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Quality Issues with DVD compression in Encore
Hello
I usually master all my video for the web, and have had no problems with quality in the past. I work in PAL 16:9 DV, shot on a Sony Z1 edited and graded in Premiere CS3. My usual method of output is to create a deinterlaced uncompressed QT and create smaller quality QTs or other video formats using Sorenson Squeeze. the quality of these files always reflects exactly what I saw on the timeline in Premiere and produces great looking results. However the clent I am working for at the moment needs the footage on DVD.
The DVD quality I am getting from Encore CS3 is just awful. The image and edges are muddy, the colours are way off their originals, often much darker in darker areas and blown out in lighter areas and just generally horrible. I have included comparison images:
Interview subject from compressed QT with correct colours
Interview subject captured from Power DVD with garish colours
Cutaway from compressed QT with correct colours
Cutaway captured from Power DVD with garish colours
This is clearly not a monitor issue, as these are both being captured from the same monitor, the transcoding and compression in Encore is making the image worse. Is transcoding from an uncompressed QT the best solution for creating DVDs or are there any number of things I am doing wrong.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance if anyone can help.
Regards
Matthew Taylor
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5 Replies
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Don’t use PowerDVD to judge. Burn an RW disc and test it on a properly calibrated television set.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Thanks for your response Jeff, but I’m afraid this problem arose from trying out my DVD on a TV. While I am unsure that the TV is properly calibrated, the TV broadcast/other commercial DVDs that I play on there look fine. The DVDs I am producing still look too contrasty, blown out and over saturated.
Is Encore the best program to have the video transcoded through? Is this where the problem maybe arising, Should I have another program convert the uncompressed QT then just let Encore do the build?
Has anyone else had this problem? It seems to be quite common problem for not only Encore but DVD Studio Pro Users on the internet. Its very frustrating
Matt Taylor
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[Matthew Taylor] “While I am unsure that the TV is properly calibrated, the TV broadcast/other commercial DVDs that I play on there look fine”
That’s irrelevant. If I had never seen your “before” pictures I would have thought that your “after” pictures looked just fine.
[Matthew Taylor] “It seems to be quite common problem for not only Encore but DVD Studio Pro Users on the internet.”
That suggests perceptual and/or system problems.
[Matthew Taylor] “Should I have another program convert the uncompressed QT”
It’s worth a try. Experiment with more than one program, too. Sorenson Squeeze and Grass Valley ProCoder are good choices, but they aren’t cheap. You can also Google for HCEncoder. It’s an open-source MPEG2 encoder that has produced good results for many folks, me included. But it’s a bit on the techno-geek side, so if you don’t know your way around MPEG encoding, it may be overwhelming.
FWIW, I’ve never had chroma or luminance issues with the MainConcept encoder that is used in Pr, AE and En.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Thanks again for your advice Jeff.
The screenshots really don’t do the down grade in quality justice, in motion the thing looks really awful, yet this may also be a result of only watching the thing in a tiny window on my computer monitor, I have to admit that horror of horrors I don’t edit with a TV monitor. As you suggest the perception of seeing the thing larger and cropped (through TV safe areas) maybe making my perception of it much worse.
Anyway, I’m going to experiment with Sorenson and HCEncoder and see what results this yields, thanks once again for your continued support, will be sure to post any findings for anyone else in this predicament.
Regards
Matt Taylor
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I have the exact same issue. I edit with premiere pro and burned to dvd with encore cs4 and nero vision and both come out over saturated. Has anyone figured out how to combat this? Please let me know. Here is a picutre of the source file on the left and the same file in encore on the right, even just by putting into encore you can see that it over saturates it.
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