Hey guys

I've just exported some of my work back to MiniDV tapes and I've got to say all the complaining I do about the quality of exporting comp's from AE7 and PP2, was wrong!

The quality is exceptional as if I'm watching a normal TV program when viewing through my camera on to an ordinary TV set.

Which leads me to my question-

Obviously once converting any AVI to Mpeg for DVD export, the quality MUST drop.
I can notice it dramatically, so I'm sure you guys that have been in this world for years, must also notice it to a considerable degree.

So how do you export to DVD with out loosing so much of that crisp clean look?
I use the latest version of Encore, but I'd go as far as saying the quality output is only half as good as when it's put on to DV Video!

How do the TV networks go about this. I read an article on someone who made a 13 part series for the 7 network over here in Australia, and he said something about they told him to export back to minidv before they take it and run it through something else- Is this what AVID is best for? Keeping the actual quality when converting to Mpeg etc, and getting stuff ready for actual broadcast?

and also, how come when you get a DVD from a video shop, is it's quality is so good?
Again is it Avid and how it formats the work?


Any replies from anyone knowing anything about this realm would be much appreciated for knowledge is the key to it all!!!

In the absence of a pro, I shall have a go.

Anyway, forget about the DVDs you buy from a shop, equipment used to produce these is far beyond most and starts with the set, lighting, make-up, .............cameras, sound recording and so on and this is exactly how DVD works. To get the best output you must convert the best possible input.

That said, there is no reason why you should not get a good conversion from DV, you say that the DV file you printed back to tape is good, then the degredation on conversion should be minimal. In DVD encoding the available Bitrate is the first thing to look at. In scenes with alot of movement a high bitrate is required to keep up with the many changes between different frames. Then there is quantize matrices and GOP (IBBPBBPBBPBBP) but at this point in the game stick to the simple stuff.

Don't let Encore convert from DV automatically, go in to the options an choose a template that is closest to your requirements and then change the options to suit and save it as a preset. It might take a few attempts to get it as you like it.

If you are to view on a TV stick with interlaced encoding, if you have a long video to encode use 2 pass VBR with an average of 5000, never less than 4000 and the max set to 9000, download a DVD bitrate calculator to help workout the settings, use google there are plenty out there. If you have a shorter video about 1 hr or under then you can use 1 pass CBR set to a very high bitrate like 9000, remember to leave enough room for the audio, mp2, ac3 or dd5.1 (not wav) 384 kbps is top, 224 kpbs is good, never less than 128 kbps.

The other option is to use a stand alone app like TMPGenc and convert the video before importing in to encore, this will give you far more options and a complete set of mpeg tools built in.

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Edius Pro, ADVC300

Never export mpg2 from timeline, first export material in it's native format, in your case i guess it will be dv avi with the right field order.
Then use TMPGenc for example, as miwhel said. For best quality it should be constant bitrate mpg2, maximum is 15k and use long long GOP structure. Always read the manual

Unless the encoder used in the 3rd party encoding application is better than that within Adobe Premiere (which I believe is from MainConcept), then exporting as DV AVI would potentially degrade quality. I use a 3rd party encoder as I export to various formats and prefer the functionality of the one I used.

The best quality is not necessarily achieved with a constant bitrate, and the maximum bitrate for DVD is not 15k.

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I belive that image even losses it's quality when constant bitrate in mpg2 is used, but its faster and size of file easily could be calculated to fit on dvd. When vbr is used there's no possibility to calculate file size. I know by experience that 15k is best by quality and file size when it has to fit on dvd.

Most bitrate calcs have no problem with VBR.

VBR uses an average bitrate calculation, so on the first pass the encoder makes the calculations depending on the scene changes within the video then averages the bitrate across the whole video, higher bitrate at scenes with many changes and lower at other scenes without so many changes, all of this is calculated so over the whole of the video the target bitrate is achieved.

both CBR and VBR offer the same quality if the video is small enough to fit a disc at high bitrate, but if the video is too long then VBR can be used to squeeze more video on to a disc without a percievable loss of quality.

If CBR is used for a long clip then the bitrate must be lowered which means the encoder runs out of puff on fast changing scenes which leads to obvious artifacting.

The maximum bitrate allowed for strict DVD-Video compliance is 9800kbits/sec

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Edius Pro, ADVC300

Don't forget to save more space for video the audio should be Dolby AC3.

Thanks for all replies, some of it goes well over my head for I'm trying to learn so much so quick. However the more i hear, the more that sinks in.
I'll have a play around with the settings in Encore and take it from their.
for me it would be pointless downloading a new program to learn for converting bitrates etc, for I probably would really know what I'm doing.

Thanks again, much appreciated!