Best Compressions for DVD Studio Pro

[TimG]

Hello all,

I've been using FCP for years now and I've always noticed that the material I burn to DVD using DVD Studio Pro never looks as good as a store bought DVD of say a TV show or Movie. I know that they author these things using hardware encoders and then press the copies instead of burning them but you would think you could come relatively close.

I'm starting with uncompressed SD material out of a Blackmagic capture card so the material looks very, very good. I compress it to MPEG-2 using Compressor at the highest encode quality (tried CBR 1-Pass 9.0, VBR 1-Pass 7.7 Avg and 9.0 Max and VBR 2-Pass 7.7 Avg and 9.0 Max) but it still has some artifacts. One video in particular where the camera is dollying past a woman in a flowing dress, there's always compression artifacts in the fabric of the dress. I do notice that when I use the "simulator" in DVDSP I do not see the artifacts in that video so I'm wondering if it's on the DVDSP end and not on the Compressor end. I checked the encode preferences in DVDSP and I've maxed those out too. . . . Very frustrating. Is there a work flow that I'm just not getting?

Thanks for the help.

Tim

 

[gwedits]

Hi Tim,

Happy New Year by the by...

Store bought DVDs are made and compressed with expensive hardware based systems not the inexpensive software solutions like DVD Studio.

I have tried a bunch of settings and I think it's a matter of experimenting with them until you find what works for your source material.

Not much help I know, but we are all in the same boat without the hardware solution...

 

[Canonman]

Tim, the good news is that if you have a few dollars at your disposal, there are other encoders that will run circles around the one compressor uses. The high end encoder that many studios use in hardware form has recently come to the Mac in a software version. That would be the Cinemacraft encoder. Other highly recommended ones are Bitvice and Sheer codecs.

Studios also employ 'compressionists' who tweak the image frame by frame for optimal encoding.

One thing you might try, is to use compression markers in your FCP timeline where the trouble spots are. These are generally handy around transitions, but might help your section as well. These markers instruct DVDSP or Compressor to use all I-frames in that area of the video timeline.

cm

 

[McFly]

Not sure if this will improve the quality of your video, but I have a Ripple training DVD for DVDSP4 and it says to never have your bit rate about 8.5... mainly because some DVD players won't be able to play it.

I will also add that I've heard good things about Cinemacraft Encoder... it runs about $800.

 

[TimG]

Happy New Year to you too Gwedits. Thanks for the info. Canonman, I posted to Creative Cow and someone else recommended Cinemacraft MP. I just took the plunge and bought the CCEMP. I'll post my findings when I re-encode my demo reel. The frustrating thing for me is that the encode of my demo reel looks pretty good on a SD CRT but when I throw it into my HD monitor at home using a PS3 to playback, the upconverted image looks blown up. . . . yes I know that will happen as it's a line doubling scheme but I worry that as more people buy HD sets but continue to use DVD players to drive them this is going to be the biggest challenge for us. Store bought SD DVDs look great on my HD set upconverted . . . pretty damn close to Blu-Ray quality. I just hope the Cinemacraft Encoder MP will improve on what I've been able to burn in the past.

Tim

BTW - McFly, I heard about that too. I tried a bunch of different bit rates without much of a difference in quality. I purchased that "Art of Encoding" DVD awhile back. I'm going to watch it today.

 

[McFly]

'The Art of Encoding' from Ripple? I looked at their site but they didn't have it anymore. I'm interested in it when you're finished!

 

[Canonman]

Store bought SD DVDs look great on my HD set upconverted . . . pretty damn close to Blu-Ray quality.

Hence the reason that Blu-Ray isn't getting the market penetration they had hoped for. Had this discussion the other day with someone. The cost of the BD players is too high at the moment to justify for the marginal increase in perceived picture quality.

cm

 

[TimG]

Hence the reason that Blu-Ray isn't getting the market penetration they had hoped for. Had this discussion the other day with someone. The cost of the BD players is too high at the moment to justify for the marginal increase in perceived picture quality.

cm

Yep I heard/read that too. I even read/heard that Sony may miss the boat with blu-ray and we may just progress to streaming/downloading video like PS3 Store, iTunes Store, Netflix's on-demand, or Hulu.com

Tim

 

[SimonW]

Hence the reason that Blu-Ray isn't getting the market penetration they had hoped for. Had this discussion the other day with someone. The cost of the BD players is too high at the moment to justify for the marginal increase in perceived picture quality.

So why are we all buying HD cameras? Why not just stick with SP, DVCAM, and DB and upconvert?

I agree that BD players are expensive (though they are coming down, fast from some manufacturers). But I think the lack of market penetration is because most normal consumers don't understand what the difference actually is.

Put a high def BD on display in a shop on a good HD TV and what you see is a great looking picture. What isn't shown though is a direct side by side comparison with normal DVD. So some people come away thinking "What's so special?"

What is clear though is that people who have HD TV find it difficult to watch SD. The BBC found this directly when they did HD trials with normal families. I have found the same with people I know. Upconverting may look okay, but it certainly isn't a patch on true HD on a good sized HD set.

 

[TimG]

So why are we all buying HD cameras? Why not just stick with SP, DVCAM, and DB and upconvert?

Hey Simon,

The reason that I posted this topic was because of my frustration with the quality of a DVD I burned of some SD material when viewed on my Samsung LCD HDTV. It's BetaSP, was captured uncompressed and burned to DVD using compressor at the highest bit rate possible. Still it really falls apart when seen on the HDTV. It looks great on a SD CRT monitor but the uprez on the HDTV looks awful . . . it has me scratching my head as to why Hollywood SD DVDs look so close to blu-ray and yet my efforts look like crap. I just dumped $800 on the Cinemacraft Encoder MP. I hope it does the trick. . . . . if not . . . . well then the answer to your question is HD cameras may be necessary to produce quality SD videos for uprezing to HDTVs. . . Anyone else ran into this?

Tim

 

[BluesCam]

Yes, most SD DVDs look pretty bad on HDTV screens. The rescaling of the image is a KO punch. The Hollywood disks look better because they originated on film and were encoded using the best equipment and methodology.

As far as encoding SD for demos, I usually use a Panasonic DVD recorder with a data rate around 8K. It does a nice job.

BTW, it's possible to burn Blu-ray material on a standard DVD.

 

[Canonman]

So why are we all buying HD cameras? Why not just stick with SP, DVCAM, and DB and upconvert?

I agree that BD players are expensive (though they are coming down, fast from some manufacturers). But I think the lack of market penetration is because most normal consumers don't understand what the difference actually is.

Put a high def BD on display in a shop on a good HD TV and what you see is a great looking picture. What isn't shown though is a direct side by side comparison with normal DVD. So some people come away thinking "What's so special?"

What is clear though is that people who have HD TV find it difficult to watch SD. The BBC found this directly when they did HD trials with normal families. I have found the same with people I know. Upconverting may look okay, but it certainly isn't a patch on true HD on a good sized HD set.

Of course you know you are preaching to the choir with respect to how I feel. But the trend is leaning towards streaming download for HD. There are those who think Apple is withholding Blu-Ray authoring support and hardware because they have a vested interest in seeing HD downloads become the dominant delivery medium via the iTunes store.

I have an HD set, have had since 2002. It's a 1080 RPTV and I've rented both SD and HD material through my Apple TV. I have to say, it's nicer to get the HD, but not such a huge difference that I want to pay the extra $1 fee and wait much longer for the download to happen.

It should be an even harder sell for you in the UK because PAL has a higher vertical resolution than NTSC while HD resolution remains the same between both regions. Therefore, your resolution increase is less dramatic than ours is.

In this current global economy, a $49 upscanning, progressive SD DVD player looks much more attractive than a $250 player.

And just this week at the CES show, Vizio, the maker of flat panel tv sets is teaming with Netflix to offer an out of the box solution for renting via streaming download right to the set. Just plug the ethernet cable into the tv... no other external box required.

cm

 

[SimonW]

Still it really falls apart when seen on the HDTV. It looks great on a SD CRT monitor but the uprez on the HDTV looks awful . . . it has me scratching my head as to why Hollywood SD DVDs look so close to blu-ray and yet my efforts look like crap. I just dumped $800 on the Cinemacraft Encoder MP. I hope it does the trick. . . . . if not . . . . well then the answer to your question is HD cameras may be necessary to produce quality SD videos for uprezing to HDTVs. . . Anyone else ran into this?

Well, I found this recently when looking at a DVD I made using an HD camera and a DVD made with an SD camera. The DVD made with the HD camera looked far superior, even played back on a large LCD screen, than the SD originated footage.

Hollywood films are created mainly from high colour space digital masters taken from 35mm film transfers. So they don't have any of the hideous digital processing that plagues video originated stuff. Particularly SD video cameras. Another thing to take into account is that SD cameras are designed and tuned to work best with CRT displays, hence the reason that your DVD's look great on an SD CRT.

There are those who think Apple is withholding Blu-Ray authoring support and hardware because they have a vested interest in seeing HD downloads become the dominant delivery medium via the iTunes store.

Yes, that may be the way things are going. Although keeping backups of lots of films is harder than with MP3's. Apple need to get their finger out and not only make 1080p downloads possible for both films and TV, but also stop leaving out their international customers. I would purchase films and TV over iTunes if it wasn't for the fact that they only have SD available in the UK iTunes.

I have to say, it's nicer to get the HD, but not such a huge difference that I want to pay the extra $1 fee and wait much longer for the download to happen.

Hmm, well, don't forget that Apple TV is even more compressed than Blu-Ray and that you can only currently get 720p from them. Watching both 720 and 1080 on a good sized set (around 50") I can clearly spot the 720 footage.

In this current global economy, a $49 upscanning, progressive SD DVD player looks much more attractive than a $250 player.

That is true. However in order to take advantage of the upscaling people still have to buy an HD television set. And with many stores doing deals with a TV bundled with a BD player it makes purchasing the upscaler DVD player a bit redundant unless the person already owns an HDTV.

Just plug the ethernet cable into the tv... no other external box required.

Sounds great on paper, but do people want to watch that spinning Flash Video buffering icon all day?

 

[jbcameraguy]

Sounds great on paper, but do people want to watch that spinning Flash Video buffering icon all day?

I have actually bought a netflix player that plugs into my HDTV via composite or HDMI cable. And I have to say, the picture is amazing along with the fact that netflix now offers HD movies and TV shows. I have a fast cable connection, and it usually only takes about to seconds for the movie to start.

We might be looking at the future.

 

[SimonW]

The big problem with online HD video is that:
1. There are more people with slower connections than quicker ones.
2. People in rural areas are always second class citizens with such things.
3. The bandwidth demands are huge. Even the BBCs low def iPlayer service is causing service providers lots of bandwidth headaches to the point where they are thinking about charging the BBC part of the costs of it.

Now if the BBC have caused such issues from their streaming service, now imagine the problems caused by *everyone* getting their HD films over streaming or download services.

 

[MrHasselblad]

Having also attended CES like a person whom replied earlier...

Has anyone else heard anything about about current DVD (consumer movie, not items such as programs or RW) being phased out soon? There have been many people stating how consumer movies will soon convert over to entirely blue-ray one of the few other options being items such as regular download. Unfortunately it wasn't just over heard by the people on the floor, but by some of the "industry professionals" at the event.

Really hoping an item such as that may be delayed for some time.

 

[SimonW]

DVD will be phased out. But not yet by any stretch of the imagination. Blu-Ray simply hasn't got the take up of DVD, it is cripplingly expensive for producers, especially small scale producers, to make with all the extortionate license fees etc. It is also almost impossible to get cross compatibility with BD video discs made with programs like Adobe Encore. Your video might work on one persons player, but not necessarily someone elses.

Reasons such as this are the main reason Apple hasn't bothered putting a BD drive into their Macs and Blu-Ray authoring into DVD Studio Pro. Until the licensing is scrapped and the discs can be replicated as easily as DVD, and until the compatibility issues are sorted out so that small scale duplication is made easy for small scale producers, Blu-Ray does not stand a cats chance in hell of replacing DVD.

 

[Grip]

Reasons such as this are the main reason Apple hasn't bothered putting a BD drive into their Macs and Blu-Ray authoring into DVD Studio Pro. Until the licensing is scrapped and the discs can be replicated as easily as DVD, and until the compatibility issues are sorted out so that small scale duplication is made easy for small scale producers, Blu-Ray does not stand a cats chance in hell of replacing DVD.

Replacing...... not for a little while maybe.... but it is possible it will be of its own...

If its a comedy, or something like that, I will buy it on regular DVD, but if there is great effects, cinematography etc I buy it on blu-ray.....

I learned a while back that its not smart to pay money to be a beta tester, and so blu-ray is finally catching up to where its a reasonable solution. Get one of these video cards, and cs4, and it will crank out blu-rays as fast as any DVD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133248&Tpk=adobe cx

If Apple and Avid are smart the will work with NVIDIA like Adobe did, because the dependence for small scale producers to get video cards that enhance their work flow at a reasonable price is becoming more important than its ever been before.

As important as the actual encoder, will be the video card processing the image.

I dont know much about FCP, don't really want to, but I can speak about Avid and Adobe, and Media 100 for that matter. Avid has always been short sighted because they would only qualify a couple cards, and since they were specialty cards you had to pay out the ass for them. Meanwhile the video gamer gets a card for half the price and twice the speed. My next workstation will have something like the CX, and I dont care if the card cost more than rest of the workstation.

As far as blu-ray, I have like 30 HD movie channels, sometimes download movies from the ps3 store, and of course have watched upconverted DVDs, and I can say with absolute certainty, that none of them look any where close to the beauty of the blu-ray image.

And dont buy a blu-ray player alone, get a PS3 and we can start up a b-roll fighting brigade....... if you haven't tried the online gaming before.... its not just for WOW freaks anymore.

 

[Chugach3DGuy]

Just to chime in and give my two cents as well... I agree with Simon and Grip about the perceived demise of DVD. Yes, DVDs will eventually go away, but I don't think it will play out in a similar fashion as VHS did. DVD discs and players are so inexpensive right now its not even funny. I think DVDs are at the height of their fame right now and have nowhere to go but down, but it's going to be a very long, graceful decline. I mean, they've pretty much saturated all available kinds of markets. You have the expensive collector sets a la the entire collection of The Sopranos, you have moderately priced new-releases with special features and easter eggs, and you have the 2 for $10 bins at Wal-Mart and other big box stores. For all intents and purposes, SD DVDs can probably be labeled as impulse items- especially when you see them on display near the registers at the grocery store next to the candy bars. They're so prevalent in so many places that I can't see DVDs going away very fast at all within the next 5 years- or more.

Blu-Ray most certainly rocks, and its picture quality is SO MUCH better than SD, but the cost has to play a significant factor. Like Grip, I'm not going to spring for any old Blu-Ray Disc. Napoleon Dynamite had some funny bits to it, but I don't need to see it in 1080p with 7.1 surround sound. The Dark Knight on the other hand, is loaded with so much eye candy that I find it more visually appealing in HD. Of course, I think it will come down to people's tastes and personal opinions. I know people who are going to hang on to their DVD players until the end of time, and I also know a couple people who are chomping at the bit to rebuild their entire collection with shiny new BD-R discs. Just being able to play these discs is a costly endeavor as well. I can get myself set up with a really cheap DVD home theater set up from Wal-mart for just a few hundred bucks, but make that a Blu-Ray package, and now you're talking a couple thousand dollars right off the bat.

Anyway, as far as licensing goes, I thought Sony made the rules significantly more lenient a few months back. Of course, I can't find a link verifying this, and www.blu-raydisc.info appears to say otherwise. The way it looks to me though, is that I can't put the Blu-Ray logo on a disc I produce myself without paying the fee- but it doesn't stop me from producing or distributing material on BD without using the logo. Please forgive my unfamiliarity with this legalese mumbo-jumbo...

 

[SimonW]

but it doesn't stop me from producing or distributing material on BD without using the logo.

That's if you can get them to work. There are a lot of problems with compatibility between players. Some will not play BD-ROM's at all.