DVD Authoring - Acceptable Methods

[jellybeard999]

Hi

I am looking to author a DVD, and have permission from the filmer of the source, who authored his own DVD, however he admits he didnt spend a lot of time with it, so there are no set chapter points (ie just at 15 min intervals, rather than at track points) etc, so i asked if i could author a version myself

Now is it acceptable to use his authored DVD as the source and trade it ? or would i need to get hold of a copy of the master ?

Personally, i dont feel there will be a problem using the authored DVD, however i dont know if this infringes any "rules", or if there is a quality degredation, since some people are particularly fussy, i might as well make as good a job of it as i can.

Any recommendations for DVD authoring ? It seems menus are the main problem, as i have tried Pegasys TMPG DVD Author etc, and they have a poor choice of options in the menu stakes, whereas some DVDs ive traded have great menus... what do people tend to use ?

Thanks for any help or light you can shed

[retired]

Archictect 3.0

You can use TMPGEnc 1.6 as well as long as its done WITHOUT compression. make sure you do a gspot before and after to get all the statistics so you can be sure you havnt altered anything...

good luck

[saltman]

yeah the key is gonna be NO rendering. The DVD has already been rendered to mpeg2 once and doing it a second time would degrade the quality, and additionally it is my understanding that it would not be allowed here. You should be able to extract his mpeg2 and author with whatever program you learn how to use and then compile the dvd with chapter marks, etc. without rerendering the mpeg2. I like DVD architect also. It is a little complicated compared to TMPenc. but wasy to use once you get the hang of it. BTW it is now DVD Architect 4.0 and Vegas 7.0 FYI.

[retired]

correct saltman

2nd rendering is unacceptable and NOT allowed here

[jellybeard999]

how do i avoid re rendering ? if i do a bitrate check with gspot with the old DVD, does that mean if the new DVD matches, its ok ?



Thanks for the help, will have a look for Architect 3

[saltman]

Originally Posted by jellybeard999

does that mean if the new DVD matches, its ok ?

not exactly. If they were rendered at the same bitrate it would be hard to tell. In most video authoring programs you have to tell it what bitrate to render at or to render at all..... In DVD Architect you just set it to not render the video.

[jellybeard999]

Thanks for the help

[TerryG]

When I reauthor dvds I like to use DVD Decrypter in IFO mode with stream processing enabled. It will rip the audio and video to seperate streams that can be dragged and dropped into DVD Architect for reauthoring with no re-encoding needed.

[jellybeard999]

I have produced the DVD (i think) and want to test it by putting all the files on my HDD

When i go to "make a DVD" i cant see how i can make mine renderless :s

I took the vob files from the DVD, to use for the video, made sure my reauthor had 704x576 res, 25fps ... but couldnt find an option to not render :s .. so i selected 8000kbps and let it render, just to see if it all works

Can anyone suggest how i can make sure its not rendered :s

ATM (PCM audio, is that right ? didnt want to mp3 it) it weighs in at 7.3gb :o ... dual layer ok ? or would i be better off splitting ?

Thanks for any help if you can offer it

[retired]

PCM audio ONLY, unless you're doing 5.1 Surround.
NEVER use audio mp3 sourced to synch with!!

Dual layer is becoming the preferred way to go, but there is nothing wrong with splitting it across two singles....just dont shrink/compress it down to fit onto a single.

[saltman]

Originally Posted by jellybeard999

Can anyone suggest how i can make sure its not rendered :s

what program are you using?

In the attached picture you can see the menu after you hit the optimize button... after you hit the make dvd button. Here you can define things about your various pieces that make up your DVD. Select the video part and make sure it is set to not recompress..... this is also noted with the check mark on the left side. This pic is from DVD Architect 4.0A

[davidsss]

I'm interested insome of your settings. What should I set the Default video bitrate at for low quality video (I'm converting some avi files to dvd as my player won't play avi files). I can't fit much on each disc after it is converted to dvd format and the default video bitrate is 8000, which is what was there as the default when I started dvd architect. If I reduce this will I lose quality, and will I increase how much I can put on the dvd?

Thanks
DS

Originally Posted by davidsss

I'm interested insome of your settings. What should I set the Default video bitrate at for low quality video (I'm converting some avi files to dvd as my player won't play avi files). I can't fit much on each disc after it is converted to dvd format and the default video bitrate is 8000, which is what was there as the default when I started dvd architect. If I reduce this will I lose quality, and will I increase how much I can put on the dvd?
Thanks
DS

Here's a rough guide:

If your combined video + audio bitrate is 9800kbit/sec = 1 hour on a DVD5
If your combined video + audio bitrate is 4900kbit/sec = 2 hours on a DVD5
If your combined video + audio bitrate is 3200kbit/sec = 3 hours on a DVD5
If your combined video + audio bitrate is 2400kbit/sec = 4 hours on a DVD5

Here's a great bitrate calculator which may help... http://dvd-hq.info/Calculator.html

The lower the video bitrate, the lower the quality of the resulting video. Since you have low quality video to start with, I'd try the 2 hour bitrate and see if you're happy with the picture quality.

If your videos are just for your personal use, then I'd recommed using MP2 (lossy) or AC3 (lossy) encoding for your audio. PCM audio is a waste if your source is an XviD or DivX avi file


@jellybeard999
If you want to be positive that your authoring program isn't re-encoding your video, check out DVD-Lab (or DVD-Lab-Pro) at www.mediachance.com. But it looks like that Saltman has addressed your problem with re-encoding...

[davidsss]

Thanks for the info, looks like I will be better off encoding at somewhere around 4900 KB a second as the originals are avi's anyway.

DS

[jellybeard999]

Thanks for the help

I am using DVD architect 3.0