Capture quality / reducing quality after project complete

allbenny · Post by **allbenny** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:38 pm

Not really a problem as much of a question
If i have a few hours of video that I want to put on 1 4.7 GB DVD,can I / should change my settings when I capture it from say (8000 bits?) to (4000 bits) so project will be smaller, I understand less quality, or can I capture at a better quality and then render to a smaller size. Is this possible, does any of it make a difference? Is one way better then the other?
Thanks

erock1 · Post by **erock1** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 3:11 pm

I'll share what I do. Others on the VS forum do have differing opinions and methods.

To start, I'm assuming that your video is from a camcorder.
With that as a given,
1: I capture my footage in it's native format as DV.avi.
2: After all capturing and editing are done, I render to an mpeg2 using the highest bitrate, 8,000 and convert the audio to AC3 (currently using VS11+)
3: After the rendering is complete I author in my menus, etc. (VS11+)
4: I then output to "video folders" (ISO)
5: I then use another external program called "Shrink" to analyze the above mpeg2 and add compression as necessary.
6: I then burn to DVD.

I have been using Shrink . IMHO, I have never really noticed a degraded final product.

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 3:13 pm

What is the source of your material?

If you are caputring in DV then you can simply save you project to different MPEG settings and burn the one you wish to the disk.

I do this all the time where I save one file that is destined for DVD while I save another one that is destined for a family website. Each one is from the same project.

Now, if your source is MPEG already, you may have degredation in quality to some extent but if it is simply an 8000 bitrate file rendered to a lesser bitrate file it should be fine.

allbenny · Post by **allbenny** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 3:50 pm

Thanks but...
I'm just a guy trying to put about 3 hrs of my sons wrestling matches from vhs onto a dvd. I dont know alot of the stuff you guys do (MPEG, AVI). I downloaded trial version and got everything on there, edited it, all that, but was to big for dvd. Tried a couple times. For some reason with trial version wouldnt let me capture in any other than HQ (9000) and GQ(8000), bought full version, hopeing I could capture at a different rate or something,havent tried yet, and just wanted some info which would be easiest,not to concered with quality to fit all on a single dvd.

Thanks again

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 3:55 pm

Please read From Camcorder to DVD, and check out the Tutorials forum (link is below my signature).

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 4:13 pm

allbenny wrote:Thanks but...
I'm just a guy trying to put about 3 hrs of my sons wrestling matches from vhs onto a dvd. I dont know alot of the stuff you guys do (MPEG, AVI). I downloaded trial version and got everything on there, edited it, all that, but was to big for dvd. Tried a couple times. For some reason with trial version wouldnt let me capture in any other than HQ (9000) and GQ(8000), bought full version, hopeing I could capture at a different rate or something,havent tried yet, and just wanted some info which would be easiest,not to concered with quality to fit all on a single dvd.

Thanks again

Right click on the video file in VS and choose properties. What are the properties of the file?

erock1 · Post by **erock1** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 7:04 pm

allbenny wrote:Thanks but...
I'm just a guy trying to put about 3 hrs of my sons wrestling matches from vhs onto a dvd.

allbenny,
just keep in mind that you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear

You are starting with VHS quality video (sow's ear). If you wanted to reduce the bitrate to fit 3hrs. of video on a standard 4.7GB DVD, you would have to go down to about 3100. IMHO, the resulting video would be awful. If you were to watch this on a big screen TV, it would be worse than awful.

You say that you've already captured the VHS footage and finished editing. Render (convert) what you have using the GQ8000 template. Then just follow the steps I provided for compressing using Shrink.

Check out this discussion I had, it will also provide help:
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=28860

If you send me a PM, I'll let you know more but we're not supposed to talk about other programs here, especially where to get them.

Good luck,
Erock