Burned a standard DVD in Encore of an HDV project. Quality terrible...blocky & very low res. It is a 16 min project and in Encore shows using 650mb of disc space. Does this size seem correct?

Pro Settings:
HDV 1080i

Elements:
Clips from HV30 - 1440 x 1080
Qtime Animation .mov files(from AE) 1440 x 1080

Exported from Pro via the AME
MPEG2-DVD

Normally I use the Export to Encore feature instead of the AME. The negative about the Export to Encore is that if there are any revisions in Pro you cannot replace the timeline and need to create the menus again when Exporting To Encore the 2nd time because it opens a new project. You cannot import those into the first Encore project. Would like to learn the correct settings in AME.

What are the correct settings in AME?
Does 650mb for 16 minutes on a DVD sound correct?
Choosing MPEG2-DVD - NTSC high quality gives black bars top & bottom
- NTSC Wide Screen high quality gives small slivers of black on the sides only.

Thanks.

Hi Cheryl,
I always export MPEG HD or simply stick with HDV m2t files, from AME and then let Encore do the down conversion to standard DVD, works every time. So my Encore project is a HD project, then when burning I select Standard DVD.

Thanks Chuck, that makes more sense. Maybe it was converted 2x the way I did it. I think that Bill once said that Encore does a better job converting than AME.

Burned the DVD and have a few questions. The project was 13min of video w/MBQuick Looks applied & 3 min of a slideshow.

It took 4 hours to export from PrPro via AME - used MPEG Blueray settings. Does this seem too long to export? It took 1 1/2 hours to transcode in Encore. Too long?

Video portion has artifacts on fast action & pans. Looks like combing. Any ideas? Export settings? Camcorder settings?

Something is definitely not right Cheryl, have you tried just doing the 'send to encore' method?

MB Looks does take a very long time to encode.

650Mb for 16mins is about equivalent to 2 hours on a DVD... so this is standard quality, you could increase the bitrate to improve the quality slightly giving 1 hour on a DVD or high quality. However this does not appear to be your main problem.

Chuck, I will try the 'send to Encore' option & see if the time is less.

Paul, the 650mb was using the MPEG-DVD setting on export. Using the MPEG Blueray setting the file size was 1050mb.

This is my 2nd HD project using clips from the HV30. The first project was made last Fall and I didn't keep my notes, but I don't remember it taking this long. I did use the 'send to Encore' method. That project was about the same length and no combing on the pans or fast moves. It didn't have MBQL either. Should I do a test clip without MBQL?

Thanks

You could try exporting the clip with and without MBQL and look at the time difference... see what the effect of MBQL is.

Export to Encore (default setting) a 15 second part of clip that has movement & the combing. First export had MBQL & the other no effects. The MBQL export took a tad longer, not really a great time diff. Both clips looked the same quality in Encore's monitor. Couldn't really tell on the combing in the monitor & didn't want to burn 2 test discs yet.

I will try an Export to Encore for the whole project this evening. I have other work to do today & need the computer. Question on the settings:

The default is MPEG2-DVD & NTSC Widescreen Medium Quality, which is VBR 1 pass, Minimum Bitrate 1.5, Target 4, & Max 7. The estimated file size of 650mb. If I change this to VBR 2 pass the estimated file size is the same.

What would be good bitrate settings for Min, Target & Max?

Here are my export options from the drop down:

Why not go with the High Quality export? Otherwise I would go with CBR and a video bitrate of 8Mb/s The target of 4Mb/s is definately too low especially if you have any fast movement or panning in the video (although during fast movement it will increase the bitrate up towards 7Mb/s). Note the DVD spec restricts the maximum bitrate to 9.8Mb/s.... this is for both video and audio, so a CBR video bitrate of 8Mb/s is just about the best.

The list from the drop down's High Quality is for standard. The Widescreen HQ is the wrong frame rate. The other HQ is progressive. Isn't my only option for Widescreen MidQuality & then change the bitrate? I am confused.

If you dont have the option to change the Aspect Ratio and Frame Rate in the standard presets then you can jsu up the bitrate in the Medium Quality.

Thanks Paul. Will try this in a day or two. Realized another problem...running out of room on the D drive. Got as low as 800mb free out 300G. Need to delete & move stuff to the external & defrag. Maybe that's why the long export times?

I'll report back when I do the next export. Thanks for all of your help.

Update. Exported to Encore and changed to CBR with a bitrate of 8 and no combing. File size on 16 min was 1.13G and the menu was a bit more.

I edit my menus in Encore, so I opened the first project and saved the Main Menu & Sub Menu as a file. Imported as Menus into the new project. A real time saver and don't know why I haven't found this feature before. Still had to hook it all up, but that doesn't take very long.

Thanks Paul!

I've been following this thread and I'm just wondering what is CBR?