MPEG2 > MP4 Smallest Size & Best Quality

[vs95]

Hello,

Got a Blueray player with a USB port so I don't need dvd's any more for my homemade videos. What settings & formats do I need to get my MPEG2 DVD files small and sharp like those movies downloaded off the internet? My videos have bitrates 8000 and smaller and 1.5 - 2.0 hr take up 4g. Those off the internet are 900 bit rate and are about 600-700 mb and are crystal clear. I've converted some 5000 bit rate files to MP4 H.264 (what my Blueray player uses) at 1000 & 1500 bit rate and they are still pretty large and not as clear as the originals. I could sure store a lot of videos @ 700 mb on a memory stick vs 1.5 or 2 gig files I've been able to convert to MP4's but don't want to loose quality especially if I want to delete the masters.

Thanks

[lata]

Hi

"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear “ comes to mind.

You are trying to increase the frame size of Mpeg2 (720 x 576 Pal) to 1920 x 1080 for full HD.
Then intend to show that on a much larger screen, the quality is obviously gonna suffer.

Given that some of your originals may use a 4000kbps ish data rate you are not starting with the best quality for Mpeg2. (4000 is equivalent to 2 hrs of VHS quality)

The video from the internet probably started as full HD and then down-sized which would retain the quality rather than upscaling.

Try converting to Mpeg2 Transport Stream for quality.

What are the originals like when played via the USB, I assume the auto updating used by the HD Player would be good.

[vs95]

Very interesting!! I would have thought converting a 5000k MPEG-2 file to 1000k MP4 would end up with the same quality as a 8000k MPEG-2 file to 1000k MP4. The best quality my video capture card will do is 720x480 8000k NTSC.

I believe those videos I referred to I found on the internet were compressed to 900k bit and 600mb were to fit on a cd for backup purposes or whatever but they are very clear. So taking a DVD or HiDef and converting them to 900k bitrate would produce a better quality MP4 than an 8000k bit rate MPEG-2 I captured myself?

Most of my videos were captured at a bit rate to fit on a 4.3g dvd disk. I tried to make it just under the size limit so it didn't need to downsize. I've been editing videos for a long time and VS used to have severe lip sync problems that increased the more you downsized or made fit to DVD. Playing those videos on my dvd/blue ray player are decent quality.


Given I have MPEG-2 files or DVD's I made ranging from 8000k - 5000k, what's my best MP4 settings to get smaller files to fit on a USB stick and have at least the same quality as the masters? Is there a way to say an 8000k MPEG-2 would be about the same quality as a xxxxk MP4?

Thanks

[lata]

Hi

What MP4 templates have you tried? Are you using h264 compression?

Share Upload to Web – You Tube - MPEG-4 HD (16:9) will render to 1280 x 720 x 5000kbps. The quality is good, I guess Corel feel the data rate is suitable for a quality video.

[vs95]

Hi

What MP4 templates have you tried? Are you using h264 compression?

The Sony blue ray player likes h264

[Ken Berry]

Have you looked at DivX/XVid? Those are of course heavily compressed, yet high quality forms of mpeg-4, though they use the .avi extension. Many of the compressed videos to which you refer, which can fit on a CD, are in fact DivX/XVid. Moreover, just about every DVD player - and Blu-Ray player -- ever made can detect and play DivX/XVid movies.

While VS can convert to and from DivX and XVid, the free version of DivX comes with a converter where you drag and drop your, say, mpeg-2 and it is converted to DivX.