[Carlos Angeli]

Thanks Randy. I was trying that, but also wondered if there’s a way to achieve it using lumas or some other shader.

[Carlos Angeli]

Thank you Jeff. Your advice helped me improve my workflow by far.

[Carlos Angeli]

Thanks both. I used a 9.8 value at first, but I tried a lower value after your advice and there’s not much difference.

I also didn’t notice a big change between using different encoding matrix presets.

[Carlos Angeli]

Hi Jeff,

thanks for the explanation. I didn’t know about the data rate maximum values. The quality of HC is in fact very pleasing.

However, I see that sometimes a bit of noise may appear, specially when having titles against black backgrounds.
Have you ever experienced that, and if so, did you use any filter to solve it?

Thanks

[Carlos Angeli]

Just wanted to post an update after some testing. I followed two procedures: The one in Precomposed blog, and Jeff Bellune’s excellent tutorial on downscalling.

So far, exporting MPEG2 I-frame from Premiere, indexing with DGMPEGdec and finally saving an AVI file from Virtualdub with Avisynth gave the best results for downscalling.

From there, I had two choices: Use Encore to transcode the AVI and create the DVD ISO, or use HC Encoder to do the transcoding. This last option, gave me a transcoded m2v file that looks really good.

The only complain so far, is that I’m using permanent subtitles, and when going from AVI to m2V (already downscaled) the conversion seems to render a little bit of noise which is noticeable specially around the subs.

[Carlos Angeli]

Eric, I just followed the explanation from one of the links you provided (https://www.precomposed.com/blog/2009/07/hd-to-sd-dvd-best-methods/), and I have to say I’m most impressed with the quality of the downscaled video from Virtualdub.

That said, there’s something that I’m not sure about. I thought after reading the article, that the steps were:
1-Export from Premiere using MPEG2 I-frame.
2-Create AVS script.
3-Run Virtualdub to downscale video.
4-Run Encore to create DVD or use HC encoder.

It’s actually the last step the one that confuses me a little bit. At first, I thought HC was an alternative to using Encore, but then I realized that it transforms the AVI file into m2v.

So, I still need to use Encore to create the DVD ISO?

[Carlos Angeli]

I’m going to try Eric’s advice first and see what happens. Michael, I have a Video card that I think it has Cuda cores (GeForce GTX 550 TI), but I have never thought it could improve my video workflow. I’ll look into that later.

[Carlos Angeli]

Thanks Eric, I’ll look in to them and make a comparison against my current workflow. I’ll comment on the results.

[Carlos Angeli]

Hi,

Jeff, Your advice helped me improve the final SD video, so thanks a lot.
Michael, I don’t have an SD camera, but thanks for the tip. I’d have never thought of that.

[Carlos Angeli]

Thanks Jeff. So, you are suggesting to keep the settings at 1080p and scale down the video on the AME settings?