How to burn files to BD with menus but without having to re-encode?

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 12/8/2024, 12:39 PM

@jak.willis

HI Jak

Thanks for the MediaInfo data.

Tying this in with your question about rescaling, whichever way you go, upscaling to 1920 x 1080 or downscaling to 720 x 576, re-encoding is necessary.

Assuming the discs are going to be played on a DVD or Blu-Ray player to a widescreen TV, then I would go for the DVD downscaling and rely on the player/TV upscaler to do the 'upscaling'.

This sounds contadictory, however I feel this would be the better of the 2 options.

The bitrates of the 2 video clips analysed are, IMHO, too low for 1024 x 576. I would have expected the bitrate to be at least double what they are, this does not give much scope for upscaling to a higher resolution and maintain a reasonable quality image.

Downscaling gives more scope for the encoder to create better quality 720 x 576 DVD sized image as it has more horizontal pixels to work with.

Player/TV upscalers tend to be high quality and, IMO, do a better job than if you upscaled to 1920 x 1080.

With respect to TSMUXER, mentioned by AndyW, @me_again, while this can change the container file format of the video without re-encoding, it does require a BD compliant encoded video stream to transfer to the new container file, your files are not BD compliant, the resolution is not supported.

HTH

John EB

Last changed by johnebaker on 12/8/2024, 12:40 PM, changed a total of 1 times.

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

jak.willis wrote on 12/8/2024, 2:53 PM

@jak.willis

HI Jak

Thanks for the MediaInfo data.

Tying this in with your question about rescaling, whichever way you go, upscaling to 1920 x 1080 or downscaling to 720 x 576, re-encoding is necessary.

Assuming the discs are going to be played on a DVD or Blu-Ray player to a widescreen TV, then I would go for the DVD downscaling and rely on the player/TV upscaler to do the 'upscaling'.

This sounds contadictory, however I feel this would be the better of the 2 options.

The bitrates of the 2 video clips analysed are, IMHO, too low for 1024 x 576. I would have expected the bitrate to be at least double what they are, this does not give much scope for upscaling to a higher resolution and maintain a reasonable quality image.

Downscaling gives more scope for the encoder to create better quality 720 x 576 DVD sized image as it has more horizontal pixels to work with.

Player/TV upscalers tend to be high quality and, IMO, do a better job than if you upscaled to 1920 x 1080.

With respect to TSMUXER, mentioned by AndyW, @me_again, while this can change the container file format of the video without re-encoding, it does require a BD compliant encoded video stream to transfer to the new container file, your files are not BD compliant, the resolution is not supported.

HTH

John EB

But if I encode it in 720x576, then won’t the video still get compressed with more loss of quality?

me_again wrote on 12/9/2024, 5:14 AM

Greetings,

I played about again with this just out of curiosity and now I'm confused.

Apparently when Jak @jak.willis goes to the burn menu the settings are locked to 1920x1080. When I go to the burn settings I have this:

Are these settings not available in MEP2019 or is it new since the name change to Movie Studio (MS2025 in my case)?

AndyW

 

"Just when I think I've learned the workrounds of MEP/MS the bounders go and update it"

Aorus Z690 Elite DDR4 Motherboard

12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700K, 3600 Mhz, 12 Core(s) 20 Logical Processor(s)

64gb (4x16gb sticks) DDR4 3200Mhz

Intel(R) UHD Graphics 770

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Eagle OC 8Gb DDR6 DLSS3 Windforce

Corsair RM750 PSU, be quiet! Pure Rock 2 cooling

System drive 500Gb 4.0NVMe M,2 SSD, dedicated video/audio drive 2Tb Gen 4 NVMe SSD, 2x 500Gb Local Fixed Disks (Music etc), USB3 expansion drive 5Tb and 2Tb

Audio Onboard ALC1220 Amp-Up, Windows 11 Home updated as and when

Movie Studio 2025 Suite, Photo Manager Deluxe 13

Norton 360

All Drivers updated as they become available.

johnebaker wrote on 12/9/2024, 5:14 AM

@jak.willis

Hi Jak

. . . . 720x576, then won’t the video still get compressed with more loss of quality? . . . .

The loss, if any, should be minimal, the source video is already at a bitrate lower then the default for 720x 576 SD quality as you can see in the image below, yellow arrow.

You can also increase the Quality slider to maximum - red arrow in image

If you have rewritable discs, try both the upscaling and down scaling options to see which gives you the better image on the TV.

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

Bol wrote on 12/9/2024, 5:50 AM

@jak.willis

Hello Jak,

Your MP4 file (1024x576px) can be burned to a DVD, Blu-Ray or as an AVCHD disc. Your MP4 file will be encoded in the resolution you set. When you have placed your MP4 file on the MEP2019 timeline and you then burn it, everything will always be re-encoded, even if you could set it to 1024x576px yourself.

.....I tried re-encoding one of the videos to H.264, and when comparing the output video to the source video, the quality looked more or less the same, except that there was a slight shift or change in the overall color balance / tint / or whatever it is called.......

If you now play the re-encoded disc on any playback device, you will see that there are color differences. My personal advice, go with your own insight and intuition.

Kind regards,
Rob

Als een kwestie onoplosbaar lijkt, komt dat niet omdat je de oplossing niet ziet, maar omdat je het probleem niet ziet.

If an issue seems unsolvable, it is not because you do not see the solution, but because you do not see the problem.

PC -1-

PC -2-

jak.willis wrote on 12/9/2024, 8:06 AM

@jak.willis

Hi Jak

. . . . 720x576, then won’t the video still get compressed with more loss of quality? . . . .

The loss, if any, should be minimal, the source video is already at a bitrate lower then the default for 720x 576 SD quality as you can see in the image below, yellow arrow.

You can also increase the Quality slider to maximum - red arrow in image

If you have rewritable discs, try both the upscaling and down scaling options to see which gives you the better image on the TV.

John EB

Thank you, John. I’ll try it out and get back to you.

jak.willis wrote on 12/9/2024, 8:10 AM

If you now play the re-encoded disc on any playback device, you will see that there are color differences. My personal advice, go with your own insight and intuition.

Kind regards,
Rob

And is the colour difference due to the chroma subsampling? Is there any way to avoid this?

jak.willis wrote on 12/9/2024, 8:40 AM

@jak.willis

Hi Jak

. . . . 720x576, then won’t the video still get compressed with more loss of quality? . . . .

The loss, if any, should be minimal, the source video is already at a bitrate lower then the default for 720x 576 SD quality as you can see in the image below, yellow arrow.

You can also increase the Quality slider to maximum - red arrow in image

If you have rewritable discs, try both the upscaling and down scaling options to see which gives you the better image on the TV.

John EB

What bitrate should I use to encode though? The same as the source bitrate or more?

johnebaker wrote on 12/9/2024, 9:50 AM

@jak.willis

HI Jak

Use the default bitrate settings for the preset(s) used.

For DVD this is shown in the image I posted above, this is the Average bitrate target for the encoder.

Depending on the content of the video the actual average bitrate achieved may be less or more with the limit being the Maximum bitrate set in the Advanced settings.

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

jak.willis wrote on 12/11/2024, 10:00 AM

@jak.willis

HI Jak

Use the default bitrate settings for the preset(s) used.

For DVD this is shown in the image I posted above, this is the Average bitrate target for the encoder.

Depending on the content of the video the actual average bitrate achieved may be less or more with the limit being the Maximum bitrate set in the Advanced settings.

John EB

Hi John,

I haven’t yet had a chance to try anything out yet.

In regards to what you and I were saying about going with encoding the 1024x576 source files in 720x576, rather than 1920x1080, won’t I still be losing some quality though? Because if I’m encoding in 720x576 then it will be throwing away some pixels - am I right?

me_again wrote on 12/12/2024, 1:27 AM

@jak.willis

Because if I’m encoding in 720x576 then it will be throwing away some pixels - am I right?

Surely the answer to that largely depends on your original files. If the source of those files was anything above 1024x576 then pixels surely have already been thrown away, if the source was less than 1024x576 then (probably) duplicate pixels have been added. This is just my thought and not based on fact or research.

It's impossible really to give advice as to how it's best to deal with your files. There are programs that appear to do a better job of upscaling than MEP/MS. Xmedia Recode for instance can use XBR (which I believe is a gaming algorithm) which gives quite a good result but is so slow (it seems like a frame a second). Even Handbrake/Vidcoder seems to upscale / downscale better than MS in my opinion. But, of course, there's no editing facility with those which is what MEP/MS is good at.

Just lately I've saved "important" files as a Lossless AVI (and even followed John's @johnebaker suggestion of saving as MP4 with just I-frames [much quicker than AVI and to my "not so good " eyesight look the same]) and then re-encoded with Vidcoder(Handbrake) as a 10-bit AV1 or 10-bit HEVC which my TV seems to love.

At the end of the day, I don't think anyone here can give you a definitive "best" way of solving your original question. As John @johnebaker says "try both the upscaling and down scaling options to see which gives you the better image on the TV".

AndyW

ps - Just my ramblings after only one cup of tea 😏

"Just when I think I've learned the workrounds of MEP/MS the bounders go and update it"

Aorus Z690 Elite DDR4 Motherboard

12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700K, 3600 Mhz, 12 Core(s) 20 Logical Processor(s)

64gb (4x16gb sticks) DDR4 3200Mhz

Intel(R) UHD Graphics 770

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4060 Eagle OC 8Gb DDR6 DLSS3 Windforce

Corsair RM750 PSU, be quiet! Pure Rock 2 cooling

System drive 500Gb 4.0NVMe M,2 SSD, dedicated video/audio drive 2Tb Gen 4 NVMe SSD, 2x 500Gb Local Fixed Disks (Music etc), USB3 expansion drive 5Tb and 2Tb

Audio Onboard ALC1220 Amp-Up, Windows 11 Home updated as and when

Movie Studio 2025 Suite, Photo Manager Deluxe 13

Norton 360

All Drivers updated as they become available.

jak.willis wrote on 12/12/2024, 6:08 AM

@jak.willis

Because if I’m encoding in 720x576 then it will be throwing away some pixels - am I right?

Surely the answer to that largely depends on your original files. If the source of those files was anything above 1024x576 then pixels surely have already been thrown away, if the source was less than 1024x576 then (probably) duplicate pixels have been added. This is just my thought and not based on fact or research.

It's impossible really to give advice as to how it's best to deal with your files. There are programs that appear to do a better job of upscaling than MEP/MS. Xmedia Recode for instance can use XBR (which I believe is a gaming algorithm) which gives quite a good result but is so slow (it seems like a frame a second). Even Handbrake/Vidcoder seems to upscale / downscale better than MS in my opinion. But, of course, there's no editing facility with those which is what MEP/MS is good at.

Just lately I've saved "important" files as a Lossless AVI (and even followed John's @johnebaker suggestion of saving as MP4 with just I-frames [much quicker than AVI and to my "not so good " eyesight look the same]) and then re-encoded with Vidcoder(Handbrake) as a 10-bit AV1 or 10-bit HEVC which my TV seems to love.

At the end of the day, I don't think anyone here can give you a definitive "best" way of solving your original question. As John @johnebaker says "try both the upscaling and down scaling options to see which gives you the better image on the TV".

AndyW

ps - Just my ramblings after only one cup of tea 😏

Hi Andy, thanks for your input there.

I did try lossless AVI with one of these videos but the resulting file was over 35GB in size. Not that I’m surprised though because they are half an hour each.

Regarding using all I-Frames, won’t that also produce a massively large file size?

AAProds wrote on 12/12/2024, 6:50 AM

@jak.willis

Jak, as pointed out, your 1024x576 files are not Bluray compliant and will need to be recoded. Whether you recode them during the Magix Bluray build process or externally and then import, you will still be recoding them.

The simplest solution is to let Magix do the recoding. The default bitrate is well in excess of your source files' bitrate so quality loss will be minimised.

I don't really understand how colours are stored in pixels, but 720x576 16:9 is the same as 1024x576. It's just that the 720x576 pixels aren't square: they are horizontally stretched in the 16:9 ratio, so they fill the same physical picture size.

I would allow Magix to upscale to 1920x1080. I look at it this way. If you downsized to say 426x240, then displayed that, on a screen, at the same size as a 1920x1080 version how would it look? I know that you can't create information out of nothing, but downscaling will, I think, decrease quality by increasing pixelation, if nothing else.

 

All my forum comments are based on or refer to my System 1.

My struggle is over! I built my (now) system 2 in 2011 when DV was king and MPEG 2 was just coming onto the scene and I needed a more powerful system to cope. Since then we've advanced to MP4 and to bigger and bigger resolutions. I was really suffering, not so much in editing (with proxies) but in encoding, which just took ages. A video, with Neat Video noise reduction applied, would encode at 12% of film speed. My new system 1 does the same job at 160% of film speed. Marvellous. I'm keeping my old system as a capture station for analogue video tapes and DV.

System 1

Windows 11 v23H2 severely modified by Openshell and ExplorerPatcher

Power supply: 850W Cooler Master (should have got modular)

CPU: Intel i7 13700K running at 3400mhz, cooled by a Kraken 2x140mm All In One liquid cooler.

RAM: 64gb (2x32gb sticks) G.Skill "Ripjaws" DDR4 3200Mhz

GPU 1: iGPU UHD 770

GPU 2: NVidia RTX 3060Ti Windforce 8gb

C drive: NVME 500gb

Bluray Burner: Pioneer BDR-212D

Various other SSD and HDDs.

Monitor: 27"/68cm Samsung, 2560 x 1440, 43 pixels/cm.

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

Magix Video Easy version 7.0.1.145

System 2

(Still in use for TV and videotape capture)

Windows 10 v22H2

CPU: i5-750 at 2670mhz with 12gb RAM

Onboard IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (512mb) which is ignored by MEP

Hard drives: C Drive 256gb SSD, various other HDDs.

Monitor: Dell 22"/56cm, 1680x1050, 35 pixels/cm

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

VPX 12

AAProds wrote on 12/12/2024, 7:26 AM

Shafted by the editing time again.

I made a comparison project. On movie 1, used a 720x576 image on a 720x576 timeline. On movie 2, I used a 1440x1080 image on a 1440x1080 timeline. I then clicked between the two. The difference is obvious.

All my forum comments are based on or refer to my System 1.

My struggle is over! I built my (now) system 2 in 2011 when DV was king and MPEG 2 was just coming onto the scene and I needed a more powerful system to cope. Since then we've advanced to MP4 and to bigger and bigger resolutions. I was really suffering, not so much in editing (with proxies) but in encoding, which just took ages. A video, with Neat Video noise reduction applied, would encode at 12% of film speed. My new system 1 does the same job at 160% of film speed. Marvellous. I'm keeping my old system as a capture station for analogue video tapes and DV.

System 1

Windows 11 v23H2 severely modified by Openshell and ExplorerPatcher

Power supply: 850W Cooler Master (should have got modular)

CPU: Intel i7 13700K running at 3400mhz, cooled by a Kraken 2x140mm All In One liquid cooler.

RAM: 64gb (2x32gb sticks) G.Skill "Ripjaws" DDR4 3200Mhz

GPU 1: iGPU UHD 770

GPU 2: NVidia RTX 3060Ti Windforce 8gb

C drive: NVME 500gb

Bluray Burner: Pioneer BDR-212D

Various other SSD and HDDs.

Monitor: 27"/68cm Samsung, 2560 x 1440, 43 pixels/cm.

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

Magix Video Easy version 7.0.1.145

System 2

(Still in use for TV and videotape capture)

Windows 10 v22H2

CPU: i5-750 at 2670mhz with 12gb RAM

Onboard IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (512mb) which is ignored by MEP

Hard drives: C Drive 256gb SSD, various other HDDs.

Monitor: Dell 22"/56cm, 1680x1050, 35 pixels/cm

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

VPX 12

AAProds wrote on 12/12/2024, 7:58 AM

Another edit: the source file for the above two images was a 720x480 MPEG.

All my forum comments are based on or refer to my System 1.

My struggle is over! I built my (now) system 2 in 2011 when DV was king and MPEG 2 was just coming onto the scene and I needed a more powerful system to cope. Since then we've advanced to MP4 and to bigger and bigger resolutions. I was really suffering, not so much in editing (with proxies) but in encoding, which just took ages. A video, with Neat Video noise reduction applied, would encode at 12% of film speed. My new system 1 does the same job at 160% of film speed. Marvellous. I'm keeping my old system as a capture station for analogue video tapes and DV.

System 1

Windows 11 v23H2 severely modified by Openshell and ExplorerPatcher

Power supply: 850W Cooler Master (should have got modular)

CPU: Intel i7 13700K running at 3400mhz, cooled by a Kraken 2x140mm All In One liquid cooler.

RAM: 64gb (2x32gb sticks) G.Skill "Ripjaws" DDR4 3200Mhz

GPU 1: iGPU UHD 770

GPU 2: NVidia RTX 3060Ti Windforce 8gb

C drive: NVME 500gb

Bluray Burner: Pioneer BDR-212D

Various other SSD and HDDs.

Monitor: 27"/68cm Samsung, 2560 x 1440, 43 pixels/cm.

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

Magix Video Easy version 7.0.1.145

System 2

(Still in use for TV and videotape capture)

Windows 10 v22H2

CPU: i5-750 at 2670mhz with 12gb RAM

Onboard IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (512mb) which is ignored by MEP

Hard drives: C Drive 256gb SSD, various other HDDs.

Monitor: Dell 22"/56cm, 1680x1050, 35 pixels/cm

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

VPX 12

jak.willis wrote on 12/12/2024, 9:51 AM

@jak.willis

Jak, as pointed out, your 1024x576 files are not Bluray compliant and will need to be recoded. Whether you recode them during the Magix Bluray build process or externally and then import, you will still be recoding them.

The simplest solution is to let Magix do the recoding. The default bitrate is well in excess of your source files' bitrate so quality loss will be minimised.

I don't really understand how colours are stored in pixels, but 720x576 16:9 is the same as 1024x576. It's just that the 720x576 pixels aren't square: they are horizontally stretched in the 16:9 ratio, so they fill the same physical picture size.

I would allow Magix to upscale to 1920x1080. I look at it this way. If you downsized to say 426x240, then displayed that, on a screen, at the same size as a 1920x1080 version how would it look? I know that you can't create information out of nothing, but downscaling will, I think, decrease quality by increasing pixelation, if nothing else.

 

Hello,

So by upscaling in Magix to 1920x1080 from 1024x576, there will be no visible quality loss?

johnebaker wrote on 12/12/2024, 11:12 AM

@jak.willis

HI

I have managed to do a real world test using video clips with virtually the same properties as your clip, the only item I could not get low enough was the bitrate, I could not get below 1600 kb/s, yours are approx 2/3 rd of this.

I did 2 tests:

1. High detail video clip - waterfall, running water, rocks, people and trees

  • Upscaling, ie exported as a 1920 x 1080 25 fps BD compliant file.
    Playing the resulting file on a 1920 x 1080 Samsung TV showed some loss of quality, mainly the image was softer, however no artefacts
     
  • Exported as a DVD compliant file ie 720 x 576 px 25 fps mpg.
    Playing on the same TV the image appear overall sharper, however there was some 'block' artefacts in areas of high detail.

2. Low detail static image - mainly blue sky, beach, people and sea

  • Upscaling, ie exported as a 1920 x 1080 25 fps BD compliant file.
     
  • No upscaling, exported as a DVD compliant file

    There was little to distinguish between the BD and DVD compliant exports.
     

As I previously commented, you need to try both and determine which is better for you.

@AAProds

Hi Al

From your video clip I see no difference in the comparisons, was this a screen capture?

John EB

Last changed by johnebaker on 12/12/2024, 11:13 AM, changed a total of 1 times.

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

jak.willis wrote on 12/12/2024, 1:39 PM

@johnebaker @AAProds @Bol Would adding sharpness to the video help to make the quality look better?

The other night I did a quick test clip of one of the videos in MEP, and added some sharpness. When I played it back on my TV, it looked a lot better than what it looks like when increasing the sharpness on the TV and STB.

johnebaker wrote on 12/12/2024, 2:43 PM

@jak.willis

Hi Jak

. . . . Would adding sharpness to the video help to make the quality look better? . . . .

Maybe, it depends a great deal on the level of detail in the video scenes, and degree of softness.

Again you will have to experiment to find the best setting, if any, that provides some sharpening without creating sharpening artefacts (haloes) and/or inducing colour changes or 'edging'.

See image below which has colour shift, and artefacts (circled) - download image for better comparison.

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

AAProds wrote on 12/12/2024, 6:26 PM

@jak.willis

Would adding sharpness to the video help to make the quality look better?

Given your videos are standard def from 2005, definitely. Don't over do it, otherwise, as John points out, you'll start getting unwanted ugliness, but certainly some will help.

@johnebaker

From your video clip I see no difference in the comparisons, was this a screen capture?

John, yes it was. Watch any sharp edge, such as the dark edge of the wing.

Here are the two images I used.

 

 

All my forum comments are based on or refer to my System 1.

My struggle is over! I built my (now) system 2 in 2011 when DV was king and MPEG 2 was just coming onto the scene and I needed a more powerful system to cope. Since then we've advanced to MP4 and to bigger and bigger resolutions. I was really suffering, not so much in editing (with proxies) but in encoding, which just took ages. A video, with Neat Video noise reduction applied, would encode at 12% of film speed. My new system 1 does the same job at 160% of film speed. Marvellous. I'm keeping my old system as a capture station for analogue video tapes and DV.

System 1

Windows 11 v23H2 severely modified by Openshell and ExplorerPatcher

Power supply: 850W Cooler Master (should have got modular)

CPU: Intel i7 13700K running at 3400mhz, cooled by a Kraken 2x140mm All In One liquid cooler.

RAM: 64gb (2x32gb sticks) G.Skill "Ripjaws" DDR4 3200Mhz

GPU 1: iGPU UHD 770

GPU 2: NVidia RTX 3060Ti Windforce 8gb

C drive: NVME 500gb

Bluray Burner: Pioneer BDR-212D

Various other SSD and HDDs.

Monitor: 27"/68cm Samsung, 2560 x 1440, 43 pixels/cm.

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

Magix Video Easy version 7.0.1.145

System 2

(Still in use for TV and videotape capture)

Windows 10 v22H2

CPU: i5-750 at 2670mhz with 12gb RAM

Onboard IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (512mb) which is ignored by MEP

Hard drives: C Drive 256gb SSD, various other HDDs.

Monitor: Dell 22"/56cm, 1680x1050, 35 pixels/cm

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

VPX 12

me_again wrote on 12/13/2024, 1:51 AM

@jak.willis

Regarding using all I-Frames, won’t that also produce a massively large file size?

Greetings,

Not compared to some options. If I'm guessing correctly I assume you exported using the "Uncompressed video" option in Export. This option does indeed produce extra massive files but is, unsurprisingly I suppose, fast.

Here is a comparison list showing times and sizes of the various options of "Lossless" in MS2025 - except for MAGIX MXV and sequence of images.

For this list I used a "1st Generation" VHS rip (DV-AVI from years ago) @ 720x576 25fps (interlaced) 8min 21sec, deinterlaced to 50fps and inserted a couple of cuts with varying gamma brightness and contrast - NO Neat Video or any other intensive CPU/GPU effect. Resolution unchanged at 720x576.

NOTE: the HEVC I-frames is not lossless per se as the result is dependent on whatever Bitrate setting you use.

NOTE: the Avidemux is just that, I did it for another comparison. The original file added to Avidemux, brightness and contrast filter with HEVC set to Lossless (HP) and Spacial AQ Strength to 8 which to my eyes give a slightly sharper image.

Obviously this test is not to demonstrate any upscaling or downscaling quality differences. As has already been said, whatever you do you'll have to re-encode and as you've already found out, that's a tricky decision sometimes.

AndyW

ps Well you did ask 😁

 

 

Last changed by me_again on 12/13/2024, 2:00 AM, changed a total of 2 times.

"Just when I think I've learned the workrounds of MEP/MS the bounders go and update it"

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Bol wrote on 12/13/2024, 4:39 AM

@jak.willis

Hello Jak,

I am currently losing track a bit.

I think you want to burn a movie file with a resolution of 1024x576 on a BD, DVD or as an ISO file with a menu structure without having to re-encode the movie file? My conclusion is that this is not possible with MEP2019. The only thing you could do is to burn your movie file with a resolution of 1920x1080 or 720x576. Of course you have the option to edit your movie file on the timeline before burning. But you will have to take a middle path yourself as to how your movie will look.

I have never come across a program myself that allows you to add a menu structure to e.g. an MP4 file. My final conclusion is that you have to make concessions to come to a solution.

Good luck,
Rob

Als een kwestie onoplosbaar lijkt, komt dat niet omdat je de oplossing niet ziet, maar omdat je het probleem niet ziet.

If an issue seems unsolvable, it is not because you do not see the solution, but because you do not see the problem.

PC -1-

PC -2-

AAProds wrote on 12/13/2024, 5:38 AM

@Bol

I have never come across a program myself that allows you to add a menu structure to e.g. an MP4 file. 

Here's one, Rob:

https://www.videohelp.com/software/TMPGEnc-Authoring-Works

Not free, and as has already been pointed out, Jak's files still need to be re-encoded into a BD-compliant format before import.

 

 

 

All my forum comments are based on or refer to my System 1.

My struggle is over! I built my (now) system 2 in 2011 when DV was king and MPEG 2 was just coming onto the scene and I needed a more powerful system to cope. Since then we've advanced to MP4 and to bigger and bigger resolutions. I was really suffering, not so much in editing (with proxies) but in encoding, which just took ages. A video, with Neat Video noise reduction applied, would encode at 12% of film speed. My new system 1 does the same job at 160% of film speed. Marvellous. I'm keeping my old system as a capture station for analogue video tapes and DV.

System 1

Windows 11 v23H2 severely modified by Openshell and ExplorerPatcher

Power supply: 850W Cooler Master (should have got modular)

CPU: Intel i7 13700K running at 3400mhz, cooled by a Kraken 2x140mm All In One liquid cooler.

RAM: 64gb (2x32gb sticks) G.Skill "Ripjaws" DDR4 3200Mhz

GPU 1: iGPU UHD 770

GPU 2: NVidia RTX 3060Ti Windforce 8gb

C drive: NVME 500gb

Bluray Burner: Pioneer BDR-212D

Various other SSD and HDDs.

Monitor: 27"/68cm Samsung, 2560 x 1440, 43 pixels/cm.

MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

Magix Video Easy version 7.0.1.145

System 2

(Still in use for TV and videotape capture)

Windows 10 v22H2

CPU: i5-750 at 2670mhz with 12gb RAM

Onboard IEEE1394 (Firewire) port

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MEP 2021 version 20.0.1.80

Movie Studio 2023 version 22.0.3.172

VPX 12

Bol wrote on 12/13/2024, 6:50 AM

@AAProds

Hello AndyW,

Thanks👍 for the internet link. I see that you can create an MP4 file with a menu structure with that program without using MEP2019. But as you already wrote, it still needs to be re-encoded.

Greetings,
Rob

Als een kwestie onoplosbaar lijkt, komt dat niet omdat je de oplossing niet ziet, maar omdat je het probleem niet ziet.

If an issue seems unsolvable, it is not because you do not see the solution, but because you do not see the problem.

PC -1-

PC -2-