DVD Resolutions and Format Questions

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CarcPazu

Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2006
Messages
24
Location
Montreal
Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on the visual for my music project.
And I have a couple of questions for those who already did some DVD authoring/Editing stuff. It's isn't directly related to surround, but it's a part of the process so I thought someone here could direct me into the right direction.

My target is DVD-Video, while the music is playing in surround, I want to have some visual playing along. I don't have any real video footage (from a camera) so I'm not limited to a certain video size since all my shots will be some compositions made in After Effect. Thus my questions.

I'm using Sony Vegas 6 to edit my project, and I'm a bit confused in wich format I should render my video in the end for an optimized quality in Widescreen 16:9. I plan to used Sony DVD Architect 3 to author the dvd and menus.

When I render the project in Vegas, I've got multiple choices. But I'm not sure wich one to choose (avi, mpeg-2, wmv). And all of they has a custom button wich brings a lot of options (that's mainly the part that confuse me).

Interlaced (bottom/top field first)
Progressive, Square Pixel, i-frames, Variable bit rate, etc...

Anyone knows the "recipe" I should use to have the best quality and to make sure all players will accept it?

I'm not sure if my question is clear, don't hesitate to ask some specifications that I didn't gave yet.

Thanks.

Carcpazu

BTW : I don't know if it's just me, but all the image on this forum appear broken (X), anyone see this too?
 
The best options to use are "standard" DVD-Video type formats.
This means MPEG-2 video, in NTSC format. There will almost certainly be a suitable preset you can use, with just the bitrate needing to be modified.
Resolution should be 72DPI, and the field order will depend on the source footage - the built-in MPEG-2 encoder should get this right, but odds are high it will be lower (or bottom) field first. Quickest way to test this is to encode a short segment & write to a DVD and see how it looks - if it's wrong, you'll know immediately.
Bitrate will depend entirely on 3 factors:
1 - Length of programme
2 - Size of final disc (DVD5 or DVD9)
3 - Audio types included.
I can post a bitrate calculator if you like. This will help, but the "rule of thumb" here is that for below 6Mbits/second to use VBR, and above to use CBR.

Audio.
The DVD Specs say that you must have one of the mandatory formats as the first stream. This means either LPCM or Dolby Digital. DTS is an optional format (but higher quality) so cannot be stream 1. Well, it can - but you would need to create a multi-VTS disc and that can get complicated in a hurry. I would not know how to begin doing this in DVD-Architect. Come to think of it, I don't know how to do anything in DVD-Architect as I don't have it. Shouldn't be a problem though, as Sony are very good at Video.

Widescreen is always great - but you will need to ensure that it is set to letterbox for 4:3 screens, and not Pan & Scan.
You will be limited to 18 buttons as well, but you can get up to 36 in 4:3.

Is this to be stereo or multichannel?
 
Ok in the end I messed around a lot and found a recipe that works well for me.

All my source casts are created by me in Photoshop and then animate them in Vegas, I don't use any footage from a camera so I don't need to to bother with the interlacing order.
In Vegas Edit in:
NTSC 720x480 Widescreen
Progressive Scan
Pixel Aspect Ratio : 1,2121

Then I export that way:
NTSC DV 720x480
Frame Rate: 29.970
Progressive Scan
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1,2121
Video format: Uncompressed

Then I import the uncompressed movie into DVD Architect
When I want to burn the final result in Architect, it does all for me. I saw somewhere that it distributes 8mb of transfer rates where it belongs.
My projects is 46 minutes long so it fits well on a single layer dvd. And I guess it compress the video in mpeg-2, so that's why I import an uncompressed file into Architect (wich is 90gigs btw...) and let architect do the compressing instead of applying and mpeg-2 compression above an other. The end result if higher than my expectation. In fact it looks very professionnal to me. The colors are vibrant, the compression is minimal (as good as the dvd permit it). I think now I got to the quality limit of the DVD... If I want more I'll need to re-edit everything in 1080p for blue-ray or hd-dvd (maybe one day).

I won't do a DVD-A version of it, since the project is intended to have visual animation with it and I don't want to plan some kind of "slide show" instead of the animation. So I'm going for Dolby Digital.

The music is done in Sonar 4.0, I'm working on surround mix now (I've put a dummy stereo version in Vegas in the meantime, I'll replace it when the surround mix is done). When the mix will be finished I'll render the 6 channels in wave and import them in Vegas and do my dolby digital encoding in it since I don't have the AC-3 encoder in my Sonar edition.

I'll have some learning to do in order to know what I'm doing when I encode to ac-3 in Vegas, I think I saw some recommendation about this in some of your previous posts, I'll need to go check that out in time. But Anything you can add about this would be welcome.

This project is intended for surround only, so I don't think I'll put a stereo track on the disc. But I don't know much about how a dvd player handles a stereo downmix. That I'll have to read about. But I can't say I care much if the downmix isn't totaly amazing since the whole point of the project is the surround.

I don't think I need a bitrate calculator, Architect seems to take care of that, or not? So far Architect been very easy to deal with and gives excellent result, So far I agree with you about Sony knowing video well.


The best options to use are "standard" DVD-Video type formats.
This means MPEG-2 video, in NTSC format. There will almost certainly be a suitable preset you can use, with just the bitrate needing to be modified.
Resolution should be 72DPI, and the field order will depend on the source footage - the built-in MPEG-2 encoder should get this right, but odds are high it will be lower (or bottom) field first. Quickest way to test this is to encode a short segment & write to a DVD and see how it looks - if it's wrong, you'll know immediately.
Bitrate will depend entirely on 3 factors:
1 - Length of programme
2 - Size of final disc (DVD5 or DVD9)
3 - Audio types included.
I can post a bitrate calculator if you like. This will help, but the "rule of thumb" here is that for below 6Mbits/second to use VBR, and above to use CBR.

Audio.
The DVD Specs say that you must have one of the mandatory formats as the first stream. This means either LPCM or Dolby Digital. DTS is an optional format (but higher quality) so cannot be stream 1. Well, it can - but you would need to create a multi-VTS disc and that can get complicated in a hurry. I would not know how to begin doing this in DVD-Architect. Come to think of it, I don't know how to do anything in DVD-Architect as I don't have it. Shouldn't be a problem though, as Sony are very good at Video.

Widescreen is always great - but you will need to ensure that it is set to letterbox for 4:3 screens, and not Pan & Scan.
You will be limited to 18 buttons as well, but you can get up to 36 in 4:3.

Is this to be stereo or multichannel?
 
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