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HD Video into a DVD results in quality loss

4K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  MotoX450 
#1 ·
Hello all and thanks for reading this. I would like to start off by saying I realize that iPhone and GoPro is not considered HD to most people's standards but the quality is pretty good compared to what you will read below.

The Setup:

I had an event recorded using multiple iPhone's (1920x1080@29fps) and GoPro's (1920x1080@24fps). I have edited the clips into a multicam HD video using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. The video looks amazing even on my 48" LCD. I have had requests to make this into a DVD which I have never had to do before so I used Adobe Encore CS6 to create a DVD of my video but it downsized the video to 720x480@29fps. The quality is garbage compared to what I am used to seeing it as since I have lost half the pixels. I am embarrassed to hand out this DVD. I have tried exporting my Premiere video to .avi, .mp4, mpeg2 with the same results. I get the same results with Premiere's Dynamic Link feature as well.

The Question:

I understand that DVD NTSC standard is 720x480 but is there any way for me to retain the quality of my video without Blu-ray? How do commercial productions get such great quality at such a low resolution onto a DVD (Shrek, The Dark Knight, etc..)?



Thanks again for reading and I look forward to getting your input.
 
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#2 ·
MotoX, I don't know near as much as the others on these forums, but since you haven't had any help yet I'll give it a shot.


I don't know what kind of HD files you are creating with Adobe premiere Pro CS6 so I may be way off base, but do a search for multiAVCHD(free, but asks for donations). It appears to convert several different types of files to blu ray compatible. After creating the files you can burn them to a regular DVD5 or DVD9 and create BD5 or BD9 discs that are compatible with blu ray(and other HD discs including HD-DVD) and will be High def.


I don't know anything about the software you are using so the files it creates may not be compatible with multiAVCHD. I'm assuming that you have checked the settings in the Adobe Encore program to see if different types of discs can be created.


Sorry I'm not more help, but maybe this response will get the ball rolling and others will chime in.
 
#3 ·
The maximum resolution for DVD video disks is 720X480i at 29.97 fps mpeg2. So if you want to play your video on DVD players then that is what you must use. But the way the program converted your HD files to SD files can make a big difference in the final picture quality. If the only thing wrong with your conversion is lower resolution then there is not much you can do. But if you see artifacts or flickering during motion on your video then this can be made better with better settings or a different conversion program. Since I have switched entirely over to HD I have not been interested in following programs to do down conversion. The best results will be when using the best settings for scaling down the video. There are methods like bi-linear and bi-cubic and Lancoz but I don't remember which is the best for down scaling, do some research.


Now if you want to play your video on a computer or Blu-Ray player then there are several options that will leave your video unmodified and most of the programs you can use for this are free open source. The one in the above post is popular but is somewhat complicated to learn as it does menus. If you just want to play the video then AVCHD will allow you to play HD video files burned on standard DVD disks in computers and Blu-Ray players, as long as the size of the file will fit on a DVD disk. Some programs to check are TSMuxeR, that can make the AVCHD and Blu-Ray folders and is free. If you need to do some re-encoding to make the files fit on disks then Handbrake and RipBot264 are also free. More info is available at www.doom9.org


Mike T
 
#4 ·
Thank you both for your responses. It sounds like i'm not going to be able to keep the quality without going with Blu-ray. Most laptops don't have blu ray drives and I personally don't have a blu ray player so I don't really want to go that route. I will just live with the quality of half the pixels.


Thanks again for your help.
 
#5 ·
If you make the AVCHD or a HD .ts or MKV file and burn them onto a DVD disk then you can play the HD video on a computer-laptop without needing a Blu-Ray drive, you only need a Blu-Ray drive for reading Blu-Ray disks. You do need a software player, but there are plenty of free HD players like Media Player Classic Home Cinema.


Mike T
 
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