DVDMax output - ooo it's ugly

[Doobie_Brother]

In my continuing quest to archive material in a way that would allow me to produce videotape output at a later time (if needed), I started experimenting with MPEG4 v2 and DVDMax. I have a Marvel G400-TV.

Basically, I capture in YUY2 with HuffyUV. Then I filter and compress the audio and video streams. Right now, the smallest, best-looking compression codec for PC playback seems to be MS MPEG4 v2. So I use MPEG4 v2 to compress my source video and play it back to my computer monitor. It looks good. However, when I reflect this output to my TV via DVDMax, it looks crappy.

I am a little puzzled. AFAIK, TV resolution is something like 352x240 or 320x240. My captures either at 704x480 or 640x480 or 352x480 or 352x240 look blocky on the TV even after being carefully filtered and compressed at maximum bitrates (6000).

Has anyone found a good solution to this problem? Basically, I would like to capture video and archive it to CD in a way that would permit me to write to VHS later if need be. I imagine that other people are doing this but I can't seem to figure out what color format, resolution, filters, and compression settings to use. Please help.

[Sciascia]

Do you have a wa to actually check the bitrate of your video? I know that when I first used MS MPEG4, the sliders would move, but seemed to have no effect. I hacked mine up with a hex editor for 6000 and 75 for crispness defaults and it works well. Did you try capturing straight to MPEG4? You wouldn't have to recompress--eliminating time and a "generation loss." I personally have no luck with filters, maybe some others have, but everytime I think about touching one, things go south really fast.

Settings I use are 352*240 29.97fps, MS MPEG4v3 at 6000 bitrate 75 crispness--audio at 44.1 kHz PCM and captured with avi io.

[Flying dutchman]

I'd go for SVCD using tMpegencoder. It's better than VHS, but you'll only get about 25-30 minutes on a cdrom. I have just started experimenting with this myself. A colleague has bought one of those cheap Yamakawa players, and I'm going to check for compatibility next week.

[Doobie_Brother]

I guess I don't really know what bitrate I'm encoding at. I read somewhere that installing the DivX codec can screw up the M$ MPEG4 codecs. However, I tried encoding at several different bitrates from 3000 to 6000 and each encoded clip looked different and slightly better (sold black shirt served as a good frame of reference) than the one that preceded it. I know what you mean about filters though - the more you try, the more problems seem to arise. I know that video is subjective and that different clips call for different settings but it sure would be nice to have sort of a canned set of filters to start off with.

I will try VCD/SVCD when I get a new DVD player to experiment with. SVCD is promising but very few people seem 100% satisfied with their results.

Are you guys generally happy with the way your non dmb1 clips look on DVDMax? Maybe I'm just too picky but blockiness that can't be seen on my high res monitor makes me cringe on my el-cheapo television set. Oh well.

[This message has been edited by Doobie_Brother (edited 08 August 2000).]

[AVATAR-X]

One point I would like to make (and correct me if I'm wrong), isn't T.V. resolution 704x480 (NTSC) - in other words the highest setting you can do with a Marvel. If nothing else it should be 640x480 (High-Res mode for present console game systems).

That does not include HD T.V.'s which can get 720 or 1080 vertical lines of resolution.

About the Marvels output, my clips seemed really good, and lacking of much in the way of artifacts. Unfortunetly I had to tweak the color and sharpness on my t.v. to get it to look quite right.

[Dr Mordrid]

Lets not forget using the proper color settings for DVDMax as well. For video editing the more proper settings are along these lines;

NTSC

Brightness: 180
Contrast: 234
Saturation: 137
Hue: 0

PAL

Brightness: 167
Contrast: 255
Saturation: 138
Hue: 0

Check your installation to see if these are close. Use them in the DVDMax settings, not the Desktop TV settings.

Dr. Mordrid




[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 08 August 2000).]