Problem with moving subjects

[Ken Berry]

I can only repeat with the strongest emphasis 2 Dog's comment about leaving the main timeline in the editor module empty when you want to open the burning module with Share > Create Disc. You have already produced a proper DVD compatible mpeg-2. So you save your project after that, and then go to File > New Project. Don't worry about a name for it. Just opening a new project will empty the timeline. Then you select Share > Create Disc > DVD, and the burning module will open. Then you use the Add Media button up to to insert your new mpeg-2 into the burning timeline.

This is another important thing. When you click on the central icon among the three down in the bottom left of the burning screen (Project Settings), then by default it will show the Frame Based settings you saw. But under that window is the really important little box 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files'. That box must be ticked. If it is not, then your mpeg-2 will be converted to the Frame Based format you have got.

The other possibility that can arise with leaving your existing project in the editing timeline is that it is automatically inserted in the burning timeline when you open it. It will look like the completed mpeg-2, but it is still only a project which must be converted during the burning process. In other words, it is not DVD compliant as it is. So VS will convert it using the default i.e. Frame Based, properties.

[2Dogs]

I'd like to hear from a PAL user to verify some of this - perhaps Trevor Andrew could chip in, since he was always a strong proponent of the "dummy insert" procedure with the new project used for the Create Disc step. Mind you, you're in a land of PAL, Ken!

When I check on my NTSC system, I see that the default project properties for a blank VS11.5 project are NTSC 720 x 480, Lower Field First, VBR8000 and LPCM audio. That all seems eminently sensible to me, though I would usually encode the original avi project to an MPEG-2 file with compressed audio rather than LPCM.

Going to the Create Disc module, for "DVD", and clicking on the "cogwheel", I see that "Do not convert compliant MPEG files" is checked by default, and that the file properties remain Lower Field first, VBR8000 - but the audio is changed to Dolby 2.0.

All of the above is true for both 4:3 and 16:9.

I'd be surprised if the PAL version used Frame Based as the default - but you could easily confirm or disprove that on your PAL system.

[Ron P.]

I'd be surprised if the PAL version used Frame Based as the default - but you could easily confirm or disprove that on your PAL system.

Have you set the Default Field Order in the preferences at any time? I know when I first installed and launched VS, the default field order was in fact set to Frame Based. After setting it to Lower Field First, it now opens as the default.

[zamani]

Greetings

Just to inform that now I got myself a smooth PAL DVD
Thanks for the advise guys.

Just 1 thing

The Two Pass Conversion, what is this for ?
Should I or should I not apply this option ?

Thanks


~ zam

[Ron P.]

This is used to obtain the best quality, and smaller file size. Does it really do that much? That's just opinion.

What is does is go through your video on the first pass looking for the fastest and slowest motion. It can encode the fast motion at the lower bitrates, and the slowest motions at the highest bitrates. On the second pass it does just that, use the lower bitrate for the fast areas, and high bitrate for the slowest.

The commercial DVDs are not burned, they are pressed. They also use very expensive encoders that do up to 20 pass encoding. Each pass looks for those points and continuously fine tunes the bitrates. They end up with video that uses a very low bitrate, around 4000kbps, for the quality they achieve. They can also fit more then 1 or 2 hours on a SL DVD using this. If you wanted to spend about $100,000 + on one of these encoders you could do almost the same. You still need to press the disc, rather than burn it.

[Ken Berry]

2Dogs -- I can absolutely and totally confirm that VS11/11+ (and for that matter VS10+) set Frame Based as the default project format and burning format, though the latter also converts the audio to Dolby dual channel. It's the first thing I have changed in the several installs/reinstalls I have done with VS11. And just last night I happened to install VS10+ on a back-up computer that runs XP, just so I can refer back to the program here if necessary. And it has Frame Based as the default. (Which reminds me I must change it!! )

I had simply assumed that it was Corel/InterVideo/Ulead going with the flow of high def/digital TVs which use progressive scan. And that of course is in some senses analogous to frame based... All a bit counter-intuitive from my own point of view. Similar to the fact that in VS setting DV Type 2 as the default on installation (at least in my PAL successive versions) when Type 1 turns out to be what VS seems much happier with...

[2Dogs]

Hi Ken,

well I probably spoke too soon about sensible defaults then! As Ron suggested, I no doubt changed the settings to lower field first when I first used VS11, and it latched onto that setting. I'm not about to do an uninstall and reinstall to prove it, so I'll take your word for it!

@Zam

I do use two pass encoding, which is only available when you encode to variable bitrate mpeg-2, and I believe that it does give a slight picture quality benefit for a given file or project size, which has to be balanced against the approximate doubling of the encoding time. If you have a swanky new fast pc like Ken, that should be no problem though!

As for the mpeg-2 quality on commercial pressed movie discs - and it commonly uses up to 9500kbps for the video bitrate - of course the studios start off with much better quality source footage than you or I can generate with our humble consumer camcorders.