. If you'd like to change these for some reason, load the template "unlock.mcf", which you will find in the subdirectory "Extra". In this guide we won't need that.

Let's have a look at the "Video" tab first. You may leave the "Rate control mode" settings to the defaults (Constant Quality, quality factor 65, min. bitrate 2000 kbps, max. bitrate 8000 kbps). If you need to fit a certain size, select "2-pass VBR(VBR)", and click the "Setting" button next to the rate control mode. Adjust the "Average bitrate" to your needs.

The "Encode mode" should be set according to your source material. If it's interlaced, select "Interlace"; if it's progressive, select "Non-interlace".

Leave the "DC component precision" at "9 bits", or set it to "10 bits".

The "Motion search precision" has a large impact on the final quality, but on the processing time consumed, too. "Motion estimate search (fast)" is a good compromise between quality and speed. If you want the best quality possible, select "High quality (slow)" or even "Highest quality (very slow)". But be warned: your encoding can take many hours!

Move over to the "Advanced" tab. Set "Video source type" according to your source (should be the same as "Encode mode" on the "Video" tab).

The "Field order" is for interlaced sources only. DV should be "Bottom field first (field B)", unless you have a strange source...

Under "Source aspect ratio" select one of the 4:3 or 16:9 settings, depending on your source again. E.g. I use "16:9 625 line (PAL)" for my 16:9 recordings, and "4:3 625 line (PAL)" for my 4:3 recordings.

Select "Full screen (keep aspect ratio)" as the "Video arrange Method".

You may activate filters here, too. I'll leave this topic to your experiments.

As we won't make changes to the GOP structure or the quantize matrices, skip to the "Audio" tab (which is not present if you selected stream type "ES (Video only)"). You may change the audio bitrate here, if you want to let TMPGEnc create the MP2 file.

Confirm the tabbed dialog by clicking the "OK" button, then click on "Start" in the upper left and wait until TMPGEnc is finished.

3.3 Canopus ProCoder

Start ProCoder. On the "Source" tab, add the DV file you want to encode. Once the file is opened, you'll see the "Source Parameters" on the right, containing information about the video and the audio. The only thing you may want to change here is the "Aspect Ratio" setting, which defaults to "4 x 3", but has to be changed into "16 x 9" for 16:9 sources.

Switch to the "Target" tab, and click the "Add" button. The "Add Target" dialog box opens, and you continue on its "VCD/DVD" tab. Select the appropriate template, either "MPEG2 - DVD PAL", or "MPEG2 - DVD NTSC". Confirm by clicking "OK".

The "Target Parameters" contain all the settings you can change before starting the conversion. First you may want to change the "Base Name" and the "Path", which specify filenames and location of your output files (video and audio). Under "Stream Type", make sure "MPEG2 Video + Wave file" is selected.

"Interlacing" will usually stay on "Lower/Odd field first", unless your source is progressive. In that case select "Non-Interlaced". Choose "4:3" or "16:9" for "Video Aspect Ratio", depending on whether you shot your DV in 4:3 or 16:9 mode. And there's the "Pixel Aspect Ratio" setting, which has to be set to "D1/...", either PAL or NTSC, either 4:3 or 16:9.

Under "Speed/Quality" you may select "Highest Quality". If you don't care for processing time at all, "Mastering Quality" may give slightly better results.

"CBR/VBR Type" should be set to either "VBR 1-pass" or "VBR 2-pass". The latter needs twice the encoding time, but you'll get closer to the specified bitrate, and thus your filesize will be predictable. For the same (average) bitrate "VBR 2-pass" reaches better quality. There are two video bitrates to be set: "Video Bitrate(kbps)" is the average bitrate you calculated at the top of step 3., whereas "Max. bitrate(kbps)" specifies the limit for the encoder. Set that one to 8000.

There are a lot more options available when you click the "Advanced" button, and you can add video and audio filters. As a beginner you can safely leave everything to the defaults here, but of course feel invited to experiment! E.g. if you recordet at 24 fps, you'll need to add a "Video Pulldown" filter.

Now you may want to save your profile ;-) You can create so-called droplets, too, but you have to find out yourself how to do that :-)

Finally switch to the "Convert" tab, and take a cup of coffee. You should end up with an m2v video file (MPEG-2 elementary stream) and a wav audio file.

Special thanks to Dali Lama for the inspiration!

bb · 24th April 2004, 09:43

3.4 MainConcept MPEG Encoder

Start the MainConcept MPEG Encoder (MPE in brief). Open your DV video file by clicking the "Open" button behind the "Video source" line. Among MPE's supported file types there are DV type-1 / type-2 and AviSynth scripts (AVS files). As soon as you open the video file, MPE will show the same file in the "Audio source" line, and it will suggest an output file.

You may verify the file properties in the "Video input info" and "Audio input info" boxes. In the "Output format" box, select "DVD" as "MPEG type", and set the "Video mode" to your needs, either PAL or NTSC. If you are pleased with MPEG-1 Layer II audio, you can let MPE create the audio together with the video. Because you'll need to author the DVD later, you better select "Elem. Video and Audio" as "Stream type", not "Program (Video+Audio)". If you want to encode the audio separately, select "Elementary Video" here, and the output file's extension will automatically change to ".mpv".

Now click on the "Details" button for the detailed settings. Here you can change the video size, which you should keep at 720x576 for PAL or 720x480 for NTSC. You can crop and scale the video, if desired, but I guess this is more interesting for analogue sources. An important setting is the "2-pass encoding" checkbox, which you may want to check for best quality in lower bitrates. I doubt that you'll see an effect except the doubled processing time, if you go for bitrates above 6000 kbps, but in general 2-pass encoding will produce better quality at a given bitrate.

Set the "Frame rate" to 25 for PAL or 29.97 for NTSC. Most camcorders don't have a progressive scan option, so most likely you have to select "Bottom Field First" as "Field encoding". If your DV video is progressive, you should select "Progressive Frame" here, of course.

The "Search method" and "Search range" sliders allow for modifying the compromise between speed and quality. You can live with the defaults, but you may as well increase the values for better quality MPEG-2.

If you encode audio, the settings should be correct automatically (48000 Hz, Stereo). You should not enable file splitting in the "Muxer" box.

Let's dig a little deeper into MPE's dialog structure by clicking on "Advanced". Here you find the El Dorado for tweakers, but amazingly you'll find some important basic settings here, too.

On the "Video Settings" tab, select the proper "Aspect ratio", i.e. the aspect ratio you set in your camcorder when filming. You may select either "4:3 Display" or "16:9 Display", the latter for anamorphic video. If your camcorder supports letterboxed 16:9 only, you probably have to select the 4:3 option. Don't touch the GOP structure settings, and you'll get DVD compliant MPEG-2 video.

You can set "Variable bitrate" or "Constant bitrate" as the "Bitrate type", no matter whether you chose 2-pass encoding or not. The variable bitrate asks you to enter a maximum, an average, and a minimum bitrate. I suggest to leave max. and min. bitrate at the defaults of 8000 kbps and 2500 kbps, respectively. You may set a higher max. bitrate, but that may lead to a few problems with authoring and playback later, depending on the software and standalone player (and even the DVD-R media) you use. The most important setting is the "Average (kbps)", because this one is responsible for the file size you'll get, so set it to the value you calculated. The constant bitrate setting is easy: simply set your bitrate, there's only one. Leave the "Rate control mode" at its default, which is "Mode 1".

The "Advanced Video Settings" tab has some more settings to play with. You may switch between "Noise sensitivity" and "Noise reduction" by clicking the "NR" button, and you can play with the value, which may improve noisy low light shots. I won't cover all the settings here, but there's one which is useful specifically for DV encoding: You may want to check "Input video is RGB16-235", if your DV codec is known to clamp the colour range, and you feed the encoder with RGB video. You may verify this using the histogram in VirtualDub, but remember that this setting applies only if your source is RGB, e.g. converted in AviSynth or via another frameserver, so in the normal case you don't have to worry about this setting.

Confirm all settings with their OK buttons, and click "Convert" in the main dialog. Now all you need is patience until the encoding is done. MainConcept's MPEG Encoder is pretty fast, almost as fast as CCE, so the coffee break won't be too long.

4. Author the DVD

There are several DVD authoring programs available on the market. Make sure you choose one which can import your video and audio files without reencoding. E.g. DVDlab is a good choice, because it is low-priced, and you can import the video, MP2 audio, and even AC3 audio without reencoding.

The process of creating the menues and the DVD structure depends very much on the authoring program used, so I won't focus on this topic. Low-budget programs often use a "single-VTS" approach, i.e. all your video and audio files are muxed into a single video title set. As a consequence you have to make sure that you use the same kind of audio in all your clips (if you plan to put more than one on a DVD).

Any comments are very welcome.

bb

29th August 2003, 16:41	#1 \| Link
bb Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 2,665	DV to DVD guide The guide is available with pictures here: http://www.doom9.org/dv/guide.html The following guide is a basic document with the goal of providing assistance for the first steps in DVD creation using DV sources. Software needed to follow this guide: - DV editing program - AviSynth - BeSweet - CinemaCraft Encoder (CCE), TMPGEnc, or MainConcept MPEG Encoder - DVD authoring program 1. Cutting, Editing, Transitions, etc. The first step in DVD creation is the most creative part of editing the video. This can be done by using a variety of basic DV editing programs like Ulead VideoStudio, MGI VideoWave, Pinnacle Studio, or with one of the professional programs, e.g. Adobe Premiere, Ulead MediaStudio Pro, or SonicFoundry Vegas Video. The large variety of editing programs and the different editing options they offer would easily exceed the target of this guide. So capture your DV file from your camcorder, and edit it as you like according to your creativeness. Save the DV file, either as a type-1 or as a type-2 AVI. Save the audio separately to a WAV file (your DV editing program should support this somewhere). 2. Encoding the audio You have the choice to use either AC3 (Dolby Digital 2.0) or MP2 as sound format. Check out if your DVD authoring software supports AC3; if not, you have to use MP2. My preferred authoring program is DVDlab, which supports AC3. Use BeSweet to convert your WAV file. There is a BeSweet GUI available, which you can use for MP2 encoding; for AC3 I prefer AC3Machine, which is a BeSweet GUI, too, but focussed on AC3 encoding. 2.1 MP2 encoding Start the BeSweet GUI, and click on the "2Lame" button on the right. Select the WAV file you extracted in step 1 above, and select path and filename for the resulting MP2 file. If your source is not 48 kHz, then check "Sample Rate" in the "Input Options" box, and set the value to 48. In the "Output options" box set "Encoding Mode" to stereo, and set the "Total Bitrate" to your likings, 224 kbps is recommended. Then click the "WAV to MP2" button, and your MP2 file will be created. 2.2 AC3 encoding Start AC3Machine, select the extracted WAV file as "Input (AC3)", and select a path / filename for "Output (AC3)". Set "LFE ToLR Channels" to -3db, set the "Channels Mode" to stereo, uncheck "Dynamic Compression", and check "Auto Find Maximum Gain". Set the delay to 0 msecs. If your source WAV is not sampled at 48kHz, then check "Set Sampling Rate to 48000 Hz" in the SSRC Options box. Choose your bitrate: 224 kbps is recommended. Then click on "Give me AC3!" and wait until the process is finished. 3. Encoding the video DVDs use MPEG-2 as the video format. There are several good encoders available, e.g. the Cinemacraft Encoder (CCE), TMPGEnc, Canopus Procoder, MainConcept MPEG Encoder, and a few more. In this guide I'll focus on CCE 2.66, TMPGEnc 2.5, Canopus Procoder 1.5, and on MainConcept MPEG Encoder 1.4.2. If you aim for a specific size, you need to calculate the video bitrate first. I suggest to convert all file sizes to Megabytes, so that you don't get confused. We start with the size available. Let's say you want to fill a whole DVD-R, so the size available is 4.38 GB or 4485 MB. Subtract the size of your audio file (in MB), e.g. 167 MB; so the space available for the video is 4485 MB - 167 MB = 4319 MB. Calculate the duration of the video in seconds, e.g. if the video is 1h 44min 10sec, the total in secs is 6250. So the video bitrate should not exceed 4319 * 1024 * 8 / 6250 kbps = 5660 kbps. Because there's some muxing overhead, and you probably want to add menues and chapters, you should get lower than that, so in the example above I'd use an average bitrate of 5500 kbps. 3.1 CCE 3.1.1 Create an AviSynth script The way you write your AviSynth script depends on the source and on your personal taste. Here are examples to start with; of course you may change filter settings, use different filters, etc.: Progressive DV Code: AviSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type2_file.avi") Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0) or Code: DirectShowSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type1_file.avi", 25) Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0) (the 25 above is the frame rate for PAL; for NTSC you'd use 30.) Interlaced DV Code: AviSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type2_file.avi") SeparateFields() odd=SelectOdd.Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0) evn=SelectEven.Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0) Interleave(evn,odd) Weave() DoubleWeave.SelectOdd() This way each field will be filtered separately, thus the interlaced structure will be preserved. Replace AviSource with DirectShowSource like above if your DV AVI is type-1. NTSC issues As NTSC DV uses 4:1:1 colorspace there's an issue with the conversion to the 4:2:0 colorspace used in DVD MPEG-2. To address this issue use trbarry's filter ReInterpolate411(). To get improved color conversion, simply add a ReInterpolate411() command below the AviSource or DirectShowSource command, respectively. 3.1.2 EclCCE EclCCE is a nice tool provided by RB, which extends CCE's capabilities, e.g. it enables the CCE trial version of saving ECL (project settings) files. But the addition I like best is the integration of a shutdown checkbox, so that you can shutdown your computer after the encoding finishes. 3.1.3 CCE settings Start EclCCE (or CCE directly). Open the AVS file you created in 3.1.1 by right-clicking the CCE window and selecting "Add". The AVS appears in the CCE window. Double-click the new entry to change the encoding settings. You can use "MPEG-2 (ES, One-pass VBR)" if the video you want to encode is not very long, you don't neet to meet a given size exactly, and you want to save time during encoding. In this case select a Q factor of 60 or less - I often use 40. Usually you'll want to have a predictable size with the best quality possible. You'll choose "MPEG-2 (ES, Multipass VBR)", set the calculated bitrate as average, and set minimum and maximum bitrate to 2000 and 8500 respectively. Use at least 2 passes; 3 passes is even better, but more is useless. Set the correct aspect ratio, 4:3 for most DV sources, 16:9 if you recorded in 16:9 mode. Don't process the audio in CCE (we will use BeSweet for better quality). In the Video settings select "DVD video compliant", and uncheck the "Upper field first" box (field order correction done in AviSynth script). In the menu you get when clicking the "Quality" button, unselect "Low pass filter", "Effect restricted vertical filter", and "Dithered quantization". I leave the flat part priority at the default of 16. Set "Intra block DC precision" to 9 or 10 Bits. For interlaced sources select "Block scanning order" = "Alternate". For progressive sources select "Zigzag" and check "Progressive frame flag". 3.2 TMPGEnc It is really easy to use TMPGEnc for DV to DVD conversions. Start the encoder, cancel the wizard (if applicable), and open your DV type-1 or type-2 file via the "Browse" button next to the "Video source" field. Your AVI file will automatically be entered in the "Audio source" field, too, and an "Output file name" will be suggested. We are going to create elementary streams as input for a DVD authoring program. In the "Stream type" box select "ES Video+Audio", if you want to create an MP2 file in TMPGEnc (skipping the BeSweet step above). Else select "ES Video only" (MP2 or AC3 created by BeSweet). Click the "Load" button, and open a template, either "DVD (PAL).mcf" or "DVD (NTSC).mcf". Click on the "Setting" button to make further adjustments. Because you loaded a template, many options are greyed out. If you'd like to change these for some reason, load the template "unlock.mcf", which you will find in the subdirectory "Extra". In this guide we won't need that. Let's have a look at the "Video" tab first. You may leave the "Rate control mode" settings to the defaults (Constant Quality, quality factor 65, min. bitrate 2000 kbps, max. bitrate 8000 kbps). If you need to fit a certain size, select "2-pass VBR(VBR)", and click the "Setting" button next to the rate control mode. Adjust the "Average bitrate" to your needs. The "Encode mode" should be set according to your source material. If it's interlaced, select "Interlace"; if it's progressive, select "Non-interlace". Leave the "DC component precision" at "9 bits", or set it to "10 bits". The "Motion search precision" has a large impact on the final quality, but on the processing time consumed, too. "Motion estimate search (fast)" is a good compromise between quality and speed. If you want the best quality possible, select "High quality (slow)" or even "Highest quality (very slow)". But be warned: your encoding can take many hours! Move over to the "Advanced" tab. Set "Video source type" according to your source (should be the same as "Encode mode" on the "Video" tab). The "Field order" is for interlaced sources only. DV should be "Bottom field first (field B)", unless you have a strange source... Under "Source aspect ratio" select one of the 4:3 or 16:9 settings, depending on your source again. E.g. I use "16:9 625 line (PAL)" for my 16:9 recordings, and "4:3 625 line (PAL)" for my 4:3 recordings. Select "Full screen (keep aspect ratio)" as the "Video arrange Method". You may activate filters here, too. I'll leave this topic to your experiments. As we won't make changes to the GOP structure or the quantize matrices, skip to the "Audio" tab (which is not present if you selected stream type "ES (Video only)"). You may change the audio bitrate here, if you want to let TMPGEnc create the MP2 file. Confirm the tabbed dialog by clicking the "OK" button, then click on "Start" in the upper left and wait until TMPGEnc is finished. 3.3 Canopus ProCoder Start ProCoder. On the "Source" tab, add the DV file you want to encode. Once the file is opened, you'll see the "Source Parameters" on the right, containing information about the video and the audio. The only thing you may want to change here is the "Aspect Ratio" setting, which defaults to "4 x 3", but has to be changed into "16 x 9" for 16:9 sources. Switch to the "Target" tab, and click the "Add" button. The "Add Target" dialog box opens, and you continue on its "VCD/DVD" tab. Select the appropriate template, either "MPEG2 - DVD PAL", or "MPEG2 - DVD NTSC". Confirm by clicking "OK". The "Target Parameters" contain all the settings you can change before starting the conversion. First you may want to change the "Base Name" and the "Path", which specify filenames and location of your output files (video and audio). Under "Stream Type", make sure "MPEG2 Video + Wave file" is selected. "Interlacing" will usually stay on "Lower/Odd field first", unless your source is progressive. In that case select "Non-Interlaced". Choose "4:3" or "16:9" for "Video Aspect Ratio", depending on whether you shot your DV in 4:3 or 16:9 mode. And there's the "Pixel Aspect Ratio" setting, which has to be set to "D1/...", either PAL or NTSC, either 4:3 or 16:9. Under "Speed/Quality" you may select "Highest Quality". If you don't care for processing time at all, "Mastering Quality" may give slightly better results. "CBR/VBR Type" should be set to either "VBR 1-pass" or "VBR 2-pass". The latter needs twice the encoding time, but you'll get closer to the specified bitrate, and thus your filesize will be predictable. For the same (average) bitrate "VBR 2-pass" reaches better quality. There are two video bitrates to be set: "Video Bitrate(kbps)" is the average bitrate you calculated at the top of step 3., whereas "Max. bitrate(kbps)" specifies the limit for the encoder. Set that one to 8000. There are a lot more options available when you click the "Advanced" button, and you can add video and audio filters. As a beginner you can safely leave everything to the defaults here, but of course feel invited to experiment! E.g. if you recordet at 24 fps, you'll need to add a "Video Pulldown" filter. Now you may want to save your profile ;-) You can create so-called droplets, too, but you have to find out yourself how to do that :-) Finally switch to the "Convert" tab, and take a cup of coffee. You should end up with an m2v video file (MPEG-2 elementary stream) and a wav audio file. Special thanks to Dali Lama for the inspiration! Last edited by bb; 30th December 2004 at 18:48.

24th April 2004, 09:43	#2 \| Link
bb Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 2,665	3.4 MainConcept MPEG Encoder Start the MainConcept MPEG Encoder (MPE in brief). Open your DV video file by clicking the "Open" button behind the "Video source" line. Among MPE's supported file types there are DV type-1 / type-2 and AviSynth scripts (AVS files). As soon as you open the video file, MPE will show the same file in the "Audio source" line, and it will suggest an output file. You may verify the file properties in the "Video input info" and "Audio input info" boxes. In the "Output format" box, select "DVD" as "MPEG type", and set the "Video mode" to your needs, either PAL or NTSC. If you are pleased with MPEG-1 Layer II audio, you can let MPE create the audio together with the video. Because you'll need to author the DVD later, you better select "Elem. Video and Audio" as "Stream type", not "Program (Video+Audio)". If you want to encode the audio separately, select "Elementary Video" here, and the output file's extension will automatically change to ".mpv". Now click on the "Details" button for the detailed settings. Here you can change the video size, which you should keep at 720x576 for PAL or 720x480 for NTSC. You can crop and scale the video, if desired, but I guess this is more interesting for analogue sources. An important setting is the "2-pass encoding" checkbox, which you may want to check for best quality in lower bitrates. I doubt that you'll see an effect except the doubled processing time, if you go for bitrates above 6000 kbps, but in general 2-pass encoding will produce better quality at a given bitrate. Set the "Frame rate" to 25 for PAL or 29.97 for NTSC. Most camcorders don't have a progressive scan option, so most likely you have to select "Bottom Field First" as "Field encoding". If your DV video is progressive, you should select "Progressive Frame" here, of course. The "Search method" and "Search range" sliders allow for modifying the compromise between speed and quality. You can live with the defaults, but you may as well increase the values for better quality MPEG-2. If you encode audio, the settings should be correct automatically (48000 Hz, Stereo). You should not enable file splitting in the "Muxer" box. Let's dig a little deeper into MPE's dialog structure by clicking on "Advanced". Here you find the El Dorado for tweakers, but amazingly you'll find some important basic settings here, too. On the "Video Settings" tab, select the proper "Aspect ratio", i.e. the aspect ratio you set in your camcorder when filming. You may select either "4:3 Display" or "16:9 Display", the latter for anamorphic video. If your camcorder supports letterboxed 16:9 only, you probably have to select the 4:3 option. Don't touch the GOP structure settings, and you'll get DVD compliant MPEG-2 video. You can set "Variable bitrate" or "Constant bitrate" as the "Bitrate type", no matter whether you chose 2-pass encoding or not. The variable bitrate asks you to enter a maximum, an average, and a minimum bitrate. I suggest to leave max. and min. bitrate at the defaults of 8000 kbps and 2500 kbps, respectively. You may set a higher max. bitrate, but that may lead to a few problems with authoring and playback later, depending on the software and standalone player (and even the DVD-R media) you use. The most important setting is the "Average (kbps)", because this one is responsible for the file size you'll get, so set it to the value you calculated. The constant bitrate setting is easy: simply set your bitrate, there's only one. Leave the "Rate control mode" at its default, which is "Mode 1". The "Advanced Video Settings" tab has some more settings to play with. You may switch between "Noise sensitivity" and "Noise reduction" by clicking the "NR" button, and you can play with the value, which may improve noisy low light shots. I won't cover all the settings here, but there's one which is useful specifically for DV encoding: You may want to check "Input video is RGB16-235", if your DV codec is known to clamp the colour range, and you feed the encoder with RGB video. You may verify this using the histogram in VirtualDub, but remember that this setting applies only if your source is RGB, e.g. converted in AviSynth or via another frameserver, so in the normal case you don't have to worry about this setting. Confirm all settings with their OK buttons, and click "Convert" in the main dialog. Now all you need is patience until the encoding is done. MainConcept's MPEG Encoder is pretty fast, almost as fast as CCE, so the coffee break won't be too long. 4. Author the DVD There are several DVD authoring programs available on the market. Make sure you choose one which can import your video and audio files without reencoding. E.g. DVDlab is a good choice, because it is low-priced, and you can import the video, MP2 audio, and even AC3 audio without reencoding. The process of creating the menues and the DVD structure depends very much on the authoring program used, so I won't focus on this topic. Low-budget programs often use a "single-VTS" approach, i.e. all your video and audio files are muxed into a single video title set. As a consequence you have to make sure that you use the same kind of audio in all your clips (if you plan to put more than one on a DVD). Any comments are very welcome. bb