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Best way to convert AVI to DVD
Hi, I’m trying to get a nicely uncompressed AVI, 640×480, 30fps, onto a DVD with DVD Architect. I see that I need to convert to 704×480 to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio, and I’m assuming that’s because DVDs use non-square pixels. I also assume that Vegas is dropping a frame here and there to get the project down to 29.97, rather than interpolating the frames, which sounds kind of messy.
Now on to my questions…
1). When I play the DVD back on the two TVs at my house, they both cut off the top and bottom of the frame, in order to fill their 16:9 screens. I’m assuming there’s a setting somewhere on the TVs to make them display the whole 4:3, 704×480 picture… but should I simply expect that most people watching the DVD will have similar settings on their TVs? Is there some way to “tell” the player, through encoding on the DVD, to show the whole picture? Or should I just letterbox everything and export at 720×480? To add to the mystery, I can’t for the life of me figure out why 704×480 letterboxes when I set the aspect ratio to 16:9 but not when it’s set to 4:3. Shouldn’t changing the aspect ratio setting also change the pixel dimensions? Mysterious, I say (and Vegas’ help is utterly no help at all.)
2). When I play the DVD on my computer, the colors look great. They look entirely different on the TVs, though. On one the reds are so saturated that they nearly glow, and skin tones on both are a little pale. Is there any way to apply color management to DVDs, or is this just something I’m stuck with, as I wait for the TVs to improve color accuracy to the level of my monitor?
3). My original AVI comes from a Flash export, and there is quite a bit of background motion. It looks pretty jerky on the TVs. Should I add a little post-production motion blur in AfterFX or something to smooth it out? I was watching Inglorious Basterds tonight and noticed a huge amount of jerkiness during the pans, so maybe this is something that I’m just getting really picky about, but I thought I’d ask…
Ok, SO much thanks to anyone inclined to tackle this absurdly long post,
Paxson. -
2 Replies
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Why aren’t you making the format FOR DVDs – MPEG2s? Why are you compressing AVIs?
Grazie
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DVD Architect is compressing the AVI down to an MPEG-2, then formatting and burning it to play in a standard DVD player. I’m asking about the process and results of that conversion.
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