Novice needs help w/ DVD burn

[MacroCy]

Hello,

This is my first time on this forum. As a novice, I'd appreciate any help that could be provided. I recently purchased a handheld Canon HD recorder and Video Studio Pro X6 to make movies of home videos of our kids. After watching several tutorials and reading everything I could, I figured out how to import and make an MP4 movie (I went to share tab, Create Video File). I saved this to an external drive and the quality is excellent. I burned it on a DVD and the quality is not excellent but pretty dang good. However, I'm unable to have a menu and chapters with that so under Share Tab I created a menu and chapters and burned it to a DVD (also as an ISO file on an external hardrive). However in both of these, the video quality is average to poor. There are "glitchy" horizontal lines visible. Is there a reason I would lose video quality when going to these formats? (I don't think it is the burner because the quality isn't good when I "Preview" prior to burning). My ultimate goal is to have reasonably good quality DVDs of our home videos. I'd also like to save the movies (with chapters/menus) on an external hard drive in a format that could later be burned onto whatever media is best in the future (whatever replaces DVD, Blue-Ray, etc). I'm looking for simple more than anything. I don't care about adding music, voice-overs, transitions, etc. Hope this isn't a dumb question. Again, I very much appreciate any guidance you can provide.

Ryan

[Ken Berry]

Hi Ryan -- welcome to the forum!

There are probably a couple of reasons why you got 'average to poor' video quality with the DVD. The first, obviously enough, is that your original video is high definition and thus high quality. A standard DVD, on the other hand, uses standard definition video (indeed, it has to be mpeg-2 and normally can use a bitrate of a maximum of around 8000 kbps to give the best standard def quality if the project is an hour or less long). Depending on what setting you used on your Canon (and also depending on what model Canon it is), on the other hand, the bitrate used on your original video from it was probably anything between 15000 kbps to 28000 kbps. In simplistic terms, the higher the bitrate, the higher the quality. So you will readily see that reducing the bitrate even to 8000 kbps for the standard def DVD also means a significant quality hit.

On top of that, your original video from the Canon is most likely what is called AVCHD, which is mpeg-4 video made with the h.264 codec. It is not only higher quality than standard def mpeg-2, but is much more highly compressed. Quite apart from the difference in bitrate, just the decompression required to convert it to less compressed mpeg-2 will also add some quality degradation.

And on top of that, it is also likely that your original video was what is called progressive or frame based. That again adds to the quality of high def video, though I won't for the moment go into the details of why this is. But if you just used the default DVD settings in Video Studio when you made your DVD, then it would have not used frame based settings but instead what is called Upper Field First, which roughly means that it converts a solid frame into two sets of alternating horizontal lines, one lot broadcast first followed a microsecond later by the second lot. The eye perceives them as being a single image, but in reality they aren't. In this case they started life as a single undivided frame, and splitting them this way means that the eye will perceive the sort of faults your describe. Clear as mud??? To make a better quality standard DVD with such footage you would need to choose Share > Create Video File > Custom. You'd choose mpeg-2 in 'Save As Type', and then on the Options dialogue box > General, you would choose Frame Based. The resulting video should at least not have the sort of jagged lines and other artefacts you describe -- though of course it would still be of significantly less quality than the original video.

A couple of other things. You said:

I burned it on a DVD and the quality is not excellent but pretty dang good.

How exactly did you burn it? Using Video Studio, or did you just burn it to a disc using Windows or some other program? I ask since if you did it this way, then you have in fact created what is called an archive or storage disc, even though it is video which is stored on it. I am surmising this since you said you couldn't create a menu for it. And the video would or should have the same quality as the original video.

There is another way of burning AVCHD video to a standard DVD disc. In Video Studio, this is done by finishing your project and then selecting Share > Create Disc > AVCHD. These are called 'hybrid' or AVCHD discs. In effect it creates a Blu-Ray folder and not a standard DVD folder on the disc. It can use a maximum bitrate in Video Studio of 18000 kbps, so is high definition and much higher quality than a standard def DVD. But there are limitations. Such discs can only be played on a Blu-Ray player, whether a stand-alone one or one in your computer. And if you use that 18000 kbps bitrate, you can only burn around 23 - 25 minutes on a single layer DVD, together with a menu. I suspect you did not do this, but it could be one way of achieving what you want to do, within those limitations.

As for your long range plans of saving your videos in a format which could be used in future, it is difficult to predict what new formats are going to appear. For the moment, all I can say is that if indeed your original video is AVCHD, then it is probably best to stick to that format and output your projects in that format. It can already be burned to Blu-Ray discs as it is one of the acceptable Blu-Ray formats. And you can store it on an external hard drive or USB stick drive, and with many modern HDTVs, these can be plugged directly into the TV for playback in the original high def quality. If your HDTV is slightly older, then the external drives can be plugged into a stand-alone Blu-Ray player which is connected to your HDTV via HDMI cable. And again the quality will be excellent.

And if in the future new formats and type of playback devices emerge, then I am equally confident that programs will be developed which will convert the AVCHD to the new formats. Mind you, since what is called 4K video already exists, which is several times the quality of current high definition video, you will in future probably suffer -- as we all will -- from the fact that what we currently regard as high definition, will fairly soon be compared as unfavourably to the new formats as I have already compared AVCHD to DVD-quality mpeg-2!!

[MacroCy]

Wow Ken. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

I spent about 3 hours online yesterday unsuccessfully trying to figure out what you just explained. I was so frustrated. I will try the custom, mpeg-2/Frame Based approach this weekend and if that is not high enough quality, I'll try the AVCHD. (I did look, my camera's original video is AVCHD/MPEG-4 as you suspected).

I burned the MP4 video (no menu) onto a DVD a few weeks ago and don't remember exactly how I did it. I think I used Roxio software?

I've been reading about the difference between MPEG4 and MP4 and I THINK I understand. For my long term storage on the external hard drive, I have the individual clips which show as file type MPEG-4. When I combine them into one clip (no menu) using Video Studio and save them to the external hard drive, they show property type as MP4. Are these still AVCHD format that you suggested for long term storage?

Again, thank you so much for your assistance. You don't know how much I appreciate it.

Ryan

[Ken Berry]

I've been reading about the difference between MPEG4 and MP4 and I THINK I understand.

In fact there is no difference as such. Apples are apples. But... and as usual there is a "but"... there are varieties of apples, just as there are varieties of mpeg-4. And in this case, it depends on the codec used to produce the mpeg-4. Your AVCHD is mpeg-4, as I said above, produced with the H.264 codec. However, normally it does not use the .mp4 extension. Normally it appears as xxxxx.m2ts or .mts and sometimes even .mpg (To muddy the waters a little further, it is, technically speaking, a sub-set of transport stream mpeg-2, but we won't go into that mess right now!!!) But it can and does use the .mp4 extension in some cases. The popular GoPro Hero action camcorders produces .mp4 videos, using that extension, but when you look at their properties, they are AVCHD using H.264. Moreover, there are even AVCHD files which use the .mov (Quicktime) extension.

And then of course there are other video files which use the .mp4 extension, produced by other codecs, and they can be high and standard definition. Video Studio can also produce a variety of these.

Which leads me to this:

When I combine them into one clip (no menu) using Video Studio and save them to the external hard drive, they show property type as MP4. Are these still AVCHD format that you suggested for long term storage?

That depends on what you did to produce the new clip. If you had used Video Studio instead of Roxio, you could select the obvious Share > Create Video File > and then one of the default MPEG-4 options offered, and then certainly your resulting file would be AVCHD as all those choices use the H.264 codec. But they will each produce different levels in quality. You would need to have chosen the top one (1920 x 1080) to get quality reasonably close to the original video. In fact, now that I think about it, this could be the reason you said in your first post that when you burned it to disc, it was not quite the same as the original but 'dang close'... That first MPEG-4 option only uses a bitrate of 15000 kbps which is probably less (and thus slightly lesser quality) than the original.

What you should be choosing is Share > Create Video File > AVCHD. If your original video is not fully progressive/frame based, then you would choose the top option under AVCHD. If however it is progressive, then you would choose the option down near the bottom of that drop down menu which offers (1920 x 1080 60p). It uses a default bitrate of 18000 kbps and thus would give better quality than a video at 15000 kbps. But you would need to right click on one of your original clips in the VS timeline or library window and look at its Properties to see whether it is progressive or not.

Now, I don't know how Roxio is set up, but I suspect that you chose an output option that was probably labelled 'mpeg-4' or 'mp4' rather than one labelled 'AVCHD'. If so, then you might not have AVCHD on that disc but some other flavour of mpeg-4. Again, you would need to either import the video from that disc into your computer, insert it in Video Studio, and right click to see its Properties, in order to see exactly what you produced. Or use a freeware program called Media Info which will tell you the same thing, though with more details than you would ever want to know!!

[MacroCy]

That is very helpful. Thank you so much!

I'll give it a try this weekend.

Thanks again,

Ryan

[MacroCy]

Ok, I've been playing around a little with this. As a reminder, my two goals are to 1) burn a reasonably good quality DVD (with menu/chapters) and 2) store the movie on an external drive (which it sounds like will not be able to be with a menu/chapters).

In regards to goal 1: As you said, I went to Share > Create Video File > Custom. (it was already frame based under dialogue box > General). In 'Save As Type', I don't see mpeg-2 as an option. I see MPEG Transport-Stream (*.m2t) and MPEG files (*.mpg) as well as mpeg-4 and several other options that don't have mpeg in them. Any thoughts? As a trial run, I chose MPEG Transport Stream and when I saved it and checked properties, it shows up as an AVCHD file. So my questions from that are: what do I choose to get mpeg-2? And--when I saved it as the .m2t file, it doesn't have a menu/chapter. How do I get that format to a disk with menu/chapters?

Regarding goal 2) How do I determine from the video properties if it is progressive or not? I don't see that in the description but perhaps I'm not looking in the right spot?

Last question......Are you frustrated with my ignorance yet?

Again, really appreciate your help. It doesn't feel like my goals are unreasonable but they sure haven't been easy for me to accomplish.

Ryan

[Ken Berry]

That sounds *very* strange that you can't see plain old vanilla flavoured "MPEG files (*.mpg)"... It is a rock standard feature of all versions of VS, and usually appears as the default option under 'Save As Type"...

MPEG Transport Stream, as I suggested above, is associated with High Definition video these days and can be either Blu-Ray compatible mpeg-2 or AVCHD mpeg-4... So that is not what you want for your standard def DVD. So all I can suggest is that you have another look at what comes up first off in the Save As Type line when you first open that Custom dialogue box... It should look like the image I have attached. It won't say |mpeg-2" -- just MPEG. But that is what you are after.

And--when I saved it as the .m2t file, it doesn't have a menu/chapter.

"Create Video File" is done in the Editing module of Video Studio. Creation of a menu and chapters is part of the "authoring" process, which is done in the burning module. Once you have produced a new video file in the Editing module -- be it standard def mpeg-2 or high def .m2t(s) -- you then select Share > Create Disc > DVD (or Blu-Ray or AVCHD, depending on what type of disc you want to produce). You add your newly created video using the first (left hand) icon (Add Video Files) under Add Media up in the top left of the burning screen, then click the Menu & Preview tab to create a menu. Choose a template and proceed from there. Note that you can create chapter points in the editing module, but quite a few of us prefer to do that in the burning module (before you choose your Menu template). There have been problems in the past with the loss of names you assign the chapter points in the Editing module.

How do I determine from the video properties if it is progressive or not?

The alternative to progressive (or frame based, which is the same thing) is in the case of high def video, Upper Field First as I tried to explain above. If Upper Field First does not appear anywhere in the Properties box when you have one of your high def videos in the timeline, then it is definitely progressive. Note that in the Options box, the word progressive is not used -- instead it is "Frame Based" which originated with standard def video, but applies equally to progressive high def video.

This will be even more the case if the frame rate is shown as 60 fps (or 50 for PAL systems). Note, however, that video can also be progressive using a frame rate of 29.97 fps (sometimes shown as 30 fps) or 25 fps for PAL; and even 24 fps which is what is called cinema quality. But I would avoid the latter until you get a bit more experience. (Indeed, in all my years of video editing, I have never used 24p video...) Note here, however, that these frame rates will only be fully progressive if Upper Field First does not appear in the Properties box.

Last question......Are you frustrated with my ignorance yet?

Not at all! We all have to start somewhere, and that's what we're here for. I started video editing about 13 years ago, using different editing software, but it was when I changed over to Video Studio in version 7 and discovered the predecessor to this Board, that I started to learn what to do -- helped enormously by the then Moderators and other users of the Board. So don't be shy!!

[MacroCy]

Ok. We're getting closer, I promise!

I found the MPEG under 'Save As'. I was looking for something that specifically said mpeg-2. Mystery solved there....

Under properties, I don't see Upper Field First anywhere so I'll assume it is progressive.

Here is where I'm confused. In your latest response you note that the "Create Video File" is done under the Editing Tab but I only see it under the Share Tab (and in your original explanation, you told me to go to Share > Create Video File > Custom). At the top of my screen I have 3 tabs: 1) Capture 2) Edit 3)Share. The video that I created from the clips from our video camera is an mpeg-4. (When I look under properties). I don't see how to create the mpeg-2 within the edit tab. Within the edit tab, I'm simply dragging the mpeg-4 clips down that I've imported from the camera into one continuous mpeg-4 video in the timeline. Then to burn my original DVD which ended up being poor quality, I went to the Share Tab > Create Disc > DVD > created my menu and chapters and burned it to the disc. I understand it needs to mpeg-2 when I burn it on the disc, but I guess I'm still unclear how to get it done. I understand it needs to be before I get to the burning stage, but do not see how to do it under the editing tab.

And now to further add to the confusion, when I was looking at the tabs to explain above, I went to the Create disc > DVD and the new window popped up. In the lower left corner, there is a tab labeled 'Project Settings'. Out of curiosity, I clicked on that and it says this in the upper box:

MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-NTSC), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 256 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

I see 'Upper Field First' so maybe it is not progressive? Also I clicked on 'Change MPEG Settings'. There was an option for MPEG-2 and I checked on it. (actually the properties I pasted above may have been AFTER on checked on MPEG-2). Now I'm worried I changed some default setting and have it all screwed up.

I've looked and do not see a training/you tube video to walk me through this stuff. It is all about transitioning, adding sounds, etc.-----advanced things that at this point I'm not interested in and sure as heck am not ready for.......

Thank you,
Ryan

[Ken Berry]

In your latest response you note that the "Create Video File" is done under the Editing Tab but I only see it under the Share Tab

The problem is that I did *not* say that. I referred to the editing module, not tab. Video Studio consists of two modules -- the editing one which has those three tabs (Capture/Edit/Share) and is designed to edit and produce new video files, not discs. The production of discs, including menus, is done in the burning module, opened by Share > Create Disc > and then one of the disc choices.

And to produce a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 from your progressive high def mpeg-4, you do as I have already described: Share > Create Video File > Custom. A dialogue box opens and you choose MPEG as the type of format. Then you hit the Options button. A new dialogue box appears and you choose the General tab. If your project is less than an hour long, the only thing you need to change is "Frame Type" which as I said, you change to Frame Based. If your project is longer than an hour, then you go to the Compression tab and lower the bitrate from the default 8000 kbps. As a general guide, a 90 minute project will require a bitrate of 6000 kbps to fit on a single layer DVD and a 2 hour project will use a bitrate of around 4000 kbps. Note also that changing the audio format from standard LPCM to Dolby will give you an extra 10 minutes of space you can use to burn extra video to disc as Dolby is more heavily compressed, thus taking up less room, than LPCM.

And yes, the burning module also has that Project Settings icon, and will show those properties when you open it. But if you look down a bit from the Properties box, you will see something which is all important in our editing/burning process. There is a box, which is ticked by default, saying 'Do not convert compliant MPEG files'. I stress again this is of the utmost importance. In the editing module you have produced a new, standard def and DVD compatible mpeg-2 -- in other words it is compliant with the international DVD standards. So it is important to leave that Do Not Convert box ticked. When you insert your new mpeg-2 into the burning timeline, it is already a 'compliant MPEG file' and thus will not be converted to what that Properties box says because it is already compliant. In other words, those Properties are only used if the video you insert into the burning module is *not* compliant with the international DVD standards. And if it isn't, then you can change the Properties in that box by hitting the 'Change MPEG Settings' immediately below the box, as you have already found, and again choosing Customize.

But don't worry that you have screwed something up. As long as that Do Not Convert box is ticked, and as long as you have inserted a compliant mpeg-2 file in the burning module, that Properties box is irrelevant.

One important footnote here: if, when you open the burning module, there is something already in its timeline, delete it as it will not be video as such but your project file (a .vsp file is a small text file telling the program what is in a project, where the video clips in it are located, and what editing has been done to them). A simple way of avoiding this happening is back in the Editing module. Once you have produced your new mpeg-2, you go to File > New Project. Don't bother giving the project a name -- the objective is merely to clear the Editing module timeline. Then when you open the burning module, its timeline is automatically empty. But as I say, if something is already there, delete it and use the Insert Video Files button up in the top left of the burning screen.

[MacroCy]

Ok, now that I understand the difference between "editing module" and "edit tab", things make a lot more sense.

I followed your instructions and burned a DVD using MPEG video and it is much better than my original attempts. Not great (as you said), but much better. Interestingly, it looks better playing on my computer than on my tv. Probably because the screen is smaller and shows fewer imperfections.....

I also saved the file as an AVCHD. It is a large file (over 8 million KB) and took a long time (approx. 4 hrs). I don't think the MP4 took that long but, of course the file is smaller.....closer to 5 million KB. That may also be a function of my computer as well. Since we don't know what media will be available to store these files in the future, would it make sense for me to store an MPEG-4 file along with the AVCHD? Or is that unneeded redundancy. I just want to be sure I've got files I can work with in the future.

Oh, and one last question (I promise)---when I made the AVCHD file it also created a small .upd file. I'm assuming I need to keep that?

In any event, it looks like, thanks to your help, I've got it figured out now. Again, I VERY much appreciate all the time you spent walking me through this. I know I never would have figured that out without your help.

Best wishes,

Ryan

[Ken Berry]

...would it make sense for me to store an MPEG-4 file along with the AVCHD?

As I said above, AVCHD *is* mpeg-4, only using a different codec. But there is simply no sense saving in two flavours of mpeg-4. Many would in any case say that AVCHD is the better format version of mpeg-4, and it is also already Blu-Ray compliant (and thus more likely to be easily converted to whatever might replace Blu-Ray in future). Even though you have produced a bigger file, if you have the space, then don't worry -- though by that I am not saying save in both formats...

As for the .upd file, Video Studio seems to produce those whenever it is producing any flavour of mpeg file (be it mpeg-2 or mpeg-4/AVCHD). But it does not seem to be necessary to later playback when you transfer the video alone to some other drive. You can delete it if you like, though those files are usually pretty small...

And you're certainly welcome!! Come back with further questions as and when they arise. We'll try to answer those too!!