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Burning a DVD without blurriness in the image
I am inheriting a project that someone else was not able to figure out. I have some Premiere projects of a work-out video that are finished and ready to burn to DVD. However, I am not an expert when it comes to DVD Authoring. Apparently the previous people who worked on this project were not able to take an HD project with 720 footage and burn it to DVD without blurriness in the image. They tried both Encore and DVD Studio Pro as methods for burning. Those are the only 2 forms of software I have to potentially accomplish this mission. What could be causing the blurriness? What is a solution?
Much thanks and gratitude
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7 Replies
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The resolution of encoded video is governed primarily by the bitrate that the video is encoded to. The lower the bitrate, the more blurred the picture. The two authoring applications you have will make an attempt, if left to their own, to encode the video to an acceptable resolution. Since I’m not on a Mac, I can only speak to Encore, and I’ve always found it’s encodes very conservative. Therefore, I tend to encode to DVD specs of my own in Adobe Media Encoder or Squeeze.
Having said that, I have also seen many instances where people would do a side by side comparison of their HD project to the DVD’s video. Such a comparison will always make the DVD look horrible, as the HD video is being downsized to SD, and quite possibly at a lower than necessary bitrate.
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions -
I am sure you are correct in that by not being able to burn to Blu-ray, that the image quality suffers as a result. Regardless, that is still my situation. When you talk about Adobe Media Encoder and Sorensen, are you talking about encoding the video in one of those 2 applications as a middle step? As in, do I first need to export my sequence “Same as Source” out of Premiere, encode it at a high bitrate in Encoder or Squeeze, then embed that video in a DVD menu in DVD Studio Pro? I am a novice with DVD authoring, so please forgive my lacking in this subject.
Thank you very much!
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I generally use Adobe Media Encoder to encode a PPro sequence or batch of sequences to a DVD preset that I have customized – no need for a middle step. Then import those encodes to Encore as timelines. If done correctly, Encore will label the media “Don’t Transcode”, meaning that they are in correct format for DVD.
Alternately, you can simply set Adobe Media Encoder to be the default encoder inside Encore, and bring your PPro sequence directly into Encore without pre-encoding. Encore will then transcode to whatever Media Encoder preset you chose.
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions -
What if I only have DVD Studio Pro right now? Are you familiar enough with that to suggest something? Also, being that this is being burned to a standard DVD and not Blue-ray, does the sequence need to be downconverted first?
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I’ve done it both ways, downconverting an HD timeline to an SD timeline in PPro, then encode to DVD MPEG2, as well as simply encoding an HD timeline to DVD-MPEG2. I’ve never really done a side by side comparison, so I can’t really offer testimony on which is better. It would be interesting to hear if anyone else has any input.
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions -
When you say downconvert in PPro, is there a way to do that other than just scaling down the aspect ratio? I just want it in letterbox form, not center cut.
Thank you
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Yes, I believe that’s the typical way in PPro. BTW, I just did a highly non-scientific test of the two methods I described.
I took a 1080p AVCHD clip, and created 2 sequences with it. One sequence was created at the same settings as the clip. The other was SD, where I scaled the HD clip down 46%. Encoded both sequences in Adobe Media Encoder using the same MPEG2-DVD preset. I placed titles over each, one white, one black, one white on a black box, and one black on a white box.
Result? After watching several times, I couldn’t really tell the difference between the 2. Neither could several others who were at the studio that day. However, the SD sequence with the scaled down HD clip encoded in 34 secs, while the HD sequence encoded in over 2 minutes.
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions
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