Settings for BEST video quality

[treker]

New user of VS9 (P**** Studio 9 render hung once too often).

I have been successfully using the default 80% Quality DV capture setting. Then I read how to change this to 100% qualtiy...and I am now getting DV Transcoding after four min of capturing. It has paused my capture... What is this TRANSCODING? It takes a long time? Should I back off this setting to 80%?? What is the actual loss in quality? Visible in a DVD on a standard TV, not HDTV?

When I create disk, there is an options menu where you can change the video quality and audio settings. I have been using one of the presets: HQ 4:3. It always increased my disk space required - which I thought would be a good thing to maximize quality??? But then I went into custom mode and saw the video was only at 80% and speed was variable 7000. When I changed it to 100% and variable 8000, the disk space required was slightly reduced! I also selected double encode. Wouldn't that make better rendering? Is default setting ONLY one pass?

All my videos are about 60min. I want the BEST quality I can get in 4.7gb single layer disks. What should my settings be set to?

Are there any settings throughout the program that I should change. Like Capture Type 1 or Type 2. Type 1 sounds better by keeping things together?

I LIKE this program. Consistently creates good disks. Relatively easy to learn edit and titling and effects.

[Ken Berry]

This brings me to one of my favourite hobby-horses: the quality slider. I have been using VS for over three years now, and simply never play with the quality slider. I have never had any problems. In fact, it is slightly a misnomer because what it represents is really a compromise between the speed of rendering measured against the degree of care the program takes in examining each bit of the project before it renders. Ulead obviously thinks the 80% default setting marks the best compromise between achieving high quality output and an acceptable time-frame for rendering. Setting it to 100% means that the program will take (a lot?) more time to render. While the end quality might indeed be of a higher quality, I am by no means convinced that this difference is noticeable to the human eye. Anyway, so much for my rant!!

The other problem with moving to 100% is the one you have discovered. If your computer is not overly endowed with resources, then it can't keep up with the speed and volume of processes involved in the more meticulous examination of your clip as it is being rendered. So there is a back-up which is put in a buffer, in this case called a transcoding buffer. The program will then pause while the information in that buffer is processed, and the buffer is thus emptied so that it can take on another load! Hence the stop/start effect.

RE Type 1 or 2 -- you have probably reached the right conclusion to use Type 1, but for the wrong reason. Again, this is probably related to the problem you have encountered setting the quality slider to 100%. To capture using Type 2 DV encoder requires more computer resources than Type 1. And you will soon notice if your computer is not up to the job, in choppy video and/or audio. But while Type 2 captures separate video and audio streams, these do not appear as separate files as you seem to think -- they are 'still together' in one file.

If you are only going to produce DVDs which are about one hour long, then your settings for highest quality in NTSC land would be 'NTSC DVD, 720 x 480, Lower Field First (depending on the source of your capture), 29.97 fps, VBR max. 8000 kbps, LPCM audio or Dolby AC-3 audio'.

A note on the audio: a lot of people in NTSC land use mpeg layer 2 audio, and have a variety of problems. Even though most modern stand-alone DVD players are pretty forgiving these days (especially the cheaper ones), you need to bear in mind that mpeg audio is NOT part of the NTSC DVD standard, and so cannot be guaranteed to play in every stand-alone player. This is a factor you need to remember when distributing your masterpieces to friends who will have, of course, a wide variety of players. LPCM audio is certainly the NTSC standard, and is excellent, but the downside is that it produces large files. But you should still be able to fit one hour of video on a single layer disc using it with the above specifications, and produce an excellent quality DVD. Dolby produces a much smaller size, about the same as mpeg audio, and is still excellent. Its size means that you can fit more video on the disc. For example, using it (and the above specifications, though adjusted for PAL) I have just fitted 1 hr 15 minutes on a single layer DVD, with full moving menus and background music.

RE single and dual pass encode. This is a new development in VS9. Single pass is the default, though was the sole choice in previous versions. It is used in VBR because again it is supposed to ensure that the best level of 'variable' is chosen according to what is needed in various parts of the clip. Essentially the program goes through a first pass, examines the clip, and decides whether particular parts might need particular tweaking, and then it does that tweaking on the second pass. So again, you should end up with a better quality end product. I guess I am a bit of a hypocrite on this, but unlike the quality slider, this one I actually use, even though it can almost double the length of time taken for an encode. I also confess that I cannot see any observable difference in the end quality between the single and two pass encodes!

[Eric VS9]

" LPCM audio is certainly the NTSC standard, and is excellent, but the downside is that it produces large files. But you should still be able to fit one hour of video on a single layer disc using it with the above specifications, and produce an excellent quality DVD. Dolby produces a much smaller size, about the same as mpeg audio, and is still excellent. Its size means that you can fit more video on the disc "

Is There a downside to Dolby audio I have used VS8 with LPCM audio
and very little problems hundreds and hundreds of DVDs
Since using VS9 with Dolby I seem to be having
more problems with customers DVDs skipping and compatibility

[treker]

Ken...Thank You for the clear answers and helpful information. I and probably many others on the forum appreciate. I will keep capture at the default quality level as you pointed out. I will experiment with 2 pass encode and see if the increase in rendering is worth it.

Incidentally, I interupted the 100% Quality capture and then tried to delete the mpg. And from that point on, VS9 would fatally crash and have to shut down. Since it was a trial version and I had just received the full version in the mail today, I didn't care too much. I tried to uninstall SmartTracks, QuickTime and VS9. Varying success. I then went thru the Uninstall Trial Version as described in a post today on the forum. Then installed full VS9. Completed successfully but when entering the program for the first time, got the shut down error again. Uninstalled, deleted, and cleaned files up as described my the poster. The second install went fine and I am enjoying the full VS9. D/l the latest updates. Capturing my first video with full version as I type on another PC. So, my advice is to be perserverent.

I will be uninstalling P**** Studio 9 shortly from my machine.

Thanks

[2Dogs]

Whilst I would tend to agree with Ken's comments regarding the quality slider, you only have to try capturing with it set to a very low level to see that it does in fact affect the captured video quality.

My understanding is that VS assesses your system when you install it, and it sets the slider accordingly. My own system was set to 80% by the program, but by minimising the number of services running (to a minimum of 11 including VS9 in my case) I am able to get up to 89% on the quality slider before the dread "Flushing transcode buffer" message appears.

To be honest, I'm not sure that I could distinguish between footage captured at 80% and the same footage captured at 89% in a double blind test.

What will actually make far more difference is your workflow. Any editing of MPEG-2 clips will result in undesirable artefacts and a loss of quality. In view of the fact that you have a 250Gb WD drive (I also have one myself) you might have sufficient disk space to work with avi clips instead, and use the workflow described in the recommended procedure. That being said, however, if you're not actually applying any filters, effects or transitions in your projects, your chosen workflow will result in an overall time saving and a saving in disk space.