DVD burn out … I need a better work flow

[Alexander Kallas]

Of course you remember that DVD is SD, so how are you converting from HD?

Cheers
Alexander

[Tod Hopkins]

With DVDs, quality at every step matters a LOT. Sart with the basics. Better original gives better compression. Your competitor may be shooting 24fps, which conserves bandwidth and forces a “progressive” workflow. If you permit interlacing at any stage, you will get an inferior result. DVDs can be 30 progressive, but a lot of software will not keep the signal progressive at 30p. You have to be careful of your workflow.

Scale once, and very well. If you start progressive, your scaling will suck. If you scale your master, and then your DVD compression, that’s two scales. Bad.

Grain is a problem. Avoid gain in your original. Motion and visual complexity will kill you. If you are panning around a lot and backgrounds are complex, you’re making your compression work harder! Stay tight and minimize movement to simplify your image. Use more than one camera and edit static shots, rather than chasing the action.

Finally, not all compression is equal, especially MPEG2. Historically I don’t love Apple Compressor (though I use it a lot!). But then, I don’t like any MPEG2 compression on the Mac. My favorite is TMPEG, now Videoworks. That said, if you improve your original, any major compression app should give you a good result.

Dance photo/video is transitioning rapidly to files. You don’t have the same quality issues there. ????

Cheers,
tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.
Washington, DC

[Alexander Kallas]

Tod,
May I ask, DVD is delivered on TV which is interlaced. If that is the target what is your workflow from 24p which of course is progressive. DVDs displayed on computers have gone via algorithms, that produce progressive images. Your
workflow?

Cheers
Alexander

[Tod Hopkins]

Actually, while many broadcast signals are still interlaced, this is legacy, and almost everything else is not. DVD players, LCD monitors, streaming, and video files are progressive by nature and most have been capable of pure progressive signals and playback for many years. While DVDs can carry 29.97i files, all feature films on DVD are actually encoded at 24fps. This is one of the big reasons that feature films look so much better at low bitrates.

If you connect a modern DVD or Blu-ray to a 24p capable monitor (and most are now) then the signal and display will likely be 24fps, unless you’ve changed defaults. If you connect to a 29.97i only monitor, the player adds 3:2 pulldown prior to output to create a 29.97i signal.

Unfortunately, it gets weird with 30fps because it can be either progressive or interlaced, and equipment frequently handles this badly. Most AV equipment was 24p compatible before it was 30p compatible. In fact, while you can encode a DVD at 30fps progressive, and I always do, Blu-ray cannot contain 30 progressive, only 24p or 30i. I’m still mad at Sony for that! Actually, I’m still mad about Blu-ray in general.

In theory, a 30 fps progressive signal should look perfectly progressive on screen even when doubled for interlace. In practice, poor signal conversion will often screw this up, adding interlace artifacts. This doesn’t seem to happen with 24fps, presumably because there is no such thing as 24fps interlaced.

While I produce all my programs at 30p and have for years, but this is because I work with so much 30fps legacy material. For those who produce 100% original material, like you, it’s very hard to argue for anything other than 24fps progressive.

Cheers,
tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.
Washington, DC

[Ken Ramsauer]

I put it into Premiere CS6 (only because I have Encore CS6 for DVD authoring) and keep it in its RAW state from the camera. That would be a .MTS file. When I am done editing I send it to Encore and have it prepare it for a 720P 16:9 Dual Layer DVD. I don’t do interlaced and with the larger flat screens so common the old 4:5 ratio is not used so its best for me to give a solid image frame instead of a intelaced one. Also, with dance and stage movement the interlace images look bad for motion with the dark backgrounds.

[Ken Ramsauer]

Thank you for that information. I just got a newer iMac i7 4.0ghz with SSD drive. Not enough RAM yet (only 8gb) but I will order more. I try to keep it in RAW 1080p 60fps until it goes to Encore. That is where I tell it to bring it down to SD 16:9 720P 30f with a CBS of 9.0 and when I have time I let it check it twice with a VBS of 5-9 before converting. I don’t mess with the GOP and I usually leave that as Adobe sent it. I do have the maximize on (I can say more when I get there again). My issue is that I just can’t jump back to the dark side …. lol my expression for Windows. I have had too many issues in the past with hacking and stuff. I realize I need a dedicated one that is offline for ever once it works well. But, I am not familiar with transferring from Mac Premiere to a Win Authoring software and hopefully keeping the chapter markers. I will look at Videoworks. I have been hemming and hawing about putting Parallels back in with Win 10. I prefer the Win 7 but its harder to go back and also find good supported software for the older OS. I hope this sheds a little light on my work flow.

[Ken Ramsauer]

So I am starting the first of many recital DL DVDs and here is what I normally do and any suggestions would be great!

If I click on a sequence to get the info is says this: AVCHD MPEG-2 Transport Stream and the name of this one is 00000.MTS. I shot “little Mary’s dance” or “John’s Kindergarten Graduation” this with a Panasonic AG-AC90PJ which is not that new or high tech or high quality but it works for my limited low end work. I am not a trained high end video guy and my clients just want to remember these moments in time at a low priced DVD.

My clients do not understand the tech side of what it takes to put anything decent on a single or dual layer DVD. I believe they expect the “Hollywood” sharpness and a 10 list of rolling credits of the people who made the video .. which is mostly me.

So I usually tell Premiere to start the video as a HD 720P 30fps with Maximum Render and Maximum something else when it first asks … then I noticed that when I imported the video clip and dropped a section into the timeline I always get presented with “Clip Mismatch Warning” where it says to “Change sequence settings” or “Keep existing settings” and now I say “change it” as it appears to look better than the old days of “keep existing settings”.

Maybe that is my first mistake but if you know video then you know you can waste a lot of time thinking you got it when you really don’t. My clients want these 3.5 -4 hour shows put on a single DVD. Usually I provide two DL DVDs and say that this is the best I can give for the amount of time. But as I mentioned in the first original post … I have a competitor that seems to be able to put a 3.5 hour video of the same type on a SINGLE LAYER DVD and it really doesn’t look that bad. I watched on of the videos and noticed that it seemed to be tied in with a Roxio Toast label under the information on the video and more than likely it is done on a PC over Mac but I only use Mac. So I kind of need Mac answers. I own Toast Titanium 12.1 but now they are on version 16.0. I do not have any other DVD authoring software except for the latest CS6 Encore. I have access to all of the CS6 and CC stuff with the Adobe Subscription I have.

Now from this point only … should I keep the original clip settings or should I use the 720P 30fps settings? I realize that this is one jump from 1080p to 720p and then it would be sent to Encore and dumbed down some more. Or should I just edit in 1080p and send it to Encore to o the 720p 30fps Dual Layer DVD with chapter markers.

I have no idea what to do with Toast if it makes good DVD authoring. I guess I can send a MPEG2 from Premiere but thats a rendering step right there and then again with Toast? Just a little lost here. I just want a miracle DVD with 4 hours of high quality ultra sharp video on a single layer DVD (actually Dual layer is fine as I ordered 600 of them).

Thank you for any advice

[Ken Ramsauer]

So I decided to change the settings to match the incoming clips and this is what it picked:

ARRI Cinema
29.97
16:9
30fps Drop-Frame Timecode
Progressive Scan
Square Pixels (1.0)

Video Previews:
Preview File Format I-Frame Only MPEG
Codec MPEG I-Frame
1920×1080

I plan on checking Max Bit Depth and Max Render Quality now and then send it to Encore to convert it to SD 720P 30fps unless someone has a better idea. I have a feeling this is going to be larger than a DL DVD 8.5gb especially with menus and links to about 30 chapter markers.

[Tod Hopkins]

No easy answers, but there appear to be significant problems with your workflow. To oversimply, you have two goals. First, to eliminate any interlacing from your path. The second, to eliminate any unnecessary conversion.

Start with the camera. What format are you actually shooting. “MTS” is just the “wrapper” and does not indicate quality. I would recommend 1080p29.97 at the highest quality (lowest compression) the camera shoots. Unfortunately, you may not have the storage for this in long form. As I mentioned, if your ONLY goal was the best, most efficient DVD, then 1080p24 is ideal, but for many reasons, I am not a fan of 24p, especially for active subjects.

You must pay special attention to the “p” in 1080p. Just because a camera is described as 1080p doesn’t mean that’s what you are shooting. In fact, it’s unlikely the camera defaults to 1080p. It likely defaults to 1080i (“i” for interlaced). Also, your camera may not be “full raster” 1080p. Cheaper cameras cheat this. You get a 1080p recording, but the camera can’t actually give you full 1080p quality. If your only goal is DVD or file-based playback, you may be better off shooting 720p30 (not 60) to conserve space. I hate to recommend this, but the extra storage needed for 1080p may not be helping your quality at all.

Now assuming you shoot at 1080p, (insert 720p if that’s what you do) any editing you do should also be at 1080p using either the camera codec, or a higher quality codec. If you are adding titles and effects, I would argue for a higher quality edit codec, such as Quicktime ProRes 422, DNxHD, or Cineform. The codec does not actually matter until you output. If you render directly from the timeline, then there is no intermediate codec at all. I cannot recommend this though, as it is generally bad practice for professionals for a lot of reasons. Output your master to one of the professional codecs above.

Now the DVD. There is no such thing as a true 720p DVD. Only Bluray can be HD. A standard DVD is NTSC only, 480i or 480p. You want to go from 1080p master to DVD elementary streams. Output a master at 1080p. Then use Encoder to make your DVD elementary streams. There is a preset for this, but you want to control it. It’s going to take a bit of negotiating to set your bitrate as high as possible without going over the DVD size limit. Your audio should be MPEG, not PCM. Frankly, I don’t use Encoder because Encoder can’t make an AC3 audio track which is a far better choice, but MPEG will do.

Now author these elementary streams using Encore. Make sure Encore is not recompressing. This may be tricky, especially if you’ve made the files too big. You’ll need to review the automated settings. I can’t help much here because I use DVD Studio Pro and dislike Encore.

There are many tutorials for this, but the keys are to eliminate interlacing from your workflow, and scale/compress only once, directly to your DVD elementary streams. You also need to do the math for bitrate so you use the highest bitrates possible while still fitting on the disc.

Cheers,
tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.
Washington, DC

[Robert Withers]

Enlightening info from Todd Hopkins. I didn’t know DVD could hold 480p — I thought it was interlaced only. I understand NTSC uses rectangular pixels — square pixels are for digital display only. But I could be wrong.
Hollywood films and some TV productions get that super-sharp, bright look with high-end large-sensor (or film) cameras, expensive lenses. elaborate lighting, and a crew of DP, camera operator, assistant camera, focus puller, and others laboring over each shot, one shot at a time. Then elaborate color correction. That’s why the images hold up so well on DVD.
Most NLEs offer an option to export to a standard DVD-type source file, or they used to.
But it won’t look like a commercial feature unless you shot it that way.
Good luck!

Robert Withers

Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City