Downscaling Disaster Advice Please ;(

[Oki Pienandoro]

You cannot burn a 720p as DVD Video
DVD is restricted to 720×576 (PAL) or 720×480 (NTSC)

Regarding the quality, here’s my stock answer :
Not much actually.

If your source file is in HD, don’t forget to activate the “Use Maximum Render Quality” in AME. What this option do is to use a different algorithm to do a better scaled down, with the expense of slightly longer encoding time.

The second one is to put the Quality video slider much higher.
In AME 2014, the default value is 75. Make it higher like 90 or so.
This is the heart of MPEG encoding. Just Bing it/Google it if you want to find out more.
Putting a higher number doesn’t mean you will get bigger filesize, the higher the number, the longer it took to render.

The third one is the most important one.
Calculate the maximum /average/target bitrate.
I can’t wrote an explanation. Doing that will make this a very lengthy post.

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edited by me due confusing
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DVD-Dual layer is somewhat troublesome because Encore often did not break layer correctly, thus resulting in unplayable part on the video.

What you must do is to render out to DVD-Folder in Encore, and do an IFO edit using freeware PGCEdit.
Burn using Imgburn, since Imgburn can read the layer break info correctly from the above edit.

One more thing, it’s essential to burn in quality DVD (Use either Verbatim, or HP). Usage of an unknown brand is problematic in the past (there are many report on that in Doom9 forum and similar forum.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Farhan Ali]

Hello Oki Pienandoro, firstly I would like to say thank you very much for replying I really appreciate you’re help.

For all my video assets I opted to select “Use Maximum Render Quality”. But not sure if I had increased the “Quality” slider, I will give it a try.

How do I calculate maximum /average/target bitrate? And what’s the reason for the calculation?

[quote]
What you must do is to render out to DVD-Folder in Encore, and do an IFO edit using freeware PGCEdit.
[/quote]

In Encore when it came to buring my project onto disc, I opted for DvD Image which created .iso file extension.
What’s an IFO edit?

Thanks

[Oki Pienandoro]

OK, your MAIN question is “why my downscale render is producing a really bad result”
Simple answer, you didn’t set the bitrate correctly.
The mistakes was made in either :
1. You forgot to set the target DVD size in “Build” window in Encore, thus resulting Encore trying to squeeze your project into 1 single layer DVD, by squeezing the bitrate too low.
2. You set the bitrate too low in AME (if you did encoding manually)

But you also state that you want to make this into Dual Layer DVD (Single sided). And that pose a playback problem in the future if you didn’t know about how Encore didn’t write a layer break info correctly.

Although your DVD output seems play fine (when you play that in DVD player), just skip that to the 2nd half part of your project, and very often the 2nd part is unplayable. This is when the hardware (DVD Player) is failed when trying to read that 2nd layer.

Btw, make sure your client didn’t have a very old DVD player, 1st generation of DVD player cannot read a Dual layer DVD.

So your problem is actually two :
1. How to set the bitrate correctly (bit budgeting)
2. How to write a layer break info correctly->Future problem.

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About bit budgeting:

The information is on the manual, like i said, it’s too long if i wrote an explanation about bit budgeting/bitrate calculation. :
https://helpx.adobe.com/encore/using/project-planning.html#bit_budgeting

This tool will help you a bit :
https://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php#Calculator

Just to be clear, i suggest not transcode in Encore, it didn’t give you direct control over the bitrate used (well, you can…go to File|Edit Quality Preset)
Encode in AME, then import the files as an asset/timeline.
IMO this is much user friendly, and can give you an estimated time and progress instead of that Pop-Up Trancoding windows in Encore.

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About layer break :

(In Encore) you have to specify whether you want this as a single layer or dual layer DVD, don’t forget to choose the DVD target. But don’t let Encore wrote an automatic layer break info.

Instead outputing to ISO image, you have to output into DVD Folder.
It will gives you a structural DVD Folder. Inside that, you will find many file extension, IFO, VOB, TS, etc.

Now, download the PGCEdit (freeware):
https://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/pgcedit/
And edit that IFO files.

It’s too lengthy if i wrote how to use PGCEdit.
So here’s the tutorial link :
https://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/pgcedit/third_party/blutach/dl_burning_with_pgcedit.htm
It’s a rather long tutorial, but believe me it’s worth every penny.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Daniel Ludwig]

Farhan,
don´t follow the advice accoding to bitrates – this doesn´t work. 9.8Mbit is a much to high bitrate, because of three main reasons:

1. the DVD-spec allow 10MBit for the entire stream (video+audio), for example if you´re using PCM- (uncompressed WAV/AIF) sound your bitrate will be to high and the DVD wont be playable.

2. another reason NOT to use high value bitrates is that every encoder (especially when using single-pass VBR) has bitrate-peaks that are a lot higher than the max. set bitrate.

3. most DVD-player (hardware) are only capable to playback DVD +/-R-media with maximum bitrate at 8.5Mbit, as DVD +/-R does not reflect as much as a replicated disc. the result is that the red laser wont be reflected enough so the disc wont be playing correct.

danny

[Oki Pienandoro]

Well i just follow this advice from this spec :
https://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html
Works fine all the time for me.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Daniel Ludwig]

Oki,
that´s the DVD-spec for what DVD-player needs to be able to read from replicated discs. this is very theoretical, and in fact DVD-spec says 10Mbit for the entire stream (in detail. 10.08). but it´s totally different when you´re using DVD +/-R media, because of a total different reflection-effect of the substrate.

for +/-R-media most authors here will agree 8.5Mbit is max, some other might advice to go a bit below (7.5-8Mbit).

danny

edit: no native as well 😉

[Oki Pienandoro]

Yes you’re right. And i never use an uncompressed audio track, so the whole stream is always below the max bitrate permitted.

I edit/remove my above post to clarify that.

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Sorry for the english, not native speaker.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Farhan,

What is the total length of the program you want to put on the DVD?

Thank you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Farhan Ali]

@Jeff Pulera

The total duration I want to put on DVD is just under 1 hr 20 minutes.

Just read the previous posts and I’m really confused.

So here it goes hopefully you guy’s will understand better.

I’ve been using Sony Vegas to create numerous video files. After which they have been compiled together to form the final video.

I used Adobe Effects to render out motion backgrounds to be used on both BluRay & DvD.

I used Adobe Encore for the authoring process. When it came to creating BluRay project the end result was great, audio, sound along with motion backgrounds and visual effects were just great.

Within Encore there was an option to create “DvD”. So just to test it out I opted for DVD and output was set as DVD Image. The end result of the DVD was incredibly poor; audio, sound along with motion backgrounds and visual effects were just awful.

So I’ve been searching around the internet honestly spending countless hours yet still have not found any solution on how the sound, quality etc can be improved. I can only rely on Creative Cow Community to help me out.

Pleas someone help me.

I can provide additional information such as the render settings for Adobe After Effects for the motion backgrounds.

Thank you very much.

[Jeff Pulera]

If you let Encore convert a Blu-ray project to DVD, that explains the issue! Yes, it would be very convenient but the results are not good, as you have found. Best results will be obtained by authoring the DVD version from scratch, and do not let Encore transcode your video.

In Vegas, export to “MPEG-2 DVD”. I’ve not used Vegas in a few years so am no longer familiar with the export options, but you would create the media for the DVD in Vegas, before you get to Encore.

For an 80-minute project, there is no need for dual-layer DVD, as there is room for good quality with a 4.7GB DVD. Use a bit rate calculator to determine the optimum bit rate to encode at, or use this simple formula: 560/minutes = bit rate. So for 80 minutes, that comes out to 7.0 (go lower to allow for menus if need be).

As you may be using animated menus, add the length of those assets to the main video length when figuring bit rate, since those menu videos will also take up space.

When encoding your HD content to “MPEG-2 DVD” format, use 2-Pass Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding and have Multiplexing OFF so that you end up with TWO files, .m2v video and .wav audio. Bring both of those assets into an Encore DVD project. The video will be left as is and the audio will be transcoded by Encore to Dolby AC-3 format.

You can do a short test to see the results. Just encode a few minutes of MPEG-2 DVD video at 7.0 for example using 2-Pass VBR, Import to Encore, burn to DVD and watch it on your TV or however you are testing.

I hope this is helpful

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers