@jak.willis

If you set the bit rate correctly you won't notice a difference between the two. The only difference will be the constant bitrate file will be larger than the variable. You keep going on about the quality, but DVD has it's own limits you can't improve on. Very good DVD players with have better decoders than cheaper units. You will gain more quality on playback from a better playback unit than from small gains made in encoding between variable and constant bitrates. You just have to be careful matching the highest bitrate of the file to the encoding you intend to do whichever way you chose to encode it. Then again, if you use a DVD on a good quality TV with a high contrast ratio you may see the defects of the DVD limitations. BluRay is much better for normal HD TVs which generally have an 8bit screen until you get into OLED territory.

Hi,

I did what you said about checking what the overall bitrate of the highest bitrate file is and applied that to the output bitrate in Magix. It burned to disc successfully, however it missed out most of the video. So it only burned the first part. Any idea why this is?

My guess would be the file size was too large to fit on the disc. Single DVDs are a maximum of 4.7gig. One reason you should let the authoring software work out the compression ratio unless you want to use more than one disc. You originally asked how to get the best quality but if you chose a compression logarithm a DVD can't read the software would re-encode it to one that can and that could increase the file size. There should have been some sort of indicator telling you how much of the file should fit onto a disc.

My guess would be the file size was too large to fit on the disc. Single DVDs are a maximum of 4.7gig. One reason you should let the authoring software work out the compression ratio unless you want to use more than one disc. You originally asked how to get the best quality but if you chose a compression logarithm a DVD can't read the software would re-encode it to one that can and that could increase the file size. There should have been some sort of indicator telling you how much of the file should fit onto a disc.

Well, I knew that it would be too large to fit on a single layer disc, that’s why I used a dual layer disc, and the program said it could fit the project on that. However, when I play it back on the TV it has missed off most of the video even though it said it had burned successfully.

@CubeAce, @jak.willis

. . . . You just have to be careful matching the highest bitrate of the file to the encoding you intend to do whichever way you chose to encode it. . . . .

In the context of the DVD dialog advanced settings, the bitrate slider adjustment affects the video bitrate proportionally more than the audio is a small fraction of the total bitrate and increasing this can improve the quality of the DVD image.

However there is a gotcha with increasing the bitrate slider too far. The default value is that which is acceptable to most DVD players and gives a good quality video image, increasing this setting can render a disc unplayable in some players, so it is best not to adjust this.

The bigger issue is that DVD played back on a HD TV, ie 1920 x 1080 or 4K TV, the image quality is going to be poor and dependant on the quality of the DVD player's or TV's upscaling algorithms.

For HD or 4KTV you really need to be burning Blu-Ray (BD) and using a BD player.

HTH

John EB

@johnebaker

I agree with everything you say John and agree that for best quality Blu-Ray would be the way to go. DVD is not really meant for HD output as the format was concieved before the advent of HD and meant for analog TV.

Hi

If you set the bit rate correctly you won't notice a difference between the two. The only difference will be the constant bitrate file will be larger than the variable.

This is a little misleading in terms of a discussion about encoding for DVD where there is a maximum bitrate allowable for reliable DVD playback. In this case VBR will always give a better shot at the highest quality if you are encoding from a high quality / bitrate original. For a movie with scenes with variable detail and action VBR will make best use of the available target bitrate by saving bits from quiet, uncomplex scenes for use on ones with more detail and action. CBR on the other hand will throw the same amount of bits at every frame regardless of it's content requiring you to set a higher bitrate than is ideal to cover the complex scenes requirements, while wasting bits on scenes that do not need it.

Peter

@jak.willis

Can I ask how long the video is please and what file format did you save the edited file to?

These are two questions I should have, but omitted from asking, the first time. Then maybe we may have more clues as to what is going wrong for you. Also did the DVD that you burned and was missing the end of the file, play back OK on a non computer based DVD player? Did the whole file play on the PC but not with the TV setup? If so maybe your problem could be that the TV DVD player can't read a dual layer disc.

Hi

If you set the bit rate correctly you won't notice a difference between the two. The only difference will be the constant bitrate file will be larger than the variable.

This is a little misleading in terms of a discussion about encoding for DVD where there is a maximum bitrate allowable for reliable DVD playback. In this case VBR will always give a better shot at the highest quality if you are encoding from a high quality / bitrate original. For a movie with scenes with variable detail and action VBR will make best use of the available target bitrate by saving bits from quiet, uncomplex scenes for use on ones with more detail and action. CBR on the other hand will throw the same amount of bits at every frame regardless of it's content requiring you to set a higher bitrate than is ideal to cover the complex scenes requirements, while wasting bits on scenes that do not need it.

Peter

 

Hi Peter,

thank you for this information. The thing with VBR, however, is that I struggle to understand what I’m supposed to put in as the average bitrate, minimum bitrate & maximum bitrate. Could you help me out with that?

@jak.willis

Can I ask how long the video is please and what file format did you save the edited file to?

These are two questions I should have, but omitted from asking, the first time. Then maybe we may have more clues as to what is going wrong for you. Also did the DVD that you burned and was missing the end of the file, play back OK on a non computer based DVD player? Did the whole file play on the PC but not with the TV setup? If so maybe your problem could be that the TV DVD player can't read a dual layer disc.

Hello,

Okay, so this is what I’ve been doing. I have been taking files from an already existing DVD, importing them into the program and making very small trims to the files and adding chapter markers. From there I went straight to the burn menu to burn to a DVD disc. I created a DVD menu and then proceeded to the encoding/export tab. From here I then took the overall bit rate from the file with the highest overall bitrate and matched it to the output bitrate for the DVD (as you advised.) The only other thing I did in the encoding/burn dialog is ask it to smart render (it said it could but no idea if it actually did), and then began the encoding/burning process. It completed successfully. I then tested it on my Blu-ray Player and also a DVD player.

Also, no, the same issue happens whether playing it on a DVD/BD player or the computer.

@jak.willis

Well if it was a commercial DVD and not homemade, then the encoding probably took place using hardware encoders using a variable bit method. The compression ratios may be somewhat higher than can be achieved with software endcoding and even using variable bit encoding may not reduce the file size enough to fit back onto a disc. Commercial companies can pay tens of thousands for such hardware encoders for just that reason. What I'm puzzled over is you mention that MEP says the file fits. I've only previously encountered this problem burning audio CDs in the distant past, where in theory the information fits but the reading laser doesn't manage to travel far enough across to the edge of the disc to read the file fully and ends up either giving up or skipping towards the end of the disc on players other than the authoring machine. I've never seen this behaviour in DVD players. It certainly shouldn't happen with a Blu-Ray player. If you have chosen constant bit over a variable bit though, you would have increased the file size by some margin at the same bitrate. As I and others have said, there really isn't anything to be gained by using constant bit rates and while it maybe feasible isn't really necessary or desirable.

@jak.willis

Well if it was a commercial DVD and not homemade, then the encoding probably took place using hardware encoders using a variable bit method. The compression ratios may be somewhat higher than can be achieved with software endcoding and even using variable bit encoding may not reduce the file size enough to fit back onto a disc. Commercial companies can pay tens of thousands for such hardware encoders for just that reason. What I'm puzzled over is you mention that MEP says the file fits. I've only previously encountered this problem burning audio CDs in the distant past, where in theory the information fits but the reading laser doesn't manage to travel far enough across to the edge of the disc to read the file fully and ends up either giving up or skipping towards the end of the disc on players other than the authoring machine. I've never seen this behaviour in DVD players. It certainly shouldn't happen with a Blu-Ray player. If you have chosen constant bit over a variable bit though, you would have increased the file size by some margin at the same bitrate. As I and others have said, there really isn't anything to be gained by using constant bit rates and while it maybe feasible isn't really necessary or desirable.

Yeah, it’s weird isn’t it. I mean, as I said before, I checked to make sure that it wouldn’t exceed the limit for the disc and it said it would just about all fit on. The only thing is instead of using a standard 4.7GB disc, I used an 8.5 dual layer, which the point of using was to fit more of the video on to one disc. So I don’t know where the issue lay with this. I did also use variable bit rate.

You still haven't commented on whether the master disc was commercially made or not. If it was, then there are other programs out there that deal with that other than MEP but are only strictly legal for use in a few countries that don't enforce international copyright. Then the problem would lay with the original encoding. If it wasn't commercially encoded then I'm at a loss for an explanation. To my mind, it should work.

You still haven't commented on whether the master disc was commercially made or not. If it was, then there are other programs out there that deal with that other than MEP but are only strictly legal for use in a few countries that don't enforce international copyright. Then the problem would lay with the original encoding. If it wasn't commercially encoded then I'm at a loss for an explanation. To my mind, it should work.

Sorry, I forgot to answer that question before. The answer is, no, it’s a homemade video.

On the topic of variable bitrate, how do you know what to put in as the minimum & maximum bitrate?

@jak.willis

On the topic of variable bitrate, how do you know what to put in as the minimum & maximum bitrate?

Simple answer: let MEP decide!! In my experience it's very good at making this decision itself; in something like 15 years of using Magix products I have never needed to make any change to the offered figures.

Coming back to an earlier post in this thread, I see you have attempted to burn a dual-layer disc in MEP and it is that disc that does not play, I think? This is one area where I, too, have experienced "problems"; not all players seem able to playback D/L discs produced by MEP or VPX, for whatever reason!

Hence, I now always burn D/L projects to an Image file, using the option Image Recorder on the DVD/BD burn screen. This produces a folder of files and an .iso file (which is, essentially, a zipped version of that folder of files). I then use the folder of files to burn the disc, using the free ImgBurn software. This program gives me much more control over the actual burning procedure, including the ability to set exactly where the Split Point is to be located (this is the point at which the laser must move from the first layer to the second, in disc parlance from Layer 0 to Layer 1.) ImgBurn is most definitely not as "easy" to use as MEP's own burning routines but, for D/L discs, it always produces discs that can be played "anywhere", at least that's my experience!

Jeff

@jak.willis

Personally, I would have to agree with Jeff. DVDs have a maximum resolution of 720x576 pixels if using the PAL system, which is at best only 19% that of an HD TV screen at 1920x1080 if you include the lack of bit depth of the tonal range it's able to reproduce. Even if it was an accurate 100% faithful copy, it would be easy to think otherwise when you looked at the result. I'm sorry for such a late reply but I've been trying MEP to burn a DVD for myself. I only have single layer discs at home so can't comment on your dual layer disc problem but I burned a 50 minute HD video onto disc letting MEP do the basics. The only thing I changed was jamming the quality slider all the way over to the right and I then added some chapters. The result, while watching on a PC monitor was a marked difference from the original copy with moire patterning being quite a big problem, along with the blocking of colour and colour banding I expected to see from the additional compression needed to reduce the resolution. On our HD TV and domestic DVD player, the results were not so harsh but much softer looking. For your file which you have edited, and therefore is going to be re-compressed, at the least on the transitions (Unless you have but-joined everything) you are going to lose some quality regardless. At a reasonable viewing distance from a TV screen though, the image should not be any worse than watching an old film on TV.

Well, as I said before, I didn’t make any major changes or add in any kind of effects, I literally just trimmed and added in some chapter markers. So would doing that still cause re-compression then? By the way, the resolution of the files that I’ve been working with is 704x576 interlaced @ 25fps.

@jak.willis

I'm not a software engineer and have no way of knowing what MEP actually does regarding how it encodes so I can't truthfully answer that. That resolution is a standard PAL format. As I said, it was meant for analog TVs of the older 625 lines broadcast standard. I would think a small amount of alteration to any copy that isn't a straight copy is inevitable but how many generations of copying has to be done before there is any noticable difference is debatable and also down to other factors as well. For instance, my TV has nowhere near the tonal depth of my PC monitor so the blocking of colour is far less visible on the TV. It's also possible the standalone DVD player has a better hardware reader than my software on my PC making the output smoother, but not necessarily sharper.