MP4 vs Mpeg-2 for burning DVDs

[Berzelius]

At the moment my camera produces 16:9 HD MP4 video clips, either 1280x720, 25fps or 1920x1080, 25fps.

My typical project consists of a fair number of the these clips. I divide these into a small number of groups and I then edit each group using VS Pro X7.

At this stage I normally produce a VSP for each of the edited groups. I then burn the DVD using the VSPs.

However, on occasion, I have found it useful, rather than producing VSPs, to render each edited group as an Mpeg-2 file (720x576, 16:9, 25p, 8Mbps). I then burn the DVD, either using the Mpeg-2 files directly or by adding them to the timeline, inserting any necessary title and transitions, and then burning the DVD.

My question is: would there be any difference in the quality of the DVDs produced using the above alternative methods?

[BrianCee]

how are you going to be using/playing the DVD's ?

[Ken Berry]

Since you are already producing discs using the two methods you describe, surely you yourself can spot any differences in quality between the two. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

Notionally, both types of disc should be roughly the same in quality since the same program is producing them both and using the same mpeg-2 codec -- though one conversion to mpeg-2 takes place in the Edit module, and the other as part of the Burn process.

About the only real possible difference I can think of might be caused by the length of your projects. If they are an hour or less, then using the Edit module conversion, you can accept the default DVD/mpeg-2 settings, including the high quality 8000 kbps bitrate. But if, say, your projects done by burning the VSP files, exceed one hour, then you would need to reduce the default settings in the burn module to reduce the bitrate to make the project fit on a DVD. Reducing the bitrate of course will reduce the quality, though this will depend on how much the bitrate is reduced. But you could probably notice a different quality in this situation. (Equally, of course, the same could happen if you had projects longer than an hour in the Edit module method.)

But in the end, as I said at the outset, if the results of both methods appear good to you on your big screen TV, then that is really all that matters.

[Berzelius]

Thanks for the replies. I think that clears things up for me.