"How do I make a DVD like the movie DVD's?"

Spend millions of dollars for the production, cameras, crews. Then a few hundred thousand more to have your DVD professionally encoded and authored.

There's only so much you can do with "consumer" or "pro-sumer" grade equipment.

You need a hardware encoder,,, Now we are talking thousands.

for starters, you may NOT want to use the default settings in Vegas. When you rendered, what settings did you use? Default? I am new to this also, but I have read here in the forums that you should render as MainConcept MPEG-2, and then in the template box select DVD Architect Video Stream, and you choice of format....

Hope that helps some..

Mike

The responses that say that the quality won't be as good as Hollywood are a little misleading. Maybe it won't be as good as Hollywood, but it should be almost indistinguishable from the original. The short answer on how to solve your problem is: Don't use the Default Template.

Here's the long answer:

1. Encode using the MPEG-2 encoder ("Save As Type" in the "Render As" dialog).

2. Once you have chosen the MPEG-2 encoder, then choose the "DVD Architect NTSC video stream" template (or PAL, if you're in Europe). Do NOT use the "Default Template" because it sets the "Video Quality" setting to medium, and the results won't look good. This is probably what caused your problem. I don't know why Sony has the default set up to produce lousy looking video. I hate to think of how many junky DVDs have been produced by people that didn't know better.

3. To get the best possible video, use a Bitrate Calculator to determine the highest bitrate at which to encode your project. Type in the length of the project, set the audio bitrate to 192, and then note the recommended video bitrate (the "calculated bitrate").

4. Click on the "Custom" button in the Render As dialog, click on the Video tab, and then set the Average bitrate to a number equal or smaller than what the bitrate calculator recommends (please note that the bitrate calculator gives you kbs, whereas Vegas asks for bps, so you need to add three zeros to the number given in the bitrate calculator).

The bitrate in the Default Template is only 4,000 kbs, whereas DV video won't start looking almost as good as the original until you get to 6,000 kbs. Do not go above 8,000 kbs for the average (some like to not go above 7,500 because they believe that the DVD may not play on some older players -- I haven't verified that claim and have not had problems with 8,000 kbs average).

Sony: Why the heck do you have a default template that is set for Average Quality, and 4,000 kbs???? There are a lot of neophyte users and a lot of less than capable magazine writers who write reviews of your software and who are going to look at the results they get from the Default Template and then say that Vegas creates lousy DVDs. That sure doesn't help your cause.

Thanks Johnmeyer. I will try to follow and see. It is getting expensive to waste DVD-R for trial purposes. Already i have wasted 2.

Arksoo,
I have 1 hr movie in mpg format. And tried to put it on one DVD.

Since I am posting this from home. I dont' remember the default settings. As said before, sony did not do a good job with getting those default settings. Being a computer illterate, it is too much of time consuming and expensive to play with settings. I don't know what the software developers were thinking!. Boneheads!. My video cassette movies look thousand times better than their default settings.


A follow-up q:
I am not seeing the date stamp in the DVD movie. how do i get it? i record date and time when I shoot video.
Please help.

thanks.

cheers,
drb

I don't think there's a way to get your actual 'date stamp' from the camera on the DVD. I think there's a way to fake it. Go to VASST and see about a tool. I haven't tried it yet, but I read about it there.
Copy and paste LINK: http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/help/kb/kb_projects.asp

I too suggest learning about your own settings. I know this sounds awful, but in a couple of months it won't be that big of a deal. Click the 'custom' button and a template window will open. on first page choose 'best' video rendering. On 'video' tab, go to bottom half of page set Max bps to about 7,500,000 set Average bps to 6,000,000 and for an hour movie, try upping the minimum bps to about 4,000,000. Be sure the 'Video quality' slider, above those settings is maxed out (31) . Put your own title in the Template: window at top and click on Icon just to the right of that line (Save Template). Everytime you go to render a new Mpg2, just make sure that you use your template. (It's as easy to use as the default, except that you have to choose it.) Also remember, if you want to go to a longer DVD, you'll need to really lower your 'minimum bps' to something like 192,000 bps. Also, make sure when you check the finished mpg2, that it doesn't exceed 4.3 GB. (if it does, lower your minimum bps.) That should give you really good quality image.

I'll try to help..
Get TMPGENC PLUS encoder, I can assure you it's an excellent MPEG enconder (despite the fact some people here think its quality is just "fair"....lol);
Or you can also try the best one which is CANOPUS PROCODER 2 (there's an issue with its generated files and DVD Architect 2.0 - but you can check out how to overcome this around here.
You can also follow johnmeyer's guide on how to encode or this one on how to encode with TMPGENC (it may be useful as a parameter for other encoders): - from www.videohelp.com

Configuring TMPGEnc for high-quality, DVD-compliant MPEG-2

The settings I will use in this guide are for DVD MPEG-2. If you're encoding video for web distribution, VCD, SVCD, etc., you will need to make some changes. I have little experience with those formats, but if you do a quick search on the web you'll find several sites with information about them. Most of the advice and information in this guide applies to all MPEG formats and encoders, though.

Nowhere in these pages do I make a TMPGEnc template available for download. This is deliberate. There is no magic formula to get good results out of any encoder. Video encoding is a complex process and programs that pretend to make it simple always compromise the final quality. While technically it would be possible for a program to achieve nearly optimal compression settings, this would require extensive footage analysis and multiple passes, which would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete. Despite the speed of modern CPUs, the human brain is still able to make some complex decisions much faster than any computer on Earth, as long as it has enough information. My aim with this guide is to provide you with the information necessary to understand how MPEG encoders work and to decide which settings are more appropriate to each situation.

If you haven't already, start TMPGEnc (by double-clicking on a shortcut or on the excutable file). If TMPGEnc starts with a wizard, close it and use the full configuration interface. You should see something similar to the following screenshot:


Main window
This is where you define the input and output files and the stream type. Other options are available in the menu and by clicking in the Setting button in the lower right (more on those shortly). There is also a preview window where you will be able to see what part of the clip TMPGEnc is encoding.

If some settings in TMPGEnc appear to be locked, this may be due to the fact that you loaded one of the original templates. To unlock all settings, load a file called unlock.mcf that you will find inside the template\extra sub-folder. Newer versions of TMPGEnc also let you unlock the settings by clicking on the text on the left side.

Set the Stream type to ES (video-only). ES stands for "elementary stream"; this tells TMPGEnc that we are only going to use it to encode video, and that we want the resulting file to have no audio information. There is also an option named System (video-only) that tells TMPGEnc to create a file with audio and video information (also called a "system stream"), but leave the audio stream empty. This results in a file with a slightly different structure. Generally, it's best to use elementary streams.

There are two reasons not to encode the audio in TMPGEnc:

The first is the fact that MPEG audio is not standard on all DVD players. Although it is supported by all PAL players (and many recent NTSC models), some authoring programs still refuse to add MPEG audio directly to their projects, and will instead convert it to PCM (uncompressed). Since MPEG audio uses lossy compression, the quality that was lost in the compression is not recovered. By contrast, the space that was saved by the compression is lost again. So, using MPEG audio in these programs is a lose-lose situation. The only two formats guaranteed to be compatible with all players are PCM and AC3.

The second reason is the fact that there are several MPEG audio encoders that produce better quality than TMPGEnc. So even if your authoring program does support MPEG audio, and if you're sure the resulting discs will only be played on DVD players that support MPEG audio, you should still use TMPGEnc only for the video, and encode the audio in a separate application (if you do a quick search on the web for "MPEG audio encoding" you should be able to find several guides about the subject).

The actual way to load and link the audio and video files (whether they are in PCM, MPEG audio, AC3 or DTS format) for DVD creation depends on your DVD authoring program. Please consult its manual or help file for the exact procedure.

After setting the stream type, click on the Setting button in the lower right corner of the main window. The settings window is divided into several tabs (at the top). The following sections describe each tab and its settings starting from the left side.


Video
In this section you define the video settings for the resulting file. If the source footage's dimensions or frame rate are different from the ones listed here, TMPGEnc will attempt to convert them to these settings. For best results, you should avoid any resizing or retiming, and make sure the original files are already in the right format (described below).

Stream type MPEG-2 Video
This is the DVD standard. VCD uses MPEG-1.

Size 720x576 (for PAL) or 720x480 (for NTSC) (except as noted below)
These are the standard, uncropped DV / DVD / D1 full-resolution sizes. There are also cropped modes (704x576 for PAL, 704x480 for NTSC), which should be used if you have an analog capture card that does not include the overscan area. There are also half-resolution modes (352x576 for PAL and 352x480 for NTSC) and quarter resolution (MPEG-1) modes (352x288 for PAL, 352x240 for NTSC), which may be of interest for archival of low-quality video. If you want good quality, however, you should always use the full resolution modes (720 or 704 pixels wide, depending on your source footage).

Aspect ratio 4:3 Display or 16:9 Display (depending on footage)
The aspect ratio should usually be the same for all clips (some authoring programs won't let you use clips with different aspect ratios in the same DVD, although the DVD specification allows it). If you select the wrong aspect ratio, the image will be squashed or stretched. 16:9 is referred to simply as "widescreen" in some software, but it's important to note that there are many different widescreen formats. DVD streams use either 4:3 or 16:9.

Frame Rate 25 fps (for PAL) or 29.97 fps (for NTSC)
A third frame rate (24 fps) is also supported by NTSC DVDs. Instead of converting the film frame rate (24 frames per second) to the NTSC video scan rate (59.94 fields per second), it's possible to use a 24 fps stream that carries a special flag that tells the DVD player to perform this conversion in real-time, during playback. This allows for some space saving and does not degrade quality in any way, but is only useful when the source is film. If you are reading this guide, chances are you're working in video, so you should always use 25 fps (for PAL) or 29.97 fps (for NTSC).

Rate control mode 2-pass VBR
In 2-pass VBR mode, the compressor will make two passes. In the first pass, it will compress the footage while trying to keep a constant quality, regardless of bitrate. It will then use the resulting bitrate (scaled to fit within the user-selected values) to do the final encoding. This results in the best relationship between compression and quality. It is, however, rather slow. If you use CBR at 8 Mb/s, you will end up with more or less the same quality, but the compression will not be as efficient. This means that the resulting file will be bigger, and you will not be able to fit as much video into one disc. If your movie has less than 1 hour, and you don't have any use for the extra space on the disc, you should use CBR to save on the encoding time.

Rate control settings Average between 4000 and 6000
Maximum between 6000 and 8000
Minimum between 0 and 2000
Padding Disabled
P spoilage between 0 and 10
B spoilage between 0 and 30

You may use a higher value for the maximum bitrate (up to 9000 or so) if you're going to use compressed sound or if the DVD won't have any sound. You may want to decrease the bitrate (especially the average bitrate) if the footage you're encoding is too big to fit in one DVD. Keep in mind that the final bitrate on a DVD cannot exceed 9.8 Mb/s (including sound, subtitles, etc.), and the value you select here applies only to the video.

Generally, a value of 6000 for average and 8000 for maximum will produce good results and allow you to fit about 90 minutes into a 4.7 GB disc (assuming you will use compressed sound; if you use uncompressed sound, then you will only be able to fit about 75 minutes into one disc at that bitrate).

The spoilage values are used by the compressor to judge the quality of the resulting stream. A higher value means a lower quality will be considered acceptable. Note that the spoilage value in TMPGEnc is relative to the latest I-picture, and not to the original frame. This means that a negative value will try to refine the image if possible (at the cost of extra bitrate). This not as useful as it seems, and in some cases (ex., still images) can actually cause a subtle shimmering, as the quality actually drops slightly at the start of each group of pictures, and then goes back up. So, generally, you should leave the spoilage value for P-pictures at zero. Setting the B-picture spoilage to zero (instead of the default 20) will improve the quality (at the cost of bitrate), but generally if you want top quality you won't use B-pictures anyway, so I recommend using the default value. If you select "old type", or if you use an older version of TMPGEnc, these options will not be present.

Some authoring programs don't like files with bitrates that drop below a certain level; if this is the case with yours, set the minimum value to 2000 or higher and enable padding. Other programs don't like files where the bitrate goes beyond a certain level; if this is the case with yours, avoid setting the maximim bitrate to a value above 8000 Kb/s.

NEW: I have made a simple bitrate and GOP calculator for MPEG encoding. It will take information about the length of your movie and its format and suggest values for the rate control mode, bitrate and GOP picture types (described below). You can find a link to it in the menu on the left side.

VBV buffer size 0 (automatic) (see below)
This is the expected size of the video decoder buffer (basically it controls how many bytes an individual frame can use). You may set this value manually, depending on the format you're encoding for (use 224 for DVD, 112 for SVCD or 40 for VCD), but the automatic setting usually works well with all formats.

Profile and level MP@ML
This refers to the type of decoder necessary to read the resulting file. Using higher values may improve the quality, but will make the video incompatible with many set-top DVD players. MP@ML stands for "Main Profile / Main Level" and is the DVD standard.

Video format PAL or NTSC
Depending on the standard you want the resulting DVD to use.

Encode mode Interlace
Normally, video is interlaced. This means that odd and even lines are shown alternately, instead of simultaneously (and recorded in the same way, naturally). DVD video should generally be interlaced even if the source footage is not (there are exceptions, such as 24-fps film flagged with 3:2 pulldown, for NTSC, but if you're working with film you probably know that already).

YUV format 4:2:0
This means that for every square of four pixels (2x2) there are 4 brightness samples and 1 colour sample (divided in 2 components). This is very similar to the sampling used by PAL DV (the difference has to do with the way the colour information is sampled inside that 4-pixel square, which also depends on the codec). NTSC DV uses a format called 4:1:1 where colour information is stored for (horizontal) segments of 4 pixels, instead of 2x2 squares. The "square" approach usually produces cleaner-looking images, with less colour bleed, and it's a bit of a mystery why NTSC DV uses 4:1:1 (analog NTSC is a nightmare but they could have got it right when they moved to digital). Regardless of your footage's format (PAL or NTSC), DVD MP@ML MPEG-2 always uses 4:2:0. This is the reason why PAL DV transfers to DVD much better than NTSC DV does. NTSC footage recorded in 4:2:2 (ex., Beta) does not have this problem (nor does 4:2:2 PAL, naturally).

DC component precision 10 bits
This controls the precision of the discrete cosine values used in the image compression (this translates the image into a series of interfering frequencies and lets the program eliminate frequencies that aren't visually relevant - this is similar to the compression used in JPEG images). Higher values results in better quality, at the expense of encoding time.

Motion search precision Highest quality
The motion search algorithm is the heart of an MPEG encoder. MPEG works by dividing an image into several small areas (called blocks), and then trying to find blocks that are present (in different positions) in more than one frame (and storing only one copy of that block). Since most blocks will usually look slightly different, some extra data is still necessary to reconstruct the real image, but the more similar the blocks, the smaller those "corrections" will need to be. A better search algorithm will get better block matches, and thus achieve better compression (or better quality for the same level of compression). Despite being very slow, TMPGEnc's motion search algorithms are some of the best of all MPEG encoders, and they are responsible for its usually excellent quality. If you need faster encoding, select the High quality mode (significantly faster than highest quality) or the Motion search estimate mode (which is even faster). Depending on the type of footage, quality can be nearly as good, and it will encode much faster. If time isn't an issue, though, stick with Highest quality.

Hardware MPEG2 encoders are so 20th century. Do a search on Google regarding MPEG2 encoder comparisons, and you'll find some reviews that show encoders such as CinemaCraft are just as good. Another nice thing about CinemaCraft is that it's FASTER than realtime on a modern PC.

Regarding the Date/time stamp: look here.

Just to make things clearer around here:
Canopus Procoder 2.0 is 100% software encoder and it does not cost thousands of dollars. It is also by far much better and faster than this Cinemasomething suggested above (this one is expensive). Check some posts out around here or even at videohelp.com. Canopus is "the" encoder.
;)

Well, hey, guys, I've just finished a 2 hr + DVD using the MainConcept encoder in Vegas 5 (PAL DVD template) and the quality is stunning. Encoding at around 4.5Mbs. Audio as AC3.

I also rendered it as a video only stream and got a pretty much idebtical result. Far as I'm concerned the Vegas codec is ACE.

Cinemasomething???
Dude, if $50.00 for the CinemaCraft Encoder Basic is too much then go for freeware MPEG2 encoders.
CinemaCraft Encoder SP is about $2000.00 but you get what you pay for.
For entry level consumer CCE Basic is THE BEST BANG FOR BUCK.
Most of the Pro Software Encoders can do excellent job in two passes, CCE SP can do that in
ONE PASS VBR(less CPU cycles, same quality, small electricity bill)
Canopus ProCoder is very good on interlaced sources(DV), but if you have cam that shoots progressive, CCE is your best option.

AudioIvan

Thanks a lot guys!!. for all the input. I will also work at my end by going through tutorials and manuals.

Some things that were discussed-I have no idea on some things that were discussed here. Anyway, I can learn.

cheers,
drb

AudioIvan
Thanks for your remark on Cinemasomething.
;)

For my money, the best quality comes from rendering my project to .avi and then going to DVA and letting it do the rest, my only function being to "optomize" the bit rate. I don't know why people fool around rendering to MPEG this or that. Let DVA do it! you have to prepare and burn the DVD, but from then on you can run off a 2-hr DVD in 12 minutes.
Burt

So, in order to use any of these alternate encoders on any project that includes video editing within Vegas, wouldn't the video file have to be first rendered as an AVI or MOV file from Vegas, then encoded separately? Or am I missing something? Any risk of sync problems if the AC-3 file is rendered from Vegas while the MPEG-2 file is rendered externally?

Nope. You can use Satish's frameserver to frameserve the video from Vegas to the encoder of your choice. www.debugmode.com

--Scott

Wow, how cool is that! And free! Thanks for the link.

Just be aware everyone that rendering to a new AVI means your in 4:1:1 land unless you use the Sony 4:2:2 codec. Going stratight from the T/L to the encoder keeps it in 4:2:2. If your material is DV25 with no FXs then it will not make a shred of difference however if you've used CC and transitions Vegas calculates these in 4:2:2, rendering that out rather than a straight encode does mean a quality hit. I've never really noticed the difference and on most TVs I reckon you wouldn't either but it is there.

Bob.

> You can also follow johnmeyer's guide on how to encode
> or this one on how to encode with TMPGENC (it may be
> useful as a parameter for other encoders):
> - from www.videohelp.com
>
> Configuring TMPGEnc for high-quality, DVD-compliant MPEG-2
> The settings I will use in this guide are for DVD MPEG-2.

That's actually from dvd-hq.info, not videohelp. Full guide here:

http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

RMN
~~~

Bob, can I get some more info on this?

> Just be aware everyone that rendering to a new AVI means your in 4:1:1 land unless you use the Sony 4:2:2 codec.

Are you saying that DV that is firewired from the camcorder is 4:2:2, but when you render to DV from Vegas, anything that needs to be rendered is rendered to 4:1:1?

I'm assuming that 4:2:2 and 4:1:1 are compression ratios and that the former is higher quality?

How do you use the 4:2:2 codec, and why wouldn't you? Does it not have the "smart render" feature or something?

Going stratight from the T/L to the encoder keeps it in 4:2:2. If your material is DV25 with no FXs then it will not make a shred of difference however if you've used CC and transitions Vegas calculates these in 4:2:2, rendering that out rather than a straight encode does mean a quality hit.

DV25? CC?

Thanks.

-Jeremy

Just to make this one simple fact clear. The entire issue you see related to the quality of that DVD was realated to choosing to use the Default MPEG2 template. In order to get VERY GOOD quality DVD renders it is likely that all you need to do is simply choose one of the supplied DVDA templates. You do not HAVE to go into the custom settings at all. In fact I very rarely touch the custom settings at all.

That is not to take away anything from the other very detailed posts on bit-rate/custom settings 4:2:2 vs 4:1:1 etc - but just to point out for the average project you can probably achieve very good results by simply choosing a more appropriate template.

It is a GREAT shame the default MPEG2 template is just so ridiculously poor for the average user. I don't think any of us have figured out why that was done.

As matter of fact I remember just reading this on the Vasst FAQ section.
Quote
"When encoding video in Vegas, another important consideration is to ALWAYS select one of the DVD Architect templates. The default settings for these templates usually provide excellent results, and there is seldom any need to change from the defaults. By contrast, if you use the “Default Template” for MPEG-2 encoding, the results will look HORRIBLE because this template uses settings that are more appropriate for streaming video.</b > end quote.