AVI compared to MPEG

[Edward Troxel]

DV-AVI is bigger than MPEG. If you want small, go with MPEG2

DV-AVI is better than MPEG. MPEG is compressed more highly than DV-AVI.

However, you need to use the format for your intended destination. For example, if you’re creating a DVD, you MUST go to MPEG2. If you’re printing to tape, stick with DV-AVI.

Edward Troxel

[Gary Kleiner]

Generally speaking, AVI is less compressed than Mpeg, therefore will look better. The most important question is: what is your destination format? Are you going to tape? DVD? Web?

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Pieper1]

i am going to dvd

would making dvds with avi cause compatibility issues possibly? because recently i did an project and i got a lot of dvd’s back because they would skip in the middle or just plain wouldn’t play. i used DVDA3 and the data rate was 8.0

[Stephen Mann]

A DVD player won’t know what to do with an AVI file. It must be MPEG2.

For my work 8Mb/sec is too high a data rate. I burn everything VBR with an average of 4MB/s and a max of 5Mb/sec or less. The difference from 8Mb to 5Mb in image quality with my work (stage productions) is so small that I can only see it if I know where to look – and I’m not telling my clients where to look. Coming up on the four year mark in business and not one client has returned an unplayable DVD yet. (Except for the grandma who couldn’t get the disc to play on her CD player.)

Steve Mann

[Carlo Simone]

Another way of accomplishing this task is to simply render out to avi, import to DVDA and let the software do the re-compress for you. This is generally a longer process because you are rendering out to two seperate formats. If you render out your video to MPEG2 properly in Vegas, DVDA’s DVD prepare time is much shorter.

Hope this helps..

[Pieper1]

thank you for your quick and helpful responses

one last question though…what is the proper way to render mpeg2 to DVDA…there is a mpeg template that is called “DVD Architect…” but it doesnt render audio

i guess i just need to know what format and the settings should be on that format and that would help me tons

thanks

[Edward Troxel]

You are supposed to render the audio separately as AC3. Take a look at Vol 4 #1 of my newsletters (link below my name).

Edward Troxel

[Gary Kleiner]

Funny about the CD player 🙂

I would think that stage productions would be one of the more noticable types of videos that would show the differences in compression rates because of lighing contrast and large areas of one color (curtain, etc).

If 5Mbps works for you, that’s great, but would caution others reading this that anything below the 6 – 6.5 range might be an unacceptable compromise unless it’s really evenly lit with very little action taking place.

Bottom line is that you want to get it as close to 8Mbps as you can and still fit it on the disc. In certain cases, I split shows into two discs to allow for less compression.

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Stephen Mann]

I did a blind test (admittedly with a limited audience) and the viewers couldn’t see any difference in 5 or 8 Mb/s.

You are correct that others should do their own test, but I was willing to compromise a little quality for playability.

[Charley King]

Along this line, I create my DVD’s with VBR 8M maximum, 6M average, and have never had a complaint about playability.
Personally I have always felt, show the average Joe Blow a VHS playback and a Beta playback and he would not really be able to tell the difference, but I am not going to start using VHS for my acquisition or normal playback options.

Charlie

ProductionKing Video Services
Unmarked Door Productions
Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel
Las Vegas, Nevada